Today, a 4.8 magnitude earthquake hit New York City at approximately 10:23 a.m. I got a lot of emails about it. Ron emailed me about it first, only moments after it happened.

He was sitting in a café, after the quake hit, trying to get his heart beating again. “I thought my roof was going to fall in. So I rushed out into the hall and took the elevator down to the street.”

Let it be noted that Ron is a smart professional who attended a good college, holds two degrees, has a good job, and earns a decent median income. And yet he chose to use an elevator during an earthquake evacuation.

“It all happened so fast,” Ron points out.

The earthquake was felt throughout the Tri-State Area, including upstate, and Philadelphia. People felt the impact as far away as Maryland. The U.S. Geological Survey says intense tremors were experienced from Maine to Washington, D.C.

“I was out walking my dog,” said Rita, who lives in Manville, New Jersey. “I felt

things move underneath my feet, and my dog was totally freaking out.”

The first thing Rita did was call her son and ask if he felt it. He lives in Massachusetts. “I could sorta feel it,” he told his mom, “but the stuff on my counters was shaking bad.”

There have been at least four aftershocks since the earthquake hit. None of them serious. There was little damage done. New York got off the hook easy.

But the real story today is about a guy who I'll call Todd.

Todd lives in the Bronx. He’s a construction worker. The Bronx is a borough of New York City that contains the poorest congressional district in the United States. Todd lives in a rundown building with his grandmother.

Todd was with his 72-year-old grandmother when the earthquake hit, feeding her breakfast. She is on oxygen. She has a forest of…

Do this. Get a tomato. Not just any tomato. A Slocomb, Alabama, tomato. Make sure the tomato is firecracker-red and softer than the hindcheeks of a 2-month-old. Find a serrated knife. Cut said tomato into thick slices about the width of the unabridged edition of “Shogun.”

Tomatoes from Geneva County, Alabama, are different from common varieties. They are superior tomatoes.

In fact, top archaeology scholars at Columbia University now believe that the original Garden of Eden was located just north of Highway 52 in Geneva County. And most experts agree that the forbidden fruit consumed by Adam and Eve was originally purchased from the Hendrix Farm Produce tomato stand.

Next, find two slices of Sunbeam bread. In a pinch, you can use Bunny Bread, Wonderbread, or Colonial bread. But stay away from any bread with packaging labels that read something like, “59 whole grains and seeds!” or “3,234 grams of dietary fiber!” This isn’t real bread but an abrasive material meant for sanding boat hulls.

Consequently, if all you have in your

pantry is “gluten-free” or “keto” bread, please stop reading here and go back to California.

Once you have your white, floppy, flaccid, tasteless bread ready, open a jar of Duke’s mayonnaise. Duke’s is the brand with the canary-yellow lid, manufactured and packaged by real evangelical seminary graduates so you know it’s sacred, mostly.

If you don’t have any Duke’s, you’re not totally out of luck. Blue Plate mayonnaise will also work nicely. Bama mayonnaise is also a winner.

Hellmann’s, however, isn’t fit for consumption by a golden retriever. Similarly, Miracle Whip is neither a “miracle,” nor a “whip,” but the brainchild of communists sympathizers who don’t love the Lord. And Kraft mayo is industrial doorknob lubricant.

It bears mentioning, if all you have in your refrigerator is a kind of mayonnaise labeled “light” or “low fat” please forfeit your tomato to someone who will use it correctly and…

Hank got home from work late. His 1969 Buick Riviera—metallic blue—rolled into the carport of a nondescript one-story-one-bath in Suburbia, USA. He stepped out of his car. He stretched his back.

It was nighttime. The moon was out.

He was tall, lean, with salt-and-pepper hair. More salt than pepper. He wore a tan suit and a striped necktie because this was the uniform of the American desk jockey.

In his den, Hank found his son and daughter sitting cross-legged before a glowing television screen, their two noses practically smooshed against the tele-tube glass.

Hank’s wife was perched on the edge of their sofa, smoking Camels, her eyes focused on the RCA console.

“Hi,” said Hank.

“Ssshhh,” his wife said.

She didn’t say “Hello.” Neither did she say, “Hi, honey, how was work?” It was just “Sssshhh.”

“Sorry I’m home late,” he said. “Traffic was just—”

“Sssshhh,” everyone said in unison.

He left the den and entered the vinyl kitchen. He placed his briefcase onto the enamel kitchen table. He retrieved an Old Milwaukee from the Kelvinator refrigerator.

In the oven was

his Swanson TV dinner, baking on low heat, still boiling in its volcanic-lava gravy. He took one bite of his unevenly heated turkey-and-mashed-potatoes and the roof of his mouth was ruined forevermore.

This food reminded him of the C-rations he ate when he was in Italy, fighting Hitler. Except, the field rations tasted better than this flash-frozen slop.

He returned to the den to find his family still rapt before the screen.

He said, “What are you all watchin—”

“SSSHHH!!!”

The voice on the TV sounded like it was coming from a walkie-talkie. The voice said: “This is Houston, Roger. We copy. And we're standing by...”

His family was lost within the black spell of the boob tube. He didn’t understand these people. How had they let technology invade their lives like this? Look at them. They were vegetables.

“I’ve never met a blind dog before,” said the little boy.

He was a foster child, his foster mother was with him. We were all introduced by chance in a public park.

The boy watched my dog, Marigold, walking along, bumping into a nearby fence. We were out for a potty-break. Marigold was trying to find a suitable patch of grass to do what I call, “leaving constructive criticism.”

The boy watched us in rapt wonder. We are a team. Dog and man. Marigold and me.

I am Marigold’s “Seeing Eye” human. My job is to guide her through this world of woe. I have no idea what I’m doing, but I’m trying.

And at this particular moment, I was following Marigold closely with a plastic baggy over my hand, ready to do my duty.

“Why is she blind?” the boy asked.

I chose my words carefully. Because how do you tell an innocent foster child that somebody took a blunt object to this puppy’s head and destroyed her eyes?

How do you tell a child there are humans out there who would use

a length of rebar as a weapon against a soft, floppy-eared puppy?

“Someone hurt her,” I said.

“Why?”

“Not everyone’s a nice person.”

The boy’s eyes grew serious. “Yeah. I know.”

He looked at Marigold prancing along and said nothing. He just observed.

The kid was maybe 6. He wore Levi’s and a striped shirt that showed his little belly. His hair was strawberry. Opie Taylor eat your heart out.

His foster mother said he’s had a rough life. And that is all I’m permitted to tell you about him.

He watched Marigold with great interest. Marigold walks with a cautious gait. Sometimes she high-steps like she’s hiking through tall grass. She does this so she won’t stumble on any sudden obstacles.

We’ve been working on things, every day. When we go for walks, off-leash, I…

Lake Martin is calm. There aren’t many people here. Spring break is over. All the bikinis and beer kegs have gone home, never to return again until this summer.

I am watching the still water, thinking about how much I’ve changed.

I’m older. I’m stiffer in the mornings. I don’t have the metabolism I used to. Used to, I could eat a Big Mac and finish the day like a hummingbird. Now I become akin to a gorilla hit with a tranquilizer dart.

Time seems to move faster, too. I don’t know why. When I was a 10-year-old one day lasted a hundred years. At this age, a day is only a few minutes.

Life, my granddaddy used to say, is not unlike a roll of toilet paper; the closer you get to the end, the faster it goes. And oftentimes, the roll is finished long before you are.

Wisdom.

Sometimes I wish we could slow down the aging process, but the only way we could do that is to get Congress involved. And what would

be the point?

Old age used to be coveted. Old age used to be a big deal. Sadly, it’s not cool to be old anymore. When was the last time you saw an elderly person in a car commercial?

My grandmother used to always say old age is a privilege denied to many. She ought to have known. It was denied to her. She wasn’t 70 when she died.

My aunt Irma was 77 when she went. She was a tough woman. She buried three husbands, and two of them were just napping.

I bring all this up because I made a speech yesterday at an old folks home. Yes, I know you’re not supposed to call them old folks homes, they’re “assisted living facilities.”

But the old folks were calling it an “old folks home” because old folks don’t get worked up about…

“What is Easter?” the boy asked his grandfather.

The old man and boy sat on the front porch. That’s where people used to sit in the olden days. They used to build porches on the fronts of houses so you could wave at your neighbors. Now they build “decks” on the back so you can wave at your above-ground pool.

“Easter is a day of rebirth,” said Granddaddy.

The two cohorts were still wearing their Sunday best. The boy: His necktie and khakis. The grandfather: His button down, crisply pressed, with only a few tobacco-spit stains on the collar.

“What’s rebirth?” the boy said.

“Well, you remember when you was born, don’t you?”

“No.”

“Well, trust me you were born, or else you wouldn’t be here.” Granddaddy took a sip of his Doctor Pepper. “And today it all happens again.”

“What happens again?”

“You get born.”

“I get born twice?” the boy said.

He nodded. “Look at the trees and the flowers, see how they’re all blooming? You see those azaleas across the street.”

“Which ones are the azaleas?”

“The pink ones that Mrs. Wannamaker will slit your throat you if

you touch.”

“I see them.”

“And the trees, look at them. They’re turning green. The birds are singing. That’s what resurrection means.”

“It means birds?”

“No. Resurrection means, when something comes back to life. And it’s a miracle, every time something gets reborn. Because a new beginning is a miracle.”

“Is that why we look for eggs on Easter?”

“No. Hell. I don’t know why we look for eggs.”

He took another sip. “Look,” he went on, “you know all those crosses people wear around their necks?”

“Yes.”

“Well, I think we’re wearing the wrong thing around our necks. We shouldn’t be wearing the cross. The cross is death. It’s a tool of execution. It’s like wearing an electric chair around your neck. Or a hangman’s noose.”

“Granny wears…

Yesterday was Vietnam War Veterans Day. It’s the day the last troops were pulled from Vietnam.

In Washington D.C., near the intersection of 22nd Street NW and Constitution Avenue NW, just north of the Lincoln Memorial, stands their wall. A wall of black granite. It’s huge.

The Vietnam Veterans Memorial consists of 140 stone panels, polished to a high finish, sunken into the earth. The panels create a massive wall that is 493 feet and 6 inches long, about the size of a skyscraper laid on its side.

You expect the wall to be big, but you’re not prepared for how big it really is. This thing is ginormous.

I was in D.C. a few months ago. The granite gleamed in the morning sun, I stood before the never-ending wall of stone, sipping a bottle of water, taking it all in. The Washington Monument was on one side, Honest Abe was on my other.

There was an old man and his grandson roaming the wall, reading the names reverently. The old man had a wild white

beard, he wore an army cap.

“Look, Grandpa,” said the kid, “is this one my uncle’s name?”

“Lower your voice,” said Granddaddy.

“But… Why are we whispering?

“Respect,” the old man said.

There was indeed a very respectful mood at the Vietnam memorial, which surprised me. I’ve been to U.S. war memorials before. And at most National Park Service war memorials the mood is nonchalant, happy even. Because most memorials commemorate wars that happened so long ago that nobody can remember them.

At the Gettysburg Memorial, for example, I saw hundreds of families pushing strollers, laughing, posing with performers in Civil War costumes, snapping selfies. At Arlington National Cemetery, I saw school kids playing tag among gravestones.

But people were silent here.

The Vietnam Veterans Memorial is not like other American memorials. Here, I saw old men touching the wall, heads bowed. There were…

Opening Day of baseball.

The neighborhood is alive with summer sounds. It’s lunchtime. I’m sipping my lunch from a tin can.

I have a friend with me. A 12-year-old blind girl named Becca. My goddaughter and I are wearing loud, ugly Hawaiian shirts and our Braves hats. Per the tradition. My wife is cussing at the radio.

A few streets over, I hear kids’ voices. Their far-off laughter is infectious. I know they’re playing catch because I hear the rhythmic slaps of leather. Like a metronome.

And I’m thinking about the innumerable evenings my father and I played catch. Catch was our thing. We played whenever the mood hit.

Daddy never went anywhere without our ball gloves in the backseat. We played catch in all kinds of places. In public parks. In driveways. Backyards. In the church parking lot, during the sermon.

Some men’s fathers were Methodists or Presbyterians. My father was a National League man.

Which is why I am on the front porch, listening to dad’s old Zenith console radio. Tweed speaker. Particle-wood cabinet. The

game sounds like it’s coming out of a walkie talkie, courtesy of 690 AM. Joe Simpson is in good voice today.

As each year goes by, baseball gets harder to love. The salaries get higher. The game gets more commercial. I keep getting older; the players stay the same age.

The sport of my youth no longer resembles itself. When I was a kid, professional baseball was played by guys who looked like beer-swilling lumberjacks and retired war veterans.

Bucky Dent was the man. Dale Murphy was a deity. You had guys like George Brett, with cheeks full of Red Man, rushing the mound after an inside pitch to beat the pitcher’s everlasting aspirations.

We had Ripken. Nolan. Sid Bream. And it wasn’t a game unless Bobby Cox made a serious attempt to decapitate an umpire.

Baseball has new rules now. The worst…

She sang before a small room in the back of an average American library. A 12-year-old blind girl. She’s cuter than a duck in a hat.

She stood before a microphone. She sang. Her eyes were closed because her eyelids don’t open. Her irises are dead, but her eyes used to be hazel.

She wore dental braces. She was clothed in a blue dress. Her hair was in braids. She’s a typical kid. Loves macaroni and cheese. Adores her iPhone. Appreciates any kind of humor that makes usage of the word “butt,” “booger,” or “fart.”

There were 120 of us piled up in the library. All Birminghamites. I was doing an informal book event. I made a speech. I wanted her to sing to my friends.

She did. I guided her to the mic. She sang the song of my grandparent’s generation. “Smile.” Written by Charlie Chaplin in 1936.

A song my grandmother used to hum throughout the Great Depression. A song with lyrics that remind listeners that life is still

worthwhile, if you smile. A song that’s gotten me through some hard times.

The sniffles started from the back of the room. They moved to the front. Soon, the accompanist was sniffing, too.

You watch a blind girl, a kid who has undergone some 50 million surgeries; a kid who was born to drug-addicted parents who left her in a crib for the first two years of her life so that her head was flattened; a kid who wasn’t touched; a kid who spent the first portion of her life withdrawing from crack in an NICU; and this kid tells you to smile although your “heart is breaking,” it does something to you.

An old man broke down and wept. And old woman had to be escorted out of the room. A young boy started crying so hard he had to be consoled.

The kid got a standing ovation.…

One year.

It’s been one year since it happened. Blessed are the victims of the Covenant School shooting in Nashville, for they are with God.

Blessed are the Covenant School staff members, the traumatized, the wounded, for these shall be called Children of God.

Blessed are the three 9-year-olds, Hallie Scruggs, Evelyn Dieckhaus, and William Kinney, whose innocent bodies were demoralized in a senseless act of murder, for they are seated on the lap of the Almighty. Blessed are Cynthia Peak (61), Mike Hill (61), and Katherine Koonce (60), for their lives were beautiful.

Blessed are their loved ones, with broken hearts, with battered minds. Blessed are all Nashvillians who wept one year ago.

Blessed are the shell-shocked. Blessed are the confused. Blessed are the pissed-off. Blessed are the traumatized. Blessed are the people who still blame themselves, even though it’s not their fault. Blessed are the bystanders.

Blessed are the men and women in Nashville who can think of no other way to respond to this erratic tragedy than

to help others.

Blessed are the total strangers who showed up on the scene 365 days ago, just to cry. Blessed are those gathered outside Covenant School to hold candles, present bouquets, and memorialize the lost ones.

Blessed are the local media persons whose job was to stand in front of cameras and report, matter-of-factly, on the worst crime of humanity.

Blessed are all those with big hearts, who just wanted to help. Blessed are the givers. The doers. The feeders. The bakers. The babysitters. The shuttle drivers. In a world of people blinded by their own anger, bless you. A million times, bless you. You are not invisible.

Blessed are those who painstakingly tried to maintain peace, especially while everyone else in this world was fighting like rabid canines. As politicians held public urination contests, and random people on Facebook fought from 3,000 miles away. Blessed are the peacemakers.