(Inspired by the 2021 movie The Map of Tiny Perfect Things)
By Mark Reed
First of all, I recommend that you watch this lovely little movie. Without giving any spoilers, the movie is a take off of one of my Top Ten Movies of all time – Groundhog Day, with Bill Murray. It is about living the same day over and over. It also introduces us to all the many tiny perfect things we all experience daily in our life, if we just open our eyes to them. They make life worth living. That being said, here is my list of personal tiny perfect things I Have witnessed. Not in any particular order of significance. They are all significant. You should do this for yourself and find that you have had a wonderful life, after all. Here are numbers 1 through 200.
1- Watching the birth of my two sons, Bill and Lew. Holding them for the first time and singing to them.
2- Watching Jonquils push up from the ground, forming buds and seeing them bloom.
3- Seeing Michelle walk down the aisle to marry me.
4- Being presented with my dad’s 1911 Colt .45 he wore as his sidearm during WWII, and also worn in Vietnam by my cousin Cliff Reed. Cliff left it to me to be given to me at his funeral.
5- Holding my first grandchild in my arms for the first time, my Darlin Princess Henley for now and forever more.
6- Getting on my Freedom Bird to take me home.
7- Sitting and rolling around on the ground as a child with a litter of puppies crawling all over me.
8- Watching a rose bud gradually open up over the course of a few days to its full beauty.
9- Watching a sunrise and sunset thousands of different times and each being magnificent and different from any other.
10- Seeing Michelle for the very first time as she walked down the beach toward me in her bikini.
11- Unveiling and dedicating the Sigma Pi Fraternity, International Veterans Memorial.
12- Getting there in time to listen to my mom’s last heartbeat.
13- Walking down the beach with Bill and Lew as little boys holding my hands.
14- Pushing my little sister Cynthia on the swing in our backyard on Bank Street in Smyrna.
15- Riding my bike and going skinny-dipping in the pool behind the dam at the Concord Road covered bridge.
16- Watching the sunrise from my hotel rooftop in Bangkok on a Sunday morning and hearing church bells in the distance. Then followed the bells to find a Chinese Baptist Church tucked away in a maze of canals and side streets. Worshipping with them. But never able to find it again.
17- Sitting on dad’s houseboat in the dark at Lake Lanier listening to him tell me about his life. Not long before he died.
18- Being presented the Sigma Pi Brother of the Year Award in 1968.
19- Being promoted to SGT E-5.
20- Riding up Peachtree Street with the top down in my ’65 GTO on my first pass from the Army.
21- My first skydive.
22- Graduation Day from UGA on the field in Sanford Stadium standing with my High School buddies, all graduating together.
23- Swinging from treetop to treetop across a forest.
24- Finding my lost Roy Rogers wristwatch in the woods after it being lost for years. And it still ran.
25- Riding the train from Bangkok to Hua Hin along the coast of the Gulf of Siam.
26- Getting my first bicycle Christmas morning.
27- Being lucky enough to have more than one best friend.
28- Finding a $100.00 bill on the ground in a parking lot.
29- Receiving flowers at the fraternity house from a secret admirer. Never found out whom they were from.
30- Being introduced to Ray Charles albums for the first time.
31- Having my cheek stroked by Michelle for no good reason.
32- Shooting two Mallards on my first duck hunt with dad, as a ten year old.
33- When I got out of the Army, Harold Puckett giving me his Italian Beretta pistol he took off of an officer during WWII. He said it was supposed to be Ronnie’s, but he was gone and now I was his son.
34- Watching Humming Birds come to our feeders.
35- Carrying Michelle across the threshold of our new home for the first time – many times.
36- Having my Gracie girl jump up on my lap and curl up asleep – too many times to count.
37- Shooting the rapids alone in a canoe – and making it.
38- Watching a campfire burn.
39- Smoking a cigar with people I care about.
40- Being in the weddings of my best friends.
41- Walking into a room with the most beautiful girl there on my arm.
42- Diving off the high dive in my tux at the Cherokee Town Club Debutant Ball.
43- Having Rufus Thomas (Do The Dog) call me up on stage and introduce me and tell a story about us.
44- My first live concert at age ten – Elvis at the Fox in 1956.
45- Being given his original Medal of Honor Ribbon – MAJ GEN James Livingston, USMC (Ret), Sigma Pi fraternity brother from Auburn.
46- Buying numerous and eclectic vases and filling them with Zinnias I grow.
47- Meeting my childhood hero as a six year old – Hopalong Cassidy.
48- Building and displaying a ten-foot tall cross. It now stands in my backyard.
49- Watching Michelle, as the outgoing May Queen, crown the new Queen at Coastal Carolina College.
50- Shooting with my boys.
51- Holding Henley in my arms as an infant and videoing her as she stares mesmerized at the ceiling fan.
52- Son Bill introducing us to Christa for the first time and thinking that we Reed men can really pick out the beauties.
53- Eating Sushi with son Lew, making a small football folding up the chop stick wrapper and saying, “If you knew Sushi like I know Sushi.”
54- The annual Christmas Ham from Wallace BBQ.
55- Birthday dinners for family members.
56- The traditional “Last Supper” when I would leave on a mission trip or whenever any of us would leave on a trip.
57- The beach.
58- Sunset cigar cruises on the boat.
59- Celebrating birthdays with Tango and Evie.
60- Taking photographs.
61- Having a smoothie with Michelle.
62- Hitting the Wife Lottery with Michelle.
63- Every real estate closing I ever had.
64- Walking home from church the morning I accepted Christ as an eleven year old.
65- Sitting outside at dusk at our home in Vinings with dad, listening to him whistle back and forth with a Whippoorwill…
66- Mom making me my coming home from the Army meal of ham and potato salad.
67- Paying cash for my first Cadillac.
68- Being given my first camera as a ten year old.
69- Finding a lucky penny.
70- Waking up on time without an alarm clock.
71- Chocolate – nuff said.
72- Sitting with Michelle on a one thousand foot cliff, feet dangling off, near Cloudland Canyon, watching the sunset over the ridges in Alabama, while sipping Remy and eating Hershey’s Kisses.
73- Looking at Michelle’s paintings.
74- Watching the American flag fly in the breeze.
75- Watching the Dawgs play between the hedges.
76- Coffee in the morning.
77- Flying in a Huey.
78- Riding the cable car to the top of Stone Mountain.
79- Fireworks displays.
80- Driving Michelle’s ’65 Corvette convertible.
81- Honeymoon in Jamaica.
82- Exploring Jerusalem.
83- 60’s Rock and Roll.
84- Mission trips to Haiti.
85- Being on the Men’s Ministry Servant Leadership Team.
86- Writing Blog stories on Missing The Mark.
87- Being Social Chairman of Sigma Pi at UGA.
88- Being our landscape Yad Boy.
89- Our pool at Camp Reed in Mountain Park.
90- Big Red, my first Irish Setter.
91- Mrs. Melton, my 5th Grade teacher at Smyrna Elementary.
92- Running into a friend in Hong Kong.
93- Receiving a totally unexpected check in the mail for exactly the amount desperately needed.
94- Sleeping under an electric blanket for the very first time (with Michelle).
95- Finding Joy while eating the best sliced pork sandwich in the world at Old South BBQ in Smyrna.
96- Pretty much any all you can eat buffet.
97- Oyster roast at Nance’s in Murrells Inlet, SC.
98- Tiger Sauce.
99- George Tabor Azaleas.
100- My treasures in the Mark Reed Museum in World HQ of Reed Realty.
101- My BB gun from my childhood that had the stock broken off, which son Lew replaced with one he made and gave to me for Christmas. Made me cry.
102- Cole Haan shoes.
103- Dad’s WWII B-17 Bomber Jacket for the Miss Jennie with 35 bombs for 35 missions.
104- Virginia Pepper Reed – the best mother a boy could have.
105- Old Moe – My first dog. He saved my life pulling me out of an abandoned pool as a two year old.
106- Growing up as a “Bank Street Kid” in Smyrna, Georgia.
107- The American Legion in Smyrna back in the day.
108- The Cub Scouts and the Boy Scouts.
109- My men’s Bible study group for ten years. Met every Saturday morning.
110- Our men’s group father/child camping trips.
111- Water skiing all those years on a slalom – until I couldn’t any more.
112- Snow skiing – Downhill – Fast.
113- Shrimp – Cooked any way.
114- Steak – Medium rare to rare.
115- Sunset over the Chao Phraya River in Bangkok.
116- Firing automatic weapons.
117- Michelle in that little black thing.
118- Seeing the Ho Chi Minh Trail on fire from 35,000 feet.
119- A .45 slug shot into the sky by some unknown stranger and come down inches from me between my feet onto our driveway on Bank Street.
120- Watching kittens born. Feeding them with an eyedropper because the mother abandoned them. I was not a cat person. I became one doing this.
121- Finding a four-leaf clover. Having my sons give me one they found.
122- Finding Indian arrowheads.
123- Hiking portions of the Appalachian Trail.
124- My first Mercedes.
125- Driving my dad’s 1959 pink Cadillac on dates as a sixteen year old.
126- Winning my last rezoning hearing.
127- My wedding day.
128- Being in car wrecks and never being injured.
129- Getting out of the Infantry because I could type.
130- Being given the Sigma Pi Fraternity, International Founders Award – The highest award given by the fraternity.
131- Watching son Bill lead the devotional at the Prayer Around the Flagpole in Middle School.
132- Watching son Lew graduate with honors from Riverside Military Academy and be recognized as Top Cadet.
133- Having that perfect old song come on the car radio.
134- When the police officer stops you for speeding and lets you off with only a warning.
135- When you are named Boss of the Day by the Gary McKee Radio Show and receive a bouquet of Balloons by the Bunch and dinner for two at Ray’s On The River and you are self-employed and have no employees.
135- When everyone is putting money in the juke box and punching numbers and your song comes on next.
136- When four rough guys are sitting in the booth next to you, your best friend and your dates, and they are using loud vulgar language, and your best friend gets up, walks over to their booth, picks up their full pitcher of beer and pours it over the head of the biggest, loudest and most vulgar guy, then tells them to stop. Instead of us dying, they sheepishly get up and leave. Thx Tim.
137- When you are driving home late at night on I-285, in your dad’s big Fleetwood Caddy, after dropping off your date, you fall asleep, run onto the median, down into a valley, back up and down a couple more times and then fly back up feet from a bridge abutment and back onto the road, still at full speed.
138- Oysters on the half shell. Dozens.
139- Having your child reach up and grab your finger to cross the street.
140- After spending hours with an attorney in consultation over a possible law suit, you and the attorney ask each other where you have met before. Neither of you can figure it out. At the end of the meeting you pull out your checkbook expecting to pay legal fees of four figures, he says no charge.
141- Drove by a pasture here in north Georgia and saw hundreds of seagulls all over it.
142- Had a hummingbird fly right up to my face inches away and hover there checking me out.
143- My Drill Sergeant from Basic Training in 1969 found me on-line and sent me a picture of me leading my platoon I had never seen…can’t believe he remembered me out of the thousands of soldiers he probably trained.
144- A beautiful girl I met on the beach one day in Myrtle Beach in the summer of 1972, called me out of the blue in October 1972. I had never expected to see her again. I married her.
145- A police officer stopped me for a burned out tail light. He gave me a warning.
146- Went to a friend’s restaurant to eat after not being there for a while. My meal was comped.
147- In Haiti immediately following the earthquake in 2010, asleep on the ground under a tarp with 100 Haitians who had lost their homes, and being awakened by a man singing a hymn in French to comfort a crying child and gradually everyone sang with him.
148- Watching my mom and dad dance to their favorite song – Embraceable You.
149- Having a B-17 bomber fly directly over my head a tree top level.
150- Driving my Porsche 120 MPH on the Roebling Road Raceway.
151- Singing a duet with Joe Cocker of “Your Are So Beautiful” to Michelle when we renewed out wedding vows on our 25th anniversary.
152- Having my cat, Gracie, jump up in my lap and nuzzle my nose.
153- Watching the sunset through colored vases in the window.
154- Listening to “My Own” by the Norrie Paramour Orchestra with Michelle.
155- A weekend with lifelong buddies.
156- Being assigned to the U.S. Embassy Diplomatic Medical Mission in Bangkok.
157- Praying at the Western Wall (Wailing Wall) in Jerusalem.
158- Getting my drivers license on my sixteenth birthday.
159- Flying my dad’s Piper Comanche with him beside me.
160- Drinking from a spring on top of Blood Mountain.
161- Catching lightning bugs in a jar.
162- Standing in the rain in full sun.
163- Having my granddaughter Henley tell me she loves me.
164- Watching son Bill marry Christa.
165- Being told by the Commandant of Riverside Military Academy, “There is nothing about Cadet Reed I don’t like.”
166- Buying out first house on Ridge Road in Smyrna with a VA loan.
167- Getting an Honorable Discharge from the Army.
168- My first kiss playing spin the bottle.
169- Being named Senior Patrol Leader for my Boy Scout Troop.
170- Double dating with my best friend, Ronnie.
171- Finding Waldo.
172- Having my name drawn out of a hat and winning a prize.
173- Going in my grandfather’s bakery and being able to take a bite of anything I wanted.
174- Crawling through the B-17 Memphis Belle and sitting in the pilots seat.
175- Climbing to the top of The Chimneys in N.C.
176- Watching “It’s A Wonderful Life” every Christmas and crying.
177- Driving a convertible to Tybee Island and Savannah Beach with three of my best buddies as sixteen-year-olds on our first vacation without our parents or any adult supervision.
178- Going on a wild hog hunt on the Georgia coast.
179- Pledging Sigma Pi Fraternity at UGA.
180- Telling my sons bedtime stories.
181- Climbing and painting multiple water towers in my misspent youth.
182- Going on Orville and Wilbur’s Great Adventures with the Captain of the USS Kitty Hawk Aircraft Carrier.
183- Having a Navy fighter pilot buddy tell me about dodging SAM missiles over Hanoi.
184- Baptizing both of my sons.
185- Firing dad’s 1911 .45.
186- Watching my two-year-old son Bill go crazy with joy and excitement when my mother, his Big mama came to get him.
187- Hearing two-year old granddaughter, Henley, yell “Goooo Buldogs!” for the first time.
189- Driving all over Smyrna by myself as a fifteen-year-old in my mom’s ’55 Chevy Station Wagon.
190- Reading a verse in the Bible that I had read a hundred times, and finally seeing a new understanding of it.
191- Having prayers answered.
192- Being able to run forever.
193- Seeing any number of things for the first time.
194- Sleeping in the back window of the car on a family trip.
195- Having dad ride me “horsey” on his foot and leg.
196- Having mom kiss it and make it well.
197- Seeing Michelle’s amazing smile directed at me. It never gets old.
198- Finding mom and dad’s letters from WWII.
199- Having an old man tell me he remembered seeing my dad fly a P-51 fighter down main street of Smyrna doing barrel rolls.
200- Reading these Tiny Perfect Things.
Missing the Mark 
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