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Life, actually…

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KA-THUNK! A FEW BUMPER CAR MEMORIES

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The very idea of Bumper Cars cheers me up, eggs me on, drives me beyond the negatives and the irritants of daily life Down South.

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Seriously.

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I have not seen or driven a bumper car for some sixty years, but I recall the experience so vividly. Why is that?

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Nowadays people all around me frequently use the term Bumper Cars in their daily anecdotes. I wonder whether they have ever boarded a bumper car, whether they know what it is like to be six years old, knocking about and pretending to drive without a proper license.

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What it was like to be inside a vehicular collision without getting hurt. What it felt like to crash into strangers and still smile and wave and share a laugh.

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The bumper cars of my youth still roll about, popping up now and then to help me describe a confusing situation, a perplexing encounter, a humorous melding of crisis and comedy.

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Maybe my bumper car memories serve as an anchor when life is perplexing or disorienting. When I make my way through crises large and small, I tend to beam down into the driver’s seat and just enjoy the ride.

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Knowing deep down that that’s about all the true solidity I can ever expect of life, life and its invisible and mysterious book of rules.

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Life may be vague and perplexing, but maybe that is as it should be. If we ever figure things out, the quest will be over. What will we do with our time?

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Should we become all-wise and all-knowing, what excitement will we find when we awaken from our beautiful bumper car daydreams

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© Jim Reed 2023 A.D.

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Life, actually…

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HEALING HANDS AND ASPERGUM DREAMS

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In today’s true tale, Jimmy Three is ten years old, some seven decades ago.

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As Village Elderdom wends its way down the years, it becomes easier to time-travel to the way-back country of youth—youth and its barely-containable energy.

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This morning Jimmy Three is gazing into the metal mirrored medicine cabinet of his childhood bathroom. He searches for the Aspergum container. Brother Ronny has a fever and Aspergum is decreed the curative of choice.

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Jimmy Three is fascinated by, fearful of, mysterious shelved unguents and salves and multi-shaped pills and spoonable fluids, cardboad boxes housing bandages, tapes and cushiony pads. Cellophane wrappings and flexible-tubed pastes hide behind mild-mannered mercurochrome and ouchy merthiolate.

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He dares not touch the castor oil bottle because it retains memories of squinched-face gulps during sickbed episodes. He is fascinated by Alka-Seltzer wafers because dissolved they taste like embittered soft drinks. Why can’t I drink them even when I’m not ill, he wonders.

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Tooth powders and toothpastes rest side by side. Denatured alcohol awaits emergency chigger bites, Vicks VapoRub is there in case stuffed-nosed colds lurk. Vasoline soothes and slides. Menthol cough drops heal sore throats—and they make guilty-pleasure candy, too.

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Jimmy Three is amazed by Mother’s knowledge of what to do with each of these dozens of medicinal wonders. She tells tales of her own mother’s country-bred wisdom about which plant, which herb, which tree bark, which paregoric, which asafidity cure is best for each malady, each emergency.

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Now, living in a small village separated from much of nature, Jimmy Three’s family relies on over-the-counter and mail-order solutions to daily medical urgencies once scooped from yards and hillsides.

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Aspergum is today’s drug of choice. Even if brother Ronny’s fever runs its course naturally, Aspergum at least distracts him from the demi-reality of fever dreams and giant calming hands descending to his forehead. Those hands pretend to be testing his temperature, but their real purpose is to assure him that comfort and care and love are always nearby, in this tiny bungalow in this long-ago village.

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This long-ago village that will persist in time till final memory fades, making  way for the next family, clearing room for another generation to find its own special paths to love and healing

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© Jim Reed 2023 A.D.

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Life, actually…

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CALL ME ALABAMA!

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A DOWN-SOUTH ANTHEM

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Alabama is a state of mind.

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No, I take that back.

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Alabama is your state of mind.

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Alabama is my state of mind.

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Look at the map.

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There is no logical border.

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If logic prevailed, Alabama would be panhandled-with-care to the Gulf and barely miss the Mississippi River to the west and stick-toed in the Atlantic to the east.

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The Alabama state of my mind is…

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Alabama is a truncated

Arbitrarily-bordered

Mixture of Appalachian

Foothills and Gulf beaches

And Tennessean

Valleys and Southern

Pines and black dirt

Flatlands and red

Clay banks and

Human-formed mounds

And dinosaur-chalked

Banks and ‘gator

Swamps and

Cricks and meandering-barged rivers

And angel-haired falls and bluebird

Nests and mosquito bites

And chigger itches and ancient

Warrior-ghosts and

Dirt-poor moonshiners

And proud farmers and

Vegetable-stand pickups

And blue highways

And washboard roads

And scorching sun and

Humid rashes and

Fields endless fields

And full-moon-activated

Cemeteries and

Tombstone graveyards and

Midwife shacks and

Breezeways and clapboards

And wild blackberries and lazy

Cows cud-ding and calves

Cuddling and hay bales and

Barn lofts and suckling puppies

And strutting blue roosters

And water moccasins

And synchronized

Twilight fireflies and glistening

Stars so close you can

Touch them.

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Alabama in my state of mind is

Far-off 3:00 A.M. train

Whistles and howling dogs

And skittish deer and roadside

Tire carcasses and skulking

Buzzards and dearly departed

Armadillos and skunk-fragranced

Air blended with sweet honeysuckle and smothered

With kudzu and life-saving

Breezes interspersed with

Gasping-for-air heat.

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Alabama in my state of mind is

At her best

When you close your eyes

And remember how

Good she was when you

Were young, how wise

She became as you yourself

Wised up and how good she

Can be whenever she

Re-claims her fairness

Of spirit, whenever she

Gets back to

The earth, gets back

Down to earth,

Remembers her hard-working

Closely-tied families.

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In my state-of-Alabama-mind,

Alabama is at her best

When she’s all potential and

Hope and strut…at her

Best when she remembers

Her humble beginnings…

At her best when she

Gives up the chanting

And pays attention to

The babies and the infirm and the

Poor…at her best when

She recalls how wonderful

It is to be paid tender attention to,

To be well-paid with tender attention

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Y’all come visit. Stay as long as you like.

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See how easily we embrace you

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How lavishly we feed you

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How generously we share stories with one another

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See what we are really like

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© Jim Reed 2023 A.D.

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Listen to Jim’s podcast: https://youtu.be/021bu0seOSY

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Life, actually…

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FIDGETING AND SALVATION EVERY SUNDAY

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In memory fresh, I am fidgeting and squirming here on a varnished hardwood church pew in the Forest Lake neighborhood of Tuscaloosa.

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Time is leaping a seventy-year chasm and taking me back to Sunday morning sometime in the 1940s. You know—the ’40s, just yesterday to us long-timers who are still around to remember.

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I am trying to be patient this day. As the multi-tuned untrained-but-sincere voices of the congregation blend precariously with intonations from the burgundy-robed choir, I can only think of what is coming next.

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Thinking about what is coming next is what gets me through the holy services this humid morn.

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Fidget. Squirm. Scrawl with pocket knife-sharpened number two pencil in the margins of my parents’ pre-Thermo-Faxed paper program, printed especially for today’s services.

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Check the cracked face of a bandless wrist watch found just this week on the Northington Elementary School recess playground. The watch still works and I can keep up with time as the second hand spasms away the seconds.

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I feel the vibrations from overlapping singers and wavering organ notes as they wash over me and attempt to regain my wandering attention.

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The program scratchings completed, I now carefully examine backs of necks in forward pews. Some are freshly shaved, some are scraggly, others are pockmarked or wrinkled or graceful or baggy.

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May I can write a poem about backs of necks some day.

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Reverend Bronnie Nichols now bids the congregation to rise, an apparent effort to rouse dozers and alert offering-plate deacons.

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Everybody behaves during this hour of a Sunday morning, except for a baby or two. But isn’t that what babies do?

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Playmates are scrubbed and quiet, unlike their rowdy selves a few minutes from now when they are discharged into the wilds of childhood.

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I’m happy to stand up. It is something to do. And it means I, too, will be released into an extra-churchy world any moment now.

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But Brother Nichols is not done with me yet.

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Everybody sings verse after verse of an elongated hymn designed to press guilt upon unbaptized attendees who are supposed to rush to the front to be saved from perdition. Brother Nichols will not cut short the overtime singing until somebody responds to the pressure and reaches out for dispensed holiness.

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I am relieved when a teared-up churchgoer finally inches forward to please the preacher and the saints on high. This takes the pressure off of me. Maybe another Sunday will be my day to confess and repent and relent.

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Not today.

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We sheep are eventually released, but not until Bro’ Nichols has shaken every hand and patted every shoulder as we all pass through the front door.

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Now blessed and cleansed, I can stop fidgeting and start salivating. After all, the next thing up in my small life is fried chicken and apple pie and endless hours of playground hollering and jumping and laughing, and nursing the occasional boo-boo that will surely occur.

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But the boo-boo will heal quickly under the influence of a morning of overflowing righteousness.

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And in less than seven days I’ll be fidgeting and squirming all over again, just prior to salvation

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©  Jim Reed 2023 A.D.

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Hear Jim’s Red Clay Diary podcast:  https://youtu.be/rB38gwWinng

or read his transcript below:

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Life, actually…

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A PROPOSED DAY WORTH LIVING

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My days on Planet Three are divided between what-ifs and wishful thinking.

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What if?

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What if I could re-live that embarrassing gaffe and this time comport myself correctly? Too late or too impossible to bid time return, but seldom too late to watch my step next time.

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I wish.

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I wish I were more adept at handling life’s crises. But wishing doesn’t accomplish much, in the real world of orderly time-passage. Doing is the only way to make wishing seem real. So I will wrangle the next crisis with more aplomb. I will Do Better. I wish.

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Thoughts like these seep into the cracks of the day. For instance:

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It is important to feel someone else’s pain. Makes me a tad more human. More humane.

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But I also know that feeling someone’s pain doesn’t necessarily mean I’m going to do anything about it, do anything to lessen their hurt. Might be I’m too lazy. Maybe I realize I’m unskilled at helping anybody else out, much less myself.

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It takes a lot of what-ifs and wishes to come up with a solid plan for doing the right thing, the helpful thing.

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We are an imperfect species in many ways. Just look around. But strangely enough, we are also such a beautiful species when we once in a blue moon actually do something healing or helpful or unselfishly honest. A puzzling and peculiar fault of character.

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So, Bub, you’re so pontifical, tell me how you would make things better? First time I’ve ever called myself Bub.

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Assuming the duties of creation:

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If I were in charge and required to improve the human species, I would try injecting more compassion and empathy into our DNA. In addition I would toss in a pinch of willingness…willingness to not only care, but to take action, to carry out our caring impulses. To make kindness and civility key ingredients. I would decrease the number of hurtful words and rants that damage so many of us.

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Take politics and piety away and you might be left with honest interaction.

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To sweeten the recipe, I just might throw in a tablespoon of calmness. And a dab of willingness-to-forgive.

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Bake moderately and savor the newborn fragrance and peace that make a day worth living, worth remembering

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©  Jim Reed 2023 A.D.

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Life, actually…

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PLaza 8-2932

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 The first phone number I ever knew by heart was the number my father and mother acquired when a rotary-dial receiver was installed at our little asbestos-shingled home on 26 Eastwood Avenue, back in 1944.

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The number was 2932. That’s it. 2932. No area codes, no “first, dial 9 to get an outside line,” no winding a lever to ring up an operator, no “pound” keys or *’s or other secret combinations.

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Just publicize the number 2932, and you could receive calls from anywhere in the world.

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Later, as the phone company became more successful and the population increased, an “8″ was added to the beginning of our number. From then on, you had to remember to dial 8, then 2932.

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I can still hear the mechanical clicks and clacks as the rotary wheel advanced and retreated with each number.

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A sure sign of additional progress was the day the phone people increased the digits again, so that the number became 758-2932. I guess the hyphen was placed there so that the number could be memorized in increments, much as your social security number is broken up. Or, during one spell of trying to seem more cosmopolitan, the phone company wanted us to dial PLaza 8-2932.

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That, of course, went the way of postal zone numbers, which were replaced eventually by ZIP codes, which were increased from five digits to nine digits—with the obligatory hyphen in between the five digits and the four digits.  Apparently, Ma Bell wasn’t sure we subscribers could remember a long stream of uninterrupted numbers.

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So, most of my life, from 1944 till now, I’ve had implanted in my brain the numerical sequence 2932, and its prefixes. It was the one number I never had to program into one of my newfangled automatic-dialing telephones, since I could dial it (excuse me, PUNCH IT) practically in my sleep.

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Well, we kids grew up and left home my, parents grew elderly and eventually died, and, not so long ago, 2932 simply disappeared from the phone lines of Tuscaloosa, the phone service discontinued. No need for a phone in a home now long emptied of its occupants.

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Some nights, when I’m tossing and turning, tormenting the Sandman with insomniac ravings, I get the urge to get up, go to the phone, and access 2932—in case I’ve accidentally tripped back in time, just in time to catch my mother’s cheery voice in the midst of singing a household song as she meanders among her flowers and plants and dusty keepsakes.

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Reckon I’ll just have to keep such imaginings to myself, lest they come and carry me away prematurely to a place full of extension phones I can’t use to dial out except on Sundays and special occasions

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© Jim Reed 2023 A.D.

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Catch Jim’s youtube podcast:

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Life, actually…

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OF MICE AND Y’ALL

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Another tiny Down South ant is invading the kitchen these days.

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The routine is fairly predictable. Each ant invasion over the years seems to begin with a few lone scouts. Then, let the onslaught begin!

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Every grouping of ants is a mite different from each previous grouping. This particular ant is medium-sized, a nervous flutter accompanying all movements.

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Previous mini-invasions of our old home have included squirrel hordes, various beatles (Don’t call them roaches. Nobody likes to talk about roaches!), an occasional tiny mouse and, once, an itinerant rat.

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I won’t even begin to talk about normal neighborhood critters such as pigeons, doves, mosquitoes, snakes, lizards, raccoons and gypsies. We don’t think about these much, since they maintain their lives outside the house.

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They have their countries, we have ours. Treaties all unsigned.

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But the ants are kind of fun to watch.

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Before I succumb to inevitable family requests to chase the ants away, I covertly peer at them. This peering is easy, since the shiny kitchen counter is white with lots of crevices and cracks and caulked hideaways.

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I appreciate the notion that ants don’t know we exist. They simply ply their activities of daily living, just as we have the unfounded belief that humans are superior to all other beings.

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Mice, on the other hand, are more disruptive to our placid routine behaviors. They are cute, chubby and picky—not all bait is considered gourmet. Most bait is ignored. There must be a mouse memo that stipulates what human food to pass on.

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Anyhow, back to the ants. All ant visitors are tolerated for a time, until they go away. Nomadic they are. We don’t know why they leave us. Maybe they are bored. Perhaps they are tired of Ritz Crackers crumbs and lettuce shards. Maybe they find better food elsewhere. Or it could be that they are offended by the ant-chaser fluid I set out for them.

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What I like about ants is their variety. Each swarm looks different, acts differently, clusters differently. I also like the fact that, while they outnumber us they never seem to want to bully or dominate us.

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Or conquer us.

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I wonder what life would be like if other species behaved in such a manner

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© Jim Reed 2023 A.D.

Life, actually…

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THINGS I THUNK UP ALL BY MYSELF

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Tossing about in my sleep last night, I suddenly came up with a solution to all the world’s problems.

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I can’t count the times that dreamy, fitful sleep has brought me Aha! thoughts. I’ve solved many of life’s puzzles during those overnight tussles.

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The only problem is, by the time sunlight and morning tasks awaken and stir me into action, I forget all profound inspirations. Poof! They slip away into Neverland.

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Dang!

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Missed it by that much.

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I finally faced this pesky problem—at least in part.

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I collect all these meandering mullings for safekeeping. Whenever I am alert enough, I quickly inscribe both daytime and nighttime ideas so they won’t escape. Hundreds of scrawlings are archived on napkins, sticky notes, backs of receipts, palms of hands. Inspirations are dictated bit by bit on a pocket recorder. I even phone myself and leave dangling ideas on voice mail for later transfer. I’ve been known to turn over in my sleep and, in the dark, write down an idea of two without even opening my eyes.

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Yes, you have the option of calling this crazy or obsessive behavior. I call it being a writer who believes that every word is special. I call it cherishing life piece by piece before it fades.

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When those stacks of scribblings get out of hand, I turn them into stories or books.

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Here are samples of original thoughts that came up, thoughts that have no place to go…unless they inspire you to begin salvaging your own musings for posterity.

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SOME THINGS I THUNK:

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My hairline has been voted most likely to recede.

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You get to a point in life where you can’t help but look old.

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Suppose your dreams could socialize with my dreams. Suppose your imaginary friends met my imaginary friends. Suppose your shadow could dance with my shadow. Just suppose.

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There is always enough money to wage war.

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Flatulence is the great leveler.

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How quickly we dismiss the idea that a carrot might have a soul.

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Droning on and on, she found herself at a loss for silence.

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Sometimes, the sky really is falling.

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Tell someone you love them today—even if it’s true.

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Miss Muffet used to ride in the whey back of the milk truck.

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OK, enough is enough. I’ll stop here. The idea is, take note of what springs from your mind. Don’t think about it for a while. A month later, look at those collected thoughts. You’ll find ideas that are sad, mad, glad, bad, goofy, profound…

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But you won’t realize their importance till you put distance and time between them.

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Go ahead—appreciate what is stirring about in your imagination. Some of it may even be worth sharing.

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Unleash those goofy wisdoms you harbor

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© Jim Reed 2023 A.D.

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—Some quotes appear in Jim’s book “What I Said…Small Wisdoms Hidden Comforts Unexpected Joys”  (Blue Rooster Press, 2023)

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