Hear Jim’s Red Clay Diary: https://youtu.be/BGbT1SDIRbI

or read his transcript, below:

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Life, actually…

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CRISPY FRIES, LEMON MERINGUE AND THICK GOOEY ICING

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Here’s something I like about Down South.

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I was raised on country food, soul food, junk food, down-home food.

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Guilty admissions about my lifelong Down South diet: If it is breaded, crunchy, overcooked, crusted, sugary, salty, spicy and just plain bad for me, I tend to love it.

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I know, I know…this kind of eating is not endorsed by healthy, evangelical, disapproving whole-food progressives. They want me to live longer and more miserably by ingesting only those tasteless things that are good for me.

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That phrase, Good for Me, is the red line that rankles and holds me back from doing the Right Thing.

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I am not yet a complete idiot, but I am approaching complete idiocy. The sane part of me knows that the good-fooders are correct—I should be eating what they eat. And, of course, I do eat properly most of the time. Maybe I’ll live an extra two hours because of this.

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But Temptation is so…Tempting.

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I just have to revert to childhood now and then and eat everything that is holy and unhealthy.

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Sacred food is essential at times:  I tend to eat the icing and forego the cake. I chomp on the meringue and try the lemon maybe later. I munch the crunchy fries quickly, before they turn mushy. I crave the grooves in Ruffles. I always eat one too many seasalted cashews. I vow to stop at one Buddy Bar, then fail.  A whiff of hot dog produces catsup dreams. Triple-buttered-and-salted-and-peppered grits are the only grits worthy of consideration.

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Are you following me?

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All this stuff will eventually kill me.

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But I’ll go out with a pleasured smile on my face.

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What would that smile look like were I to die while eating kale?

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Scary thought, isn’t it

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© 2025 A.D. by Jim Reed