Jim Reed's Blog

Hear Jim’s story: https://youtu.be/wEegSYk_b64

or read his transcript below:

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Life, actually…

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LEGO MY JACKS AND SET ME FREE TO TRIP UP THE WORLD

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“Ow!”

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The hardwood floor vibrates as a heavy foot hops.

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“Ouch!”

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There’s that adult voice bellowing pain, bouncing off the plaster ceiling of our tiny home many decades ago.

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I’m in deep trouble, so I slouch my way into the living room to find my mother sitting and rubbing her foot.

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Mom frowns at me, “Somebody left your sister’s jacks on the floor!”

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I am the only kid on hand. I have to take the heat.

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You see, my trusty Reader, this incident happened so long ago I’ve lost count. But it has a familiar ring.

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I recall loving parents carefully instructing small children to pick up their Legos and place them at a safe distance from adult bare feet. This is very recent.

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Hard plastic Legos and other improvised prickly devices (IPDs?) such as six-pointed jacks hide out under chairs and beds and counters and tv trays. Just waiting to attract human fragility. They tend to wax and wane as fashions visit and revisit.

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Fortunately for kids, there’s always some newfangled toy on the market to replace hidden Legos and jacks and Tinkertoys and Erector sets and Lincoln Logs and marbles and toy soldiers.

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There is always something available to attract tender feet.

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Maybe the Ouch! and Ow! exclamations are part of the game, the game of scattering tiny landmines onto unsuspecting floors for the entertainment of small kids who just want to see what happens next when playtime turns boring.

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I suppose IPDs will always be around. Just as long as self-entertaining young’uns strew their gags and gadgets onto fertile territory

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© Jim Reed 2025 A.D.

Life, actually…

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Listen to Jim’s podcast:

https://youtu.be/pLVpV3AoNNw

or read Jim’s story below:

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THE MERRY ADVENTURES OF SAINT LEIBOWITZ

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“Ewww…”

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First word that comes to mind when I see what I see at Dollar Tree this morning.

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“Ewww…”

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I’m examining a small sealed cardboard box labeled “Brunswick Chicken Salad with Crackers,” which is “Ready to Eat.” Ready to eat? How could something sealed in a can, possibly for years, be Ready to Eat?

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The expiration date or “Best By” date is fourteen months away. What could possibly make this food product last so long? In my refrigerator at home, this would come to look like swamp residue in a week. The manufacturer must know something I don’t know—maybe that as a consumer I’ll probably eat anything if I’m hungry enough. And today I am hungry.

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OK. Let’s look at the package again. “Pre-mixed Chicken Salad (thank goodness they mixed it for me–I’m so weak from hunger and lack of willpower) Ready to Eat with Five Buttery Crackers (Ritz-like crackers…Ritzy crackers?) and Convenient Spoon.” Wow! They even thought to enclose a spoon, not realizing a truly hungry consumer will eat with fingers or even toes if desperate enough.

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Oh, and the small potted-meat-size can within the box “Now has an Easy-Peel Foil Lid.” Gosh, I don’t even have to carry around a can opener for my quick snacks.

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I fear reading the contents label, but I do note that the main ingredient is “Cooked Chicken.” I do hate it when the chicken is raw.

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So, here I am, wanting to eat something, anything, so I can meet my deadline and get on with the day. The Bumble Bee Seafoods company of San Diego has gone to all this trouble to rescue me.

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How could the contents of this can possibly taste good? Well, at least I can eat the crackers should the chicken smell funny. And, of course, I’m only wasting a dollar twenty-five if nothing turns out right. And also, I don’t ever have to eat this stuff again.

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I recall the large sealed Civil Defense can at my shop, retrieved unopened from a bomb shelter and manufactured to have indefinite shelf life contents. The container is more than sixty years old and the crackers within still edible, according to one of my customers who actually opened one recently.

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“Dear Family, in case you find me lying in shock beneath of pile of fast-food wrappers, allow me to document the adventures leading up to this possible outcome.” That’s the note I’ll leave on my body in case things don’t work out. This little story will suffice.

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Being a brave sort at times, I tear open the little box, unseal the crackers, peel back the lid and bid farewell to Saint Leibowitz, the patron saint of all post-apocalyptic sealed food containers

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© Jim Reed 2025 A.D.

Hear Jim’s 3-minute podcast at https://youtu.be/r8lxtWu6aEg

or read the transcript below:

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Life, actually…

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FLYING MONKEYS R US

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Ages and ages ago, legacy author Robert Louis Stevenson wrote these words:

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“All speech, written or spoken, is in a dead language until it finds a willing and prepared hearer.”

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What in the world did RLS mean?

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As a child back in days of yore, I understand this utterance in my own imaginative way.

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Running through unmown grass in humid summertime fields, I yell, “Watch out for flying monkeys!” causing my playmates to duck to the ground half-terrified and half-laughing. The idea of flying monkeys comes to life for a split second. Of course there are no flying monkeys but our designated leader makes us doubt this fact. Luckily, a kind of reality-based common sense prevails and we realize that flying monkeys are not going to happen. For now.

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So RLS knew we kids of earth live in two worlds simultaneously, a world where we can believe the unbelievable just for fun. And later, as adults, this honed skill means we can believe the unbelievable at our convenience.

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But somewhere in the caverns of our minds most of us do not lose sight of the fact that the idea of flying monkeys is merely a useful tool, employed to distract ourselves from realities we either don’t understand or don’t want to face.

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We humans are a playful species, alternating our time between things we wish were true but aren’t,  and things we know all too well to be truths that stolidly won’t go away.

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If I can’t deal with the idea of some awful truth I race to find the flying monkeys.

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Flying monkeys I can deal with

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© 2025 A.D. by Jim Reed

Life, actually…

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SOMEDAY I’LL GET AROUND TO READING A BOOK

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“I’m thinking about getting back into reading,” a customer says thoughtfully. He is slowly stretching his hand toward a provocatively-titled book. He never quite touches it, as if doing so would signal a commitment. He withdraws his hand and his thought.

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“I don’t have time to read yet,” explaining that work and school and media constantly get in the way of something extra-curricular and frivolous like taking time to read.

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I try to hide my nerdy dismay at the thought of never reading for pleasure. My disapproval will in no way be helpful.

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Each day at the bookshop words like these issue forth from the mouths of customers and patrons and browsers and tire-kickers and booklovers and bookdeniers.

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“Oh, man, I have read every book in that series. Now I’m re-reading it until the next sequel comes out.” This from an enthusiastic fan of bookworld. She lives for each page. She is excited about it.

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So, these are two of the extremes I encounter at my shop. There are gung-ho readers and there are impotent non-readers. That’s the world I live in.

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Now and then I attempt to inspire a nonreader. I’ll open a Robert Service title and read lustily, “There are strange things done in the midnight sun…That would make your blood run cold…But the queerest they ever did see Was that night on the marge of Lake Lebarge I cremated Sam McGee.” Sometimes this does the trick. A true story about cremation that scares you and makes you laugh at the same time. Some great writing!

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If a nonreader is wavering with signs of curiosity I’ll hand him a Calvin and Hobbes collection, “In my opinion, we don’t devote nearly enough scientific research to finding a cure for jerks.” Calvin says that.

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Or, a page from Dylan Thomas will sometimes perk up a bored browser, “Looking through my bedroom window, out into the moonlight and the unending smoke-colored snow, I could see the lights in the windows of all the other houses on our hill and hear the music rising from them up the long, steady falling night. I turned the gas down, I got into bed. I said some words to the close and holy darkness, and then I slept.”

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How can anyone deny the childhood wonder evoked from this passage?

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And there is always Ray Bradbury, thank goodness: ”Everyone must leave something behind when he dies, my grandfather said. A child or a book or a painting or a house or a wall built or a pair of shoes made. Or a garden planted. Something your hand touched some way so your soul has somewhere to go when you die, and when people look at that tree or that flower you planted, you’re there. It doesn’t matter what you do, he said, so long as you change something from the way it was before you touched it into something that’s like you after you take your hand away.”

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Best to quote Atticus Finch if all else fails: ”The one thing that doesn’t bide by majority rule is a person’s conscience.”

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Hey, these are cheap thrills. These passages and thoughts are sleeping between white pages, awaiting resuscitation.

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Once in a while, once in a blue moon, every now and then, just when the stars are in their proper places, I do manage to slip into someone else’s imagination a drop or two of inspiration. And even more rarely, the nonreader begins to show signs of curiosity, signs of interest. Most rarely, a reader is reborn.

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And my work is done for the day

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© 2025 A.D. by Jim Reed

Catch Jim’s 3-minute podcast on youtube: https://youtu.be/Kd5t_U_qjKA

or read his transcript below:

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Life, actually…

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O WHAT A BEAUTIFUL MORNING, EXCEPT FOR

THE SMOG AND THE FOG AND THE BARKING DOG

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When I’m worried and I can’t sleep I count my blessings…but only in between each annoyance.

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If you don’t have a care in the world you won’t be interested in today’s thoughts.

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My groans are only for the ears of you fellow travelers who toss and turn, turn and toss through much of the night.

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I twist to the left to settle into just the right position for sweet sleep. Thinking about sweet sleep pops me wide awake and reminds me of the things I forgot to do today. Must pick up bug spray. Must gather laundry. Must purchase milk.

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I pull the pillow over my forehead and recall playing hide-and-seek with my eldest granddaughter so many years ago. Can’t help but smile.

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Then, warily peeking at the alarm clock reminds me of how many hours are left between now and bill-paying time. Must remember to pay that one annoying bill…zzzzzz…

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Again I am startled awake by fireworks on the nearby mountain, just as a cozy dream about marshmallows begins to enmesh me.

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I roll to the cool spot on the bed and pretend to sleep, but the unholy and disorganized pile of detritus in my writing room reminds me I have to spend some time sorting and straightening. This could happen any year now.

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Now I am recalling a pleasurable time when reciting a favorite poem before a rapt audience was all the thrill I required at that moment. My smile returns.

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Just in time for the red devil on my shoulder to jump and remind me about a special book order I forgot to complete at the shop yesterday. Dang! I’m awake again.

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Multiply all these worrisome factoids several score and you have a graphic profile of my latest semi-sleepless night.

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The good the bad and the meaningless magnify and prod. The pleasant ideas whiz by.

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The good news is that just as sunlight peeks through the curtains, everything seems to arrange itself, my worries slide into some kind of appropriate order, and the next second teases me with the prospect of having a hopeful day.

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Within minutes all insomnia is forgotten. A hot shower shocks me into my comfortable routine. And before I know it I actually toss all neuroses and start pretending myself into having a jolly attitude.

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Tonight’s bedtime is the least of my worries. Until it occurs

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© 2025 A.D. by Jim Reed

Life, actually…

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THINGS I SAY TO NO-ONE IN PARTICULAR

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“Argh!”

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A full-throated scream echoes off the walls of grey-mortared buildings on Third Avenue North.

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“ARGH!”

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This time the scream is louder, the sound grittier.

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I hear lots of things outside the bookshop each day, so many that I tend to become only half-aware after all these years.

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“ARGH, AARRGGHH, AAARRRGGGHHH!” The voice is no longer ignorable. I have to verify that everyone is safe.

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With great protective reluctance I go to the door, open it, peer onto the street.

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“Argh!” is coming from the mouth of a rapidly-moving pedestrian who has already passed by. She rails at the invisible humid breeze.

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I am relieved that there seems to be no danger lurking. Customers and merchants are secure. Anguish resides only within the tortured walker.

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The arghs grow faint. My breathing reboots. The day goes on.

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I’ll never know what caused these particular arghs, but I do recognize them.

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They are merely amplified versions of the comments and asides with which I flavor each day.

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Little pangs that verbalize themselves as, “Besmirched! I wonder what it’s like, being smirched,” I mutter to no-one in particular. “Dang! why did that guy do that dangerous turn in the road?” Again, I’m talking to myself. Or maybe I’m hoping some eavesdropper will listen in and offer me explanation or comfort.

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My arghs may enter the world as complaints, enjoyments, critiques, cusses. But, even though I seldom commit an unadulterated scream of pain, I do shout quietly at the imperfect world. A world I would deem perfect if only it would re-form itself as some entity designed to exist solely to pamper me.

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Not going to happen.

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Thus, I just wander through life, wishfully hoping for fulfillment, realistically doing what I can to earn admission to an impossible heaven.

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Argh seems to be part of an international language. When someone ARGHs, I do get a sense of the possible meaning behind the utterance. And the utterer understands me for a split second also.

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Maybe this Cro-Magnon argh language is what we will eventually adopt in order to wade through the increasingly cluttered and disassembled showers of words and images thrown at us each day.

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Argh!

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There, I said it again.

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I feel better already

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 © 2025 A.D. by Jim Reed 

 

 

 

 

Life, actually…

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THE EYES OF A BILLION BEHOLDERS

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“There’s nothing on the back of this picture,” one bookshop browser comments. She is rummaging through stacks of old family snapshots adrift in a basket. She glances up dismissively and flips the image aside.

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“Who would want to keep pictures of people they don’t know?” she inquires of the world at large.

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Who indeed, I wonder. Who would want to enshrine images of random humans living random lifetimes? I hope to get a word in edgewise when she approaches check-out time.

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“Looky here,” her playmate for the day speaks up. She’s gazing at a proof sheet of wedding pictures. Black-and-white women dressed in one-day party garb. Uncomfortable men in rented tuxes. Punch bowls and clear glass cups and decorated cakes surround them.

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“Whose wedding is this? Why are they in the store?”

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I can’t help but answer, “We don’t know whose wedding this is. They are here because their family threw them away.” I let that soak in.

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“But why would somebody trash their own family?” she wonders.

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“Well, we adopt these thrown-away photographs, these unknown and un-identified folks because they ARE family.” I know this sounds corny but it’s true. “They are part of the World’s family.”

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The browser is still picking out old baby pictures, snaps of somebody’s grandmother, shaken prints of kids and dogs and pedal cars. None marked for posterity. All tossed.

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She muses, “I just threw away a lot of old family albums because I don’t know anybody in them.” She pauses half a beat and wonders, “Should I keep these things? Where would I put them…” her voice fades and she stands there, her arms full of imaginary lifetimes.

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Whenever I feel I’m preaching too much I simply say something like, “If you are ever on your way to a dumpster to get rid of scrapbooks, snapshots, postcards, letters, diaries, documents and so on, just drop them by the shop. We’ll make sure they get into proper hands.”

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She listens and decides to think about it later.

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People have all kinds of opinions about the things they discard.

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Your trash may be my treasure. And vice versa no doubt.

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Archivists preserve things you and I wouldn’t dream of retaining.

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You and I save stuff archivists might shun.

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It gets worse, it gets better, depending on what you do next.

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Combing through the lives of discarded people gives me a chance to appreciate them one more time—or for the very first time. A chance to tell them, perhaps posthumously, that they did matter. Mattered enough to become fond memory icons in obscure old bookshops and ephemera emporiums.

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A chance to return to life for at least a few moments. Historic markers of how important they once were to those who practiced the art of saving and cherishing small lovely memories

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© 2025 A.D. by Jim Reed

Life, actually….HELPERS AND YELPERS MINGLE ON A SODDEN SUMMER AFTERNOON

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Waiting and watching, watching and waiting. That’s what I spend much of my time doing these days. Waiting rooms, drive-through lines, queues of all kinds, seem to dominate the time allotted for living my life.

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If I weren’t a writer I’d let all this hurry-up-and-wait business get to me. But, once I realize that I must wait and wait and wait to obtain what I need, I just take a deep breath and scan my whereabouts to see what’s what, to see what I’m missing.

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Shifting from foot to foot at a barbecue counter, I patiently await tasty delights. I enjoy the fragrances, the avid carnivore diners, the slow-moving servers, the hickory smoke, the code-word shouts from the kitchen.

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One customer enters the eatery to pick up his order. The barkeep turns from the to-go window apologetically announcing that “We ran out of baked beans. Would you like other sides?”

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The customer emotes, explaining that he placed the order hours ago when they surely had plenty of baked beans. The server furrows his brow and tries to appease. No baked beans to be had.

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The fuming customer exchanges hand-wringing words by phone, apparently placating a demanding companion who insists that baked beans must be had, or else…

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“How long will it take to cook up some beans?” Now the customer transitions into a diplomat negotiator.

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“It would take at least 45 minutes.” The barkeep is being as patient and helpful as possible.

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Customer fumes a moment. “Naw, we have to make the game on time. Can’t wait…” he ponders. “What other sides you got?”

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“Banana pudding, potato salad, cole slaw, etc.”

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Fussy phone voice reluctantly decides on potato salad, making sure the world must know that this is a life-changing decision she is being forced to make against her will.

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Customer goes outside to await the new order. Barkeep brings my order plus condiments. We fist-bump and I’m on my way out.

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At the curb the pressured customer is waiting. I try to make small talk. “Those must be special baked beans. What are they like?” He is only interested in mouthing off about the outrageous service. “Well, restaurants are complicated places…I guess they have good moments and bad moments,” I chuckle.

The customer doesn’t miss a beat. “Yeah, but I put in the order hours ago. They just have lousy service.”

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I figure he’s going to repeat this rant, with sidebars, for the rest of the evening. I can imagine a swollen chorus once the phone voice adds her two bits.

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This story could be the most important family tale for weeks to come, in a land where other people’s transgressions are always bigger than our own

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© 2025 A.D. by Jim Reed

Life, actually…

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ABANDON HOPELESSNESS, ALL YE WHO ENTER HERE

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Down here in the Deep South, I am a witness to this day and age.

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In fact, you are also a witness to our times.

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Whether reluctant or not, you and I bear witness to what is going on, witness to what is not going on, witness to what should never go on, witness to what could go on if things were in place and functioning wholesomely.

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The following is unsolicited thoughty advice. Advice that may lie fallow, advice that may make sense, advice useless to you, advice maybe just maybe useful to you.

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To all who serve as witnesses to Life: Write stuff down as it comes up. Record it. Squirrel it away for future consideration.  Share your point of view. Share someone else’s point of view. Share an observation. Share what you think you missed. Share what you are not sure of. Share your fears and hopes..Just having someone to tell something to is important..Hunkering down and hiding is an option, but an eventually regrettable option..Wiping the mouth of a drink container with your sleeve before drinking sanitizes and makes everything safe. Well, you used to think that, but it doesn’t make much sense anymore, does it?.A spoonful of sugar makes the medicine go down? A spoonful of artificial sweetener makes the medicine seem to go down…but deep down inside we know better than that..HERE ARE SOME OPTIONS TO PONDER:.Some see resistance and rage as the solution….Some see compliance and acceptance as the solution….Some see covert protest as the solution….Some see calm recommendations for betterment as the solution….Some see sulking and complaining and whining as the solution….Some see avoidance and hunkering down as the solution….Some see rolling over and playing dead as the solution….Some see rolling over and dying as the solution….Some see individualized addressing of each issue as the solution….Some see endurance and passivity as the solution….And so on..Ignore the options that seem useless and unproductive….Select the ones you are willing to address and bring effort and dedication to….Then, get busy saving whatever worlds you feel are worthy of salvation .© 2025 A.D. by Jim Reed

Hear Jim Reed’s Red Clay Diary podcast:  https://youtu.be/1dpAnfSKodw

or read the transcript below:

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Life, actually…

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BORN WORTHWHILE WAY DOWN SOUTH

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A lean and lank shirtless wanderer walks purposely down Third Avenue North on an almost-hundred-degree afternoon. The sun presses down, the concrete radiates upward, the breeze secludes itself.

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Inside the bookshop a lean and lank fully-clothed browser scans shelves purposely beneath the pleasurable AC air, within earshot of a mellow jazz piano.

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Outside, the unbloused nomad stops at a corner trash receptacle and leans in to scrounge for edibles. Barring food, he is also alert for things pawnable. There is half a pack of fries. He fetches it quickly and gracefully, munching as the search continues.

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Within the bookshop a few feet away, the book enthusiast opens a volume and instantly reads,

“Alone in the night

On a dark hill

With pines around me

Spicy and still…”

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The reader is surprised and mystified. He reads further. He will not allow this moment to fade.

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On the other side of the front wall, the shirtless man’s skin glistens as he twirls in the light and continues his strolling quest for nourishment. The wadded paper fry-pack is poetry in his hands.

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Inside, the half-smiling bookperson feels oddly nourished by the words of Sara Teasdale. Food is out of reach, out of mind.

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The lone bookshop proprietor peers over his counter, watching customer and poacher simultaneously, one within breathing distance, the other through the large plate glass window.

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For an instant, the shopkeeper feels like a peeping tom. Then, his writerly instincts remind him of his duty to permanently record these two lives, these two gestures in time.

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So that you and I can witness.

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So that we can attest to the significance of these otherwise invisible angels

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© 2025 A.D. by Jim Reed