The Baptist church in Brewton was decked for a funeral. Men wore ties. Women wore dresses. The occasional elderly woman in a floral hat was seen wandering the premises.

You don’t see many floral hats anymore.

We were burying the preacher today. The white hearse sat parked out front. People filed into the sanctuary with sober smiles.

Most visitors were elderly. They gripped the rail with both hands as they ascended the steps.

The sanctuary was quiet. A piano played “Nearer My God to Thee.” The receiving line was long, but not that long.

“Wow,” whispered someone in line. “I thought there’d be A LOT more people here.”

“Where IS everybody?” whispered another.

An old woman replied. “They’re all dead.” She gestured toward the casket. “Because HE already buried them all.”

The man in the casket was their preacher. Although he refused to be called “Pastor.” They would only know him as “Brother.”

He was meek. Soft spoken. Quick to laugh. Children and dogs followed him around.

He had cotton hair. Ice-blue eyes that were bad

to water up whenever he got to talking about Mercy.

I first met him when he was supposed to officiate my marriage, some 23 years ago. He had been my wife’s childhood minister, but had long since retired. We were instant friends.

Even after his retirement, he still preached. He preached in a country church, way out in the sticks. Sepulga Baptist, it was called. A place so far from town they had to mail order sunshine from Sears, Roebuck & Co.

I visited Sepulga a few times. I played piano for his services. The first time I visited, there were nine members in attendance. The next time I visited, the church had grown exponentially to a congregation of nearly eleven.

There was no microphone. No sound system. No projection screen with a bouncing ball over the lyrics. Only a wooden room, with antique…

When my grandfather was born, they still used horses and buggies.

One third of Americans were farmers. Irving Berlin was a household name. Newspapers were the only form of mass communication available except for maybe shouting.

Entertainment was different, too. People entertained each other. Books were luxury items. Silent movies were around, sure, but you had to live in a big city to see one.

Baseball was king. Football was still a new invention. Nobody ever heard of basketball.

There were no radios. Victrola record players were only owned by the well-off, and the sound quality was crap. So music was a HUGE deal. Namely, because it was so rare. The only time you ever heard actual music was when you made it yourself.

There was refrigeration, either. So your eating habits reflected this. No McDonald’s. No fast food. Food was not fast. Food was incredibly, ridiculously, implausibly, unmitigatedly, outrageously, incomprehensibly, unreasonably slow.

Vegetables were always fresh. Meat was a luxury item, and super expensive, not an inalienable right. Plus, meat wouldn’t keep without cold

storage. So there was a lot of salting, curing, smoking, pickling, and preserving going on. The average American diet was three quarters vegetarian.

People sent telegrams. Nobody had telephones, unless you were born with a silver spoon shoved up your you-know-what. And even if you DID have a telephone, who the heck would you call? The Rockefellers?

Average people didn’t use lightbulbs. Especially not in the rural parts, not until the 1930s. So poor families like my grandfather’s went to bed with the sunset. They woke up with the chickens.

In those days, ordinary people weren’t insulated from the horrors of life. When someone died in the community, for example, the community dealt with it themselves. Undertakers were too expensive for country people. So you WERE the undertaker.

Let’s say your elderly aunt Lucy died at the ripe old age of 53.

First, someone’s kid…

The following is a true story. The little girl was walking with her mother. They were taking a stroll through the hospital garden, bathed in the dappled sunlight of early afternoon, looking at all the flowers in bloom.

“Mama,” said the child, “who planted all these flowers?”

Mother replied, “The gardener, I guess.”

The mother wore chemo headwear. She was frail, and much younger than she appeared. Her hands were puffy. Her vision was going bad. She had lost her tastebuds.

According to recent news, she would not be long for this world.

As they walked through the garden, they could see the landscaper, working in the soil, planting new flowers. He was on his knees, digging in the beds.

“Why does the gardener dig in the dirt like that?” the child asked.

“Because that’s how you plant flowers.”

“You mean he LIKES getting dirty?”

“I don’t know,” said Mom. “I mean, I guess so. Why else would anyone be a gardener?”

The little girl was silent, taking it all in.

The girl pointed to another grouping of yellow flowers. She didn’t know what kind they were. The

gardener noticed her pointing. He said they were Asiatic lilies.

“They’re pretty, aren’t they?” said the gardener. “I just love Asiatic lilies.”

“Did you plant those, too?” the girl asked.

“Yes, ma’am,” he said, with a note of personal pride. “I planted all the flowers you see in this garden.”

“The whole garden?” the girl replied.

“Yes’m. Everything.”

“And the trees, too?” the child asked.

“Yes, I planted the trees, too. The crepe myrtles, the tea olives…”

“What about the bushes?” asked the little girl, gesturing to the shrubs.

The gardener looked at the hydrangeas and the rhododendrons. “Yeah, those too. I planted everything you see out here. Both big and small.”

The little girl approached the man. “Why?”

The man had to laugh.

Then he shrugged. “Don’t know. Because I love…

Happy National Redhead Day. I’d like to tell you about a redhead I admire.

Her name is Morgan Love. She is 20. Her hair is Little-Orphan-Annie red. Her countenance is Saint Mother Teresa.

She has spent more of her life in a hospital than outside. And yet, I have never seen her complain. She has been on life support more than once. She has cheated death more than anyone I know.

She is a medical student. A Delta Gamma sorority sister (Anchors up!). But because of her health, her life is filled with obstacles.

She receives nutrition via feeding tube, carrying the feeding apparatus in a backpack. And yet, she rarely misses a class. She made the president’s list. She aces every test. If she ever earned a B grade, it would probably kill her.

There is a lot I could tell you about Morgan, but I’ve said it all before. I’ve written about her a lot. There are people all over the nation praying for her.

And each time they pray, their prayers work. Each

time she goes into the hospital, the doctors gaze at Morgan and get this serious tone. They prepare her for the worst. They let her know that this hospital stint could be the final curtain.

Then everyone in the room gets quiet, exchanging looks.

Whereas Morgan just smiles and tells the doctor, “Let’s just take it one step at a time.”

She’s frequently out of the hospital in another few days, riding various waterslides, trick-or-treating, or going on National Epilepsy Walks.

My favorite memory of Morgan is when we visited the Tennessee Aquarium. Morgan really wanted to go to the aquarium with us, even though it was against her doctor’s orders.

Her family decided that it was okay, and so Morgan disconnected her feeding tube so she could accompany us on our road trip.

Which meant she would go days without nutrition. But the…

LAVINA, Calif.—It was an average day. A sunny September morning, with highs approaching the 100s. Hot enough to melt commercial truck tires and sauté small woodland creatures on the pavement. (But it’s a dry heat.)

It was a rural area. Hundreds of acres of almond trees. The scent of organic fertilizer filling the air.

Two farmworkers were repairing a broken tractor near Avenue 8 and Road 23 ½ in Madera County. That’s when they noticed something.

The men saw a school bus on fire.

There it was. A big yellow vehicle sitting in the nearby intersection. A Madera United School District school bus, emitting massive plumes of black smoke.

There were children aboard.

The two workmen dropped their tools and rushed toward the bus. They charged aboard, fighting through billows of dark smoke to reach the final children who sat in the back rows.

They removed all the children from the bus only moments before the vehicle burst into flames.

Within minutes, the yellow school bus was completely engulfed. And as the vehicle’s steel frame

creaked and groaned beneath high heat, and as tongues of fire consumed the body of the vehicle, 20 school children waited on the shoulder of the highway. Alive. And safe.

Miraculously, nobody was hurt.

Recently, the two men were honored by Madera County board of supervisors, along with a crowd of people who gathered to recognize them.

The two workers showed up in jeans, boots, work shirts, and ball caps. The uniform of the American farmer.

The men were quiet, unassuming, meek. They gently accepted their certificates, posed with county officials for photo opps, and even gave a few interviews to local news stations.

But beneath the celebrative activities, you could tell these men were uncomfortable in the spotlight. Most real heroes are.

Even so, the whole story seems remarkably unreal. Think about it. A bus catches fire in a remote area, surrounded by farmland,…

On Interstate 71, just outside Carrollton, Kentucky, stands a lone highway sign. It’s a small sign, DOT-green, no frills. Easy to miss.

But it’s there.

The sign reads, “SITE OF FATAL BUS CRASH—MAY 14, 1988.” That’s all.

Thousands of cars pass this sign on their way to work. Heading toward Cincinnati. Maybe tens of thousands. I wonder how many remember what happened here.

The Carrollton bus collision was one of the deadliest bus crashes in US history. The collision involved a church youth-group bus, and an ‘87 Toyota pickup.

The former school bus was filled with mostly teens. The Radcliff Assembly of God youth group had been returning from King’s Island amusement park. It had been a sunny day.

Just before midnight, a drunk driver’s pickup struck the front of the bus. The bus’s suspension broke, a detached leaf spring rammed into the bus gas tank. The front door was jammed shut. The fire started immediately.

Passengers started evacuating through the narrow emergency door, squeezing through the tiny opening.

But when you have 60-odd teenagers crammed into a 12-inch

aisle, all pressing towards the same miniature exit—the only available exit—you have disaster.

The crush of bodies was too much. The kids were gridlocked, unable to move. Within four minutes, the entire bus was on fire. Children were screaming. Metal was creaking. Smoke everywhere.

Twenty-seven died. Most victims were between ages 13 and 14. Their bodies were recovered facing the rear exit, trying to escape.

But that’s not the story here. The real story is what happened afterwards.

Thirty-six years later, the survivors of this crash are still out there. And they haven’t exactly been sitting on their hands.

I’ll tell you about a few.

There is Harold Dennis, who survived with severe burns, and intense facial scarring. He could’ve given up. He could’ve quit. But he went on to play football for the University of Kentucky. Today, he travels the…