I was standing in line at a gas station in rural South Carolina. I had pulled over to use the bathroom, to buy a hot cup of mud, and God willing, to purchase chili cheese Fritos.

There were two kids in baseball uniforms, standing ahead of me in line. It was October.

Little League isn’t generally played in October, I was thinking. Maybe they were attending a baseball camp. Maybe it was just a practice?

They were your quintessential American boys. White pants, stained in red clay. Jerseys untucked. Hair, bleached by the sun. They smelled like little-boy sweat.

They reminded me of a thousand feckless summers I spent shagging fly balls. I was a chubby outfielder who wore Husky jeans. But in my heart, I was Dale Murphy.

When the two boys reached the cashier, the old woman called them by name and asked how they’re families were doing. And that’s when I noticed one of the boys was missing his left arm.

The boy used several contorted movements to place his items onto the counter without dropping them.

He was buying mostly candy. Resse’s.

Crunch bar. Skittles. Starburst. Gatorade—Frost-Glacier blue. The only thing missing was the Big League Chew.

Has our culture fallen so far that young ball players no longer appreciate Big League Chew? This columnist wants to know.

The woman behind the register just smiled at him. Her voice sounded like a pack of Newports.

“How’d you play today?” she said.

He shrugged. “Okay, I guess.”

“Are you in pain?”

“A little.”

He rotated his missing arm at the shoulder socket. “I’m still getting used to it.”

She nodded. “I’ll bet.”

“It’s hard.”

Another smile from the woman. “You’re doing great, sweetie. You’ll adjust. It’ll take time, but after a while it’ll be almost second nature. Look how far you’ve already come.”

She placed his candy into a small plastic bag. “You were out there trying,…

She was young. She was slender. She was waiting tables at a little joint. The kind of cafe you’ve seen a hundred times before in every small town backwater from here to forever.

They served bathwater coffee. Shingle toast. Hamburgers fatty enough to cause aortic embolisms.

The waitress wore red shoes. Ballet flats. They were scuffed and faded leather. She always wore red shoes because they were her trademark. Ever since girlhood.

Growing up poor does something to a kid. Growing up during a Great Depression rewires the human brain. Whenever this girl had extra money, she bought shoes. And they were always flagrant red.

She was not yet 16. But she was like all the children in her generation, mature years before her time. She was tall and elegant. A young Katherine Hepburn comes to mind. Maybe Bacall. Her dark hair was pulled back so that her long neck showed. She looked like a queen among mortals. When she walked, every eye followed her.

There were several workmen sitting in a booth.

They were bad customers. They made her life miserable. They complained about their orders. They sent their food back to the kitchen multiple times.

She did her best to serve them with charm and grace, but she kept making mistakes. The restaurant owner was called. He took the cost of their meals out of her pay. He gave the girl a scolding in front of everyone.

And that wasn’t the worst part. The worst part was the disgruntled men in the booth tipped her one penny.

One.

She cried until her makeup ran. One penny was worse than getting spit at.

But this is life. You couldn’t stop working just because you got your feelings hurt. The workday must go on. This was a Great Depression. Money didn’t grow in the backyard. There were no such things as cigarette trees or big rock candy mountains.

One of…

Vanderbilt University Medical Center. Nashville. I’m here to visit a friend. She’s in Neurosurgery ICU.

Vandy is busy today. Cars everywhere. Traffic is insane. People in scrubs linger outside monstrous buildings, playing on phones. Doctors and medical staffers wander to and fro. People stand outside the towers, having emotional conversations on cellphones.

There are folks from all walks of life here. I see a young woman using a wheelchair, heading toward the hospital entrance. She is carrying a huge stack of comic books in her lap. Superman comics.

“That’s a lot of comic books,” I say.

“Yeah, they’re for my sister. She loves Superman.”

“Not many girls like Superman.”

“Who lied to you?” she says. “All girls like Superman.”

Together, we go into the main doors of the Cancer Research Building. It’s a revolving door. I hate revolving doors.

Centuries ago, I believe the inventor of the revolving door looked at an ordinary door and said, “What if I took a normal door and added severe anxiety to it?”

Soon, the young woman and I are walking through a long

corridor toward the Critical Care Tower. The walls are earth tones. The air smells like disinfectant and plastic.

The woman in the wheelchair tells me that her sister has a very serious injury. I tell her I’m sorry. The young woman tells me she believes God is bigger than injuries.

We move past people aplenty. We see down-and-outers. We see people caught within the purgatory that is the Modern Medical Waiting Room. We wander past medical personnel, weatherworn physicians, and nurses who just look tired.

We see visitors hurriedly heading for the front door to light a cigarette. We pass a man in a clerical collar. We see families who look like they’ve been crying.

We make it to the elevators.

The young woman with the comic books says, “I’ve been basically living at this hospital for two weeks.”

I…

I went to the mailbox today and found a package. Before I opened the parcel I already knew what was inside. And it brought my whole life back in a moment.

Sometimes, my memory can be foggy. But sometimes it can be remarkably clear. On rare occasions I can remember everything.

Like the first time I went to the fair. My old man took me to ride the carnival rides with my cousin. We paid our tokens. The glorious rides only lasted a blazing 90 seconds. They were so surprisingly short that you felt cheated at the end.

Or the way I once told Eleanor Nelson I liked her, by giving her a ceramic sculpture I made in art class. A figurine of two people paddling a boat.

“What’s this?” said Eleanor.

“It’s two people in a boat.”

“Is that supposed to be me?”

“Maybe.”

“I look like I fell into a bee’s nest.”

“You mean a hive.”

“Huh?”

“Technically, bees don’t have nests, they have hives.”

“You’re a dork, you know that?”

“I do.”

I remember my first taste of corn liquor—and I’m

not making this up. My friend's father let me take a sip at a Church of God barbecue. I was only visiting. The old man’s name was Mister Travis, but everyone called him Big T.

After one tiny sip, I knew why Big T always spoke in tongues at Little League games.

My wedding ring, I remember buying it. We went to the jewelry store to pick out rings. The man behind the counter had white hair and an accent that was pure Alabama. He greeted us with:

“Well look at this pair of lovin’ younguns.”

Now there’s a little gem of a phrase.

The honeymoon my wife and I took, I’ll always remember that. It was one for the books. I had never been to Charleston before, and I certainly never thought it was possible…

Sunrise in middle Tennessee. It was four in the morning. I left my hotel early to get on the road.

I had a long way to go. There was a light dusting of frost on the Smoky Mountains. I could see my breath.

I turned on the radio and found a station playing Hank Williams’ “Alabama Waltz.”

It was a candid recording from a radio show in the 40s. Hank gave an introduction to the tune. He says, “This is a song about my home state.”

I cranked up the volume, since Hank Senior was the soundtrack of my boyhood. Every male in my life idolized Hiram King Williams. For years, as a child, I thought Hank Williams was a Bible character who played guitar.

I found the hidden backroads and headed southward toward my home in Birmingham, Alabama.

If you ask me, the modest two-lane highways that lead through the Yellowhammer State are among the most scenic corridors in the nation.

I’m not saying this because I am biased. I’m saying this because I’ve driven

backroads in 42 different American states. Alabama is up there with the best.

The scenes were arresting.

North central Alabama’s swelling Appalachian foothills were blanketed in the palettes of autumn. The whole world was golden and red. The rivers were polished chrome. It was enough to stop your pulse.

I’ve been having a love affair with this state since my youth. I grew up forty-odd miles from the state line. They called our Florida region L.A. “Lower Alabama.”

I had my first Pabst near the Coosa River. I had my first kiss in Saraland. I caught my first crappie in Houston County. I met my wife near Burnt Corn Creek.

There is something unamable about the soul of this state. Whenever I enter its borders, I feel something deep within the pit of my stomach. I can’t explain it in words. My sentences would…

DEAR SEAN:

I don’t tip at restaurants. I never tip my waitress. I am originally from the U.K. and tipping is an absolute oddity to me. Why the hell am I paying someone $10 bucks to do their job? I think tipping is stupid.

Thanks,
CONFUSED-IN-CHICAGO

DEAR CONFUSED:

You’re absolutely right, sir. There is no need to tip your servers. These people in the service industry are just looking for handouts. Screw them.

These servers ought to be grateful for the privilege of wiping your table. Tips? What a dumb notion.

Why show appreciation to ANYONE for their work? Don’t these idiots in the food-service biz know they should be grateful for their $4-per-hour jobs?

Believe me, I understand where you’re coming from, sir.

My mother worked in food service. My sister worked in food service. I worked in food service. My wife worked food service. And at one point, my mother, sister, wife, and I all worked for the same food service. I’ve met a lot of guys like you.

The truth is, we survived on our tips. Our

electric bills were paid with tips. We were tip-dependent.

If it weren’t for tips, we would have defaulted on our rent. We would have been without gasoline. We would have gone without groceries.

But who cares about all that? Tips schmips.

I applaud you for your individuality, sir. You’re probably the kind of person who also walks past homeless persons on the street, without even looking at them.

Good for you. This country needs more people like you.

It doesn’t matter that one third of the homeless population in the U.S. suffers from mental illness. Not your problem. Am I right?

Screw them. Screw their daddy issues. Screw their PTSD. Screw their exemplary service in past wars. They need to get a freaking job.

Tipping is much the same in your mind. Why should you care? Why should you…