I used to volunteer at an animal shelter. I loved it.

My favorite place in the shelter was called the “Introduction Room.” This was the room where people went to meet the dogs that were up for adoption.

The room was supposed to be inviting, sort of like a living room. And at one time, I’m sure the room actually did resemble an ordinary living room. There was furniture, a sofa, and a tableside lamp.

But the room had seen better days. The whole space was so covered in so much dog saliva you weren’t sure what color the walls used to be. The interior smelled like wet fur. And whenever anyone sat on the crud-covered sofa, an explosion of dust and dander would instantly transform the room’s visible atmosphere into approximately 80 percent dog hair.

But it was in the Introduction Room that I learned something. Something about dogs that I’d never known before:

Dogs have more than one name. That’s just how it works. People name their dog. Then they give a nickname. THEN, they

nickname the nickname. Everyone does this. I don’t make the rules.

I bring all this up because I want to tell you about a special dog.

Her name was Claire. But she also went by “Clair-ee,” “Claire Bell,” “Clarinda,” “Clarinder,” and —why not?—“Judy Bell.”

I’m not sure which breed she was. I think she was a Goldendoodle. But I don’t know.

Either way, she definitely had poodle in her. You can tell by the eyes.

Poodle eyes are dark amber, swallowed by the pupil, making them look like doll eyes.

Poodle breeds also have longer eyebrows. This means their eyes appear doubly expressive. Almost humanlike. With their fluffy eyebrows they can show surprise, excitement, glee, confusion, disgust, mischievousness, and severe incontinence.

Claire loved long walks. She loved tennis balls. She loved terrorizing birds, chasing pigeons and seagulls off the backyard pier. Sometimes, dolphins…

When I was a kid, church ladies ran the whole world. Elderly women were always telling me what to do, randomly appearing from the shadows and trying to feed me.

Our little microcosmic community was operated by elderly women in beehive hairdos. They drove Lincolns, Mercury Grand Marquis, or Ford F-100 pickups with gun racks.

Church ladies carried the keys to our universe. Not metaphorically, but worse. Allegorically. The keys to the school, the library, the church building, they were all on huge keychains which these ladies carried in their prodigious church-lady purses, which were bags about the size of Waffle Houses.

You could find anything you needed in those purses. Professional-grade first-aid kits, cosmetic supplies, a change of underpants, spare tires, etc. And if you were hungry, you could find a three-course meal in such a purse, although the food was likely to taste like Rolaids and purse dirt.

So, these were the women who raised me. They were always present in my life. They taught every class, directed

every pageant, prepared every fellowship-hall supper, played piano for every Fifth Sunday sing, visited every hospital, and babysat you when your mom worked doubles.

And when you lost a loved one, it was these church ladies who organized the committee that overloaded your front porch with casseroles.

Which is exactly what happened when my father died. My father died by his own hand when I was 11. And the very next morning, I heard voices on our porch before sunrise. Ladies’ voices.

There were elderly women, leaving casserole pans, glass cookware, covered in foil, and Corningware dishes, nestled in gingham dishrags.

And it was also one such church lady who took pity on me in the weeks after my father died. After my father’s end, I lost weight because I could not eat. I slept all the time.

I’ll never forget the morning when one such elderly woman came to…

The old man showed up to visit his granddaughter in the pediatric oncology wing of the hospital.

It was late. He took the elevator and got a few weird looks from other passengers since he was carrying a bouquet, a boombox, and wearing a snappy suit.

He walked into his granddaughter’s hospital room. The little girl’s face turned 101 shades of thrilled.

“Grandpa!” said the child in a weakened whisper.

The nurses cleared away the girl’s supper of Jello and creamed potatoes. Her mother dabbed her chin.

He placed the boombox onto a chair. He straightened his coat. He hit the play button. The room began to fill with the silken sounds of the Count Basie Orchestra. Then came the trombone-like voice of Old Blue Eyes. The song was “The Way You Look Tonight.”

“I promised my granddaughter I would teach her to dance,” the old man recalls. “So I wanted to fix that.”

The nurses helped the frail child out of bed. The little girl’s head was bald. Her limbs and face were swollen from the effects of the medications

she’d been taking. And she was tired.

“Let me have your hands,” said Granddaddy.

Her little hands fit snugly into his old palms.

“Now stand on my feet,” he said.

Her stocking feet stood atop the old man’s shoes. He stooped to kiss her shiny head.

“That’s good,” he said.

He moved his feet back and forth and told her to follow his lead. They had to pause now and then because they were both prone to laughing fits.

The nurses videoed with phones. A few orderlies watched from the doorway. The girl’s mother sat on the hospital bed, watching.

“This is how Grandpa taught me to dance,” said Mom.

Mom held back a Niagara of tears. Because when Mom was her daughter’s age, the biggest problem in her young life was dealing with poor grades, not disease. Doctors…

Canned music. It’s everywhere. You cannot get away from it. It is always playing in public spaces. Grocery stores, hotel lobbies, airplanes, colonoscopy exam rooms.

Piped-in music is playing in hospital delivery rooms, this very moment. As new babies draw in the first breath of life, they are hearing Ke$ha’s “Party at a Rich Dude’s House.” Which is the name of an actual song. Background music will be playing overhead in your funeral parlor.

It’s hard to find silence anymore. Silence is not a thing. The National Park Service’s Natural Sounds and Night Skies Division recently measured noise pollution and discovered noise levels have tripled in the last few years.

It’s not just music, of course. The roar of traffic, the booms of bulldozers. Whirring distant blenders. TVs blaring 24-hour news. Every 11 seconds, somewhere in America, someone uses a leafblower.

But canned music…

Per day, Americans are exposed to an averaged 76 minutes of “unchosen” music in public. You have probably heard “Party at a Rich Dude’s House,” multiple times and never knew it.

Stores use music like this all the time. Businesspersons call canned music part of the “immersive branding” experience. The songs are usually ones you’ve never heard before, produced by artists young enough to be your grandchildren, who have names that involve numbers, dollar signs, and emojis depicting excreta.

You cannot avoid this music. It is blasted in parking lots, public parks, and nursing homes. When you are in the hospital, with only minutes left to live, overhead Ke$ha will be singing “We R Who We R.” The nurses will still be humming along as they wheel your body off to the morgue.

Some stores tried removing canned music. Walmarts tried this. Many Targets attempted this. Restaurants did it, too. FACT: The second most common complaint in US restaurants is the music.

But it didn’t last.

Overwhelmingly, young shoppers said public spaces were too weird and…

Sometimes you meet people. People you feel like you’ve met before. Strangers whom you’ve mysteriously known all your life.

Somehow.

You can’t explain this sensation. You can’t understand why you feel such profound connection with new faces.

It’s almost as if we are all leaves, sprouting on the same tree branch. We have always been leaves, of course, growing from the same region of the same limb. But we’ve never ventured to meet each other. Now that we’ve met, we realize something incredible. We share the same sap.

I have met lots of leaves from my particularly bizarre branch throughout the years. But never so many in one weekend. Never have I met so much fellow foliage as I did at the Savannah Book Festival.

There was Reno. A retired athletic trainer for the Clemson University basketball team. A woodworker. His children are grown, but he still volunteers as a Scout Master. Born and raised in Asheville. He sat beside me at dinner and we laughed. My throat still hurts.

All evening I kept wanting to ask him,

“Why do I feel like I already know you?” But I didn’t want to be a weirdo.

There’s Riley. She is a college student at SCAD. A writer, a songwriter, a musician, a long distance runner, a horseback rider, and a 20-something with a 60-year-old wisdom.

This is mostly, because of her lifelong cardiac troubles. She’s been in and out of the hospital more times than she can count. Her body heals slowly due to poor circulation.

Which is why Riley made a choice long ago, that she would live as much life as she could while she could, before there wasn’t any left.

Ethan. A young writer raised in Savannah. Graduated college a few years ago. Easygoing. Humble. A great listener. And although he is decades my junior, we finish each other’s sentences.

Joice. She is sunlight. She is hugs and…

I don’t know her name. I don’t know anything about her. She is a sign language interpreter. That’s all I know.

She sits onstage during tonight’s keynote address for the Savannah Book Festival. She is translating speech into ASL. She interprets for upwards of an hour.

Meantime, most of the audience doesn’t even notice her. I mean, they see her, of course, but her job is to remain largely invisible.

Besides, most book-festival goers are busy watching the main event—three keynote speakers, seated in chairs, talking about books.

The keynotes have bottles of water. Their easy chairs are plush. They are talking excitedly. Their conversation is interspersed with bursts of laughter, and quick interjections.

She translates it all. The entire discussion. A conversation between three quick mouths.

The woman moves her arms and hands a mile per minute. Spelling long last names so fast all I can see is a blur. She has no plush chair. No bottle of water. And even if she did, she’s too busy to take a drink.

I am mesmerized by her. Namely,

because she is so good at her job.

So, I start looking around the audience to see who, exactly, she is signing for. I find a few. Amidst a mass of onlookers, I notice them. They are glued to the interpreter.

I see their faces, focused and concentrating. A few of them are wearing hearing aids. Then, I glance back to the translator, who is staring directly at these particular individuals.

And I find myself wondering what leads someone into this beautiful line of work. What compelled this woman to work with the Deaf community.

Maybe it was her mom. Perhaps her mother became deaf at a young age. Maybe the young woman learned sign language as a little girl because this was how her mom communicated.

I’m only guessing, of course.

But I knew a young woman like that once. Her…

She was walking her hound. It was a young beagle. Loose skin. Smooshy face. Uncoordinated feet the size of Lodge skillets.

I was in Forsyth Park, in the heart of Savannah. It was overcast and gray. There were various soccer teams on the field, doing drills. And I was mesmerized by the animal.

Hound puppies walk differently than normal puppies, on account of all the floppy skin. A baby bloodhound, for example, walks like a toddler wearing his mom’s bathrobe. Gleeful, but graceless.

I have a thing for hounds. Always have. In my life, I have been owned by four hounds. Two have been bloodhounds. One was a beagle.

My first childhood hound was Moses. Moses was full-blooded beagle, and I happened to be fully human. So we formed a natural friendship.

I’ll never forget meeting him for the first time. A neighbor’s dog had puppies. There was a sign by the road. “Free Puppies.”

There is no phrase in the English language better than “free puppies.” Not to a kid. I begged my mother to

stop the car. I pleaded. I supplicated. I implored her.

“We are NOT getting a puppy,” said my mother, pulling over.

The puppies were in a barn. I found Moses in the corner, chewing on a brick.

He was so tiny, about the size of an anemic hamster. And he wasn’t making any progress with the brick. Still, he was cocksure and confident that things would work out in his favor if only he could, somehow, manage to fit the entire brick in his mouth.

Moses’s mother, God love her, was lying on her side. She looked exhausted. When she saw me inspecting him, she moved her tired eyes to meet mine.

It was as though her drooping eyes were saying, “Please, take him.”

“Can I keep him?” I asked my mother.

I begged. I entreated. I beseeched. I invoked Scripture. I offered to…

Savannah. The sun is not up. The city is dark and foggy. I am the first one awake in my hotel.

I am always the first one awake. I don’t know why. As a kid, I could sleep until Carson came on. Now I get up before the rooster clears his throat.

I visit the front desk to ask the receptionist whether coffee is available.

“Not until six, sir,” she replies.

So, I wait in the lobby. This is a very swanky hotel. Nicer than any hotel I’ve ever visited. They have towels and robes so plush you cannot get your suitcase shut.

Six o’clock rolls around.

Nobody shows up in the café. The overhead music is Blondie. Then, Duran Duran. I’d better go for a walk before they start playing Starship. Or worse, Culture Club.

As far as I can tell, I’m the only pedestrian on the streets at this hour. Which is eerie, maybe even a little unsafe. Anyone could leap from the shadows and have their way with me.

Which reminds me of a

story my grandmother used to tell. As a young woman, she was on a train bound for Saint Louis with her aunt Mildred. Two masked men entered the train and announced they were going to rob passengers and ravish all the women.

My grandmother stood and shouted, “You can take our money, but leave us women alone!”

Aunt Mildred said, “Shut up, the robbers are runnin’ this train!”

On my walk, I pass a man sleeping on a park bench. He is covered with blankets, scrolling his phone. He gives me the two-fingered wave as I pass. Then he asks for money. I give him a few dollars.

But before he accepts the cash, he admits that he’s going to use the money to buy cigarettes and if I want to change my mind that’s okay but he just wants to be honest.

The internet reviews are in:

—This album sucks. I bought this album based on good reviews here but this is honestly the worst music I’ve ever heard in my life. Mozart was no genius, he was just some weird guy who got famous.

—While somewhat of a good book, you cannot help but realize that Mark Twain was a racist… You could never make this into a movie.

—I first read this book 15 years ago in high school. Then I read it again (or was supposed to) in college. Now, I get the (mis)fortune of teaching it to a new generation of students who need to be bored to death with American Literature classics. Students, I have a confession to make. I understand Huck Finn. I can explain Huck Finn. But nothing puts me to sleep faster than this pile of literary poo.

—I bought this painting print for my bathroom, but I can’t get beyond my suspicion that this artist doesn’t know how to draw hands. The clumsy attempt to hide

them behind a misshapen bowl just screams AMATEUR. I would not buy another Monet painting.

—Most boring movie ever made. The airplane is fake. Too many random characters wearing fez hats. Basically, it’s just a movie about people in tuxedos standing around a piano talking about “the letters.” Also, why is it in black and white? I waited an hour for an explosion. It never happened. Save your time. I don’t understand why anyone would watch “Casablanca.”

—Why are people calling Itzhak Perlman the best violinist in the world? I agree with many reviewers here, it sounds like he’s scared to play passionately. I mean, he’s a decent musician but…

—I’m 35 and this is the first time I read Harper Lee’s book. In the end I really just felt disappointed. There was a lot of racism in it, and no character development or resolution.

—Norman Rockwell…

Her name is Joeann. She works at the Hampton Inn in Jackson. She tends the dining room, making the breakfasts, and cleaning off tables.

She is easy to talk to.

“I learned how to be friendly from my mama,” Joeann says, warming up my coffee. “My mama believed in being kind to everybody she meet.

“But don’t get me talking about my mama. Won’t be a dry eye.”

Joeann is mid-fifties. Cheerful. With an armor-piercing smile. She has rich mahogany skin, short dark hair, and a face that seems to glow.

“My mama was humble. She went to a little country Baptist church out in Pochahontas. She had 10 kids, and we were all crazy. Daddy was a brick layer.

“Everyone in Jackson knew Mama. They knew her as the woman who’d help anyone who was hard up.

“She’d take anyone in. You know, strays. Didn’t matter who they were or what they done.

“One time, some local kids didn’t have nowhere to live, ‘cause they parents died. They was orphans, overnight. So my dad went and collected the

children, five of them kids. He brought them all home to live with us. Even the little baby who was still nursing.

“My mama raised’em all. Just like they was her own. And just like that, she had 15 kids in her house.

“People’d always ask her, ‘Ain’t you tired of raising kids, Bernice?’ She’d just say, ‘I don’t have time to be tired, I’m too busy trying to get to heaven.’”

“Another time, she was babysitting for a family up in town, they had a son who had some bad problems. When he became an adult, he struggled with addiction and drugs. Whenever he came home from rehab, his own mama wouldn’t let him in her house, on account of his problems, and his stealing.

“So, my mom would take care of him. She’d cook him hot meals, give him…