KENTUCKY—Right now, I am in the fellowship hall of First Baptist Church in Richmond. I’m about to tell stories to a room of Baptists.

The entree tonight is barbecued pork. The beverages are sweet tea and extra-sweet tea. These are beautiful people.

I don’t often give speeches at Baptist churches. I speak at lots of other churches, but not usually Baptist ones.

This is probably because I tell a lot of Baptist jokes. I do this because I come from fundamentalist Baptists who will forever be in my blood. They were people who wore lots of Brylcreem and ate too many congealed salads.

But I can’t help it. My people are too easy to make jokes about. The punchlines practically write themselves.

Here’s one a preacher told me:

One day a Catholic priest, a Methodist, a Presbyterian, and a Baptist minister were fishing. They were arguing over which denomination Jesus would be.

The Catholic priest said, “He’d be part of the Roman Catholic Church, no doubt.”

The Methodist said, “No

way. I think after all John Wesley did for the Christian faith, he would certainly be a Methodist.”

“I think he’d be Presbyterian,” said the Presbyterian. “I have no doubt he’d join the Reformed Tradition.”

The Baptist minister shook his head and said, “I’m sorry fellas, that boy’s going to Hell unless he cuts his hair.”

It is hard to make a Baptist laugh. Chances are, if you’re Baptist, you didn’t laugh at that. In fact, you might have even read it and remarked aloud, “Bah humbug,” then went into the other room and horsewhipped your firstborn child.

Again. I’m kidding.

See? That’s exactly what I’m talking about. The people I came from didn’t laugh. In fact, we laughed less than all other denominations combined.

For instance, I once attended an Episcopal church in Mobile that had cocktail hour…

The Highway 127 Yard Sale is a six-hundred-mile junk extravaganza stretching from Alabama to Michigan.

Every August, hordes of people come from all over the U.S. to ride the rural route. It starts in the South, shoots through the Midwest, and finally ends in the Great Lake State.

My wife and I leave Birmingham early, heading for Gadsden, where the route begins. We haven’t done the Highway 127 Yard Sale since we were first married, back in the winter of 1912.

The traffic in Birmingham is nightmarish. People drive like they’ve just escaped from a psychiatric unit. Motorists in the left lane drive upward of a hundred miles per hour and honk at you if you travel slower than the sound barrier.

I do not drive fast enough for Birmingham. I know this because while I am driving, a man in a Land Rover rolls his window down and shows me the Universal Finger Gesture.

He actually takes the time to roll his window down, thereby interrupting

his important text-message conversation.

But once we hit the rural parts, the world becomes more relaxed again. There is a feel to this part of Alabama that can’t be described. It’s like exhaling.

There is an epidemic of kudzu, and an exciting buzz in the air because of all the yard-salers. It’s the same kind of excitement that accompanies all major life-events such as weddings, baptisms, and the Winston Cup Series.

Soon, we see white canopy tents lining the highway. Miles of tents. Miles and miles. And I hear choirs of angels singing in the distance because I know that beneath each of these tents is:

Junk.

I am a connoisseur of junk. A collector, if you will. Inside my garage are mountains of boxes containing rare antiques that—according to many well-respected experts—are worthless.

For instance, I have a collection of Englebert Humperdink records…

6:23 A.M.—I wake up. I hobble out of bed. It takes longer to wake up than it used to. In these morning moments, many thoughts go through my head.

Thoughts like: Why does my back hurt? Did I sleep on a billiard ball last night? What is my name? What is this new pain in my ankle? I don’t remember hurting my ankle. My ankle really hurts. Why does my ankle hurt? Is this even my ankle? I need coffee.

I shuffle to the kitchen. There it is. The coffee pot. I see it. On the stove. Glory be.

But the imaginary voice of my wife speaks to me, even though my actual wife is still asleep.

Imaginary Wife says, “Take your vitamins BEFORE you make coffee, or else you’ll forget.”

But I hate vitamins. My wife buys liquid vitamins that need to be mixed with water. They taste like industrial strength Lysol.

I fill a water glass and mix in liquid vitamins. I toss it back. I gag. I lean over the sink and start to moan. What in God's name is that pain in my ankle?

I hear rustling in the other room. I hear four pairs of paws. They are scratching on the plastic kennel liners.

The heathens are awake. I hear tails wagging. It sounds like:

THWAT! THWAT! THWAT!

The closer I get to the kennels, the faster the thwats become.

THWATTHWATTHWATTHWAT!

I operate with extreme care. These dogs have been cooped up all night and are ready to to reenact the final scene from the “Great Escape.”

The other morning, I opened the kennel doors and the dogs nearly knocked me over and broke my neck.

“Calm down,” I tell them.

The kennel doors open. Two large-breed dogs leap from their crates like Steve McQueen and Charles Bronson bound for freedom. I fall…