The Dothan Opera House is an old building, constructed during World War I. Everyone has performed here. Willie Nelson, the Statler Brothers, Conway Twitty, Bob Dylan.

It’s a nice building. The brick edifice is Classical Revival. The arched windows are Italianate. The city recently pumped some major cashola into this place. And it shows. The opera house is gorgeous.

I arrived early for a pre-performance soundcheck, driving our dilapidated van, “Myrtle.” Myrtle is not gorgeous.

Myrtle used to be a plumber’s van. Myrtle has been with us a long time. She looks exactly like the kind of van you’d expect to be driven by a guy who, whenever he squats to work beneath your kitchen sink, you see eight inches of exposed, bare, white gluteal cleft.

My name was on the opera house marquee. I saw this, and my eyes started to blur.

My life began here in Dothan. Of all places. About 12 years ago.

At the time, I had just graduated from community college. Before that, I had

been a dropout. I earned my high-school equivalency. Which, consequently, is one of the hardest things I’ve ever done. Anyone who believes GED recipients are not as smart as everyone else should take the GED exam.

Being a dropout is difficult. When you’re a dropout, you can’t shake the feeling that you’re a waste of oxygen. This feeling pervades your being. You walk into a room of ordinary folks and, no matter who they are, you rank beneath them.

After a while, the dropout begins the slow process of devaluing himself or herself. You start to believe what everyone else believes. You are trash. Lower than trash. Societal debris.

People give you weird looks when they hear that you didn’t attend high school. They look at your feet and seem surprised…

I come from a long line of porch sitters. This is why I am always on my porch. In my neighborhood, I am affectionately known as “that weirdo freak who’s always on his porch.” This is usually said in a positive way.

But I can’t help it. Since infanthood, the only place I ever wanted to be was a porch. There I’d be, wearing my onesie, crawling on the porch, drooling on myself, and testing the maximum capacity limits of my diaper. Whenever my mother’s friends visited, they would pick me up to take me inside and I would start crying. They would return me to the floorboards and say, “There’s something wrong with Sue’s baby.”

People would continue saying this for many years thereafter.

My current porch is a modest, but peaceful place. You can hear faroff trains, passing through Birmingham. Or listen to neighborhood dogs communicating via International Bark Telegraph.

We have a haint blue porch ceiling. Rocking chairs. The hanging ferns on my

porch are my favorite.

We have eight ferns in total. They are healthy and lush because my wife makes me place them in the yard, one by one, whenever it’s about to rain. This is because my wife sincerely believes rainwater is better than hosepipe water. Which is an old wives tale, of course.

Just like the wives tale that says children can’t swim for an hour after they eat lunch or they’ll drown, which is scientifically proven to be false. For decades, however, due to this misinformation, millions of young Americans missed countless carefree swimming hours, whilst their mothers caught up on the latest installment of “Days of Our Lives.”

I often begin my porch-sitting early. Before sunup. I see the whole day begin.

The birds start about 5 a.m., in preparation for sunrise—which is a pretty big deal in Bird World. The birds get…

“Dear Sean,” the email began. “I teach vacation Bible school… Last year we had three Latino children whose parents are undocumented immigrants…

“Church leadership felt it best not to allow these children to attend VBS this year. It broke my heart, the kids don’t understand, I’m really struggling with this decision. What should I do?”

Dear Anonymous, I can’t tell you what to do. And I can’t tell you what to think. What I can tell you, is a story.

Our tale begins in Philadelphia, 12 years after the Civil War. Nineteenth-century Philly was a rough place to live. “The City of Brotherly Love” had degenerated into “The City of ‘You Suck.’”

A little background. Riots had been occurring all over town. There were labor riots, anti-Irish riots, anti-Catholic riots, riots between Blacks and Whites, riots between German and Italians.

There was even a city-wide riot over which Bible translation schools should use, which resulted in a school being burned down. Churches were burned, too. Places of business were torched. People were being

killed all the time. Not pretty.

Philadelphia was a giant “melting pot,” only a few miles from the Mason-Dixon line. So after the war the population of Black Americans rose from four percent to nearly 20.

Also, Irish immigrants were arriving, literally, by shiploads; 750,000 Irish refugees entered America during this period. Philadelphia had the largest population of Irish immigrants in the country.

Pretty soon, 2 million of Philadelphia’s residents were foreign-born immigrants. During this era, the city population would double in a span of only 30 years. It was the perfect storm.

Nobody was getting along. Every day featured brawling in the pubs, fighting in the schools, deaths in the streets.

Enter Reverend Clarence Herbert Woolston.

Let’s call him “Herb.” Herb was a kindly white-haired minister who looked like everyone’s favorite grandpa. He’d been a preacher at East Baptist for almost 40 years. He was a…

Whenever I am feeling sad and blue, I visit my living room coffee table. I sit on my sofa, which is adorned with chew toys, claw marks, canine hair, exposed couch stuffing, and various upholstery springs, and petrified trails of dog drool that resemble evidence of past slug races.

There, I consult a book that sits on my coffee table. I open this book and almost always feel better.

I consult this book whenever life starts to feel heavy. Whenever people in the world seem particularly bat-excrement insane. Whenever my fellow Americans become uncharitable, arrogant, selfish, or worse, political.

That’s where this book comes in handy.

Inside this book are famous paintings. Most of these paintings were originally covers for the “Saturday Evening Post” magazine.

The first painting in this book is entitled “Before the Shot” (1958). The painting shows a little boy, in a doctor’s office. The boy is unfastening his pants, getting ready for a shot, and his little

white butt is showing. Meanwhile, the doctor is by the window, preparing the syringe. The painting makes you smile, no matter who you are. Especially if you’ve ever had a little white butt of your own at one time.

There is the series of paintings about “Willie Gillis.” From 1941 to 1946, the Post ran covers about a fictional character named Willie, a freckle-faced young man who was swept away into the madness of World War II.

Willie begins as a boy. Then he enters the military, wide-eyed and hopeful. Throughout a series of mostly lighthearted images, we see the war change Willie. When he comes back home, he’s looks less optimistic. And there’s something deeply moving about this change in him over five years of hell.

There is the artist’s depiction of “Rosie the Riveter” (1943). She embodies the post-Depression, wartime, hardworking blue-collar woman. She is proud, brawny, holding her…

Waffle House. My waitress has a bunch of tattoos. The women customers in the booth behind mine are talking about it in voices loud enough to alter the migratory patterns of waterfowl.

“Did you see ALL her tattoos? Our waitress?”

“I know.”

“Why do they DO that to themselves?”

“I know.”

I personally do not have tattoos. I come from teetotalling fundamentalists whose moms ironed our Fruit of the Looms. If I had come home with, for example, a Superman tattoo on my chest, the proverbial fertilizer would have hit the proverbial oscillating fan.

But I don’t dislike tattoos the way some do. No, tattoos weren’t in fashion when WE were young, but if they had been, believe me, we’d have them.

I know this because during my youth members of my generation were clambering to purchase $10 polo shirts with $90 alligators embroidered on the fronts.

My friend Pete and I were the only ones in the entire fifth grade who did not own Izod polo shirts. So Pete and I took matters into our own hands.

Pete’s mom had an embroidery machine. We begged her to craft a dozen alligator patches to sew onto our Kmart polos and—voila!—instant cool factor.

We gave Pete’s mom DETAILED instructions, then left her unsupervised. Which, looking back, was a mistake. Because Pete’s mother delivered 12 polo shirts bearing colorful patches of Snoopy, Papa Smurf, and four of the original seven dwarves.

The waitress was visiting each table, warming up coffees. She visited two ladies behind me. The ladies represented my generation. Their conversation kept growing louder.

“They just look so trashy. Tattoos.”

“I know, I wish I could tell these kids, ‘Quit screwing up your bodies.’ It’s stupid.”

The young waitress finally made it to my table. I saw her inkwork. Her arm was painted in a sleeve of faded reds and greens. Images of dragons adorned her forearms.

“I like your…

“I want to be a writer…” the email began. “I was sharing my work on social media but people kept leaving hateful comments. Sometimes I’d be left in tears.

“Do you have any advice? To be honest, I feel moderately forestalled. How do I get into the writing business? Should I start my own Substack?”

Well, first off, congratulations on this exciting new path. The fact that you’re coming to ME for professional advice is the first step in any career’s long and steady downward spiral into flames.

Namely, because, as a longtime professional writer, I still have to move my lips when sounding out phrases like “moderately forestalled.”

Frankly I don’t know anything about the business of writing. And I’ll let you in on a secret, neither do the publishers, editors, marketing teams, or prof reeders. This is why the publishing industry has perhaps the highest turnover rate among employees except for, perhaps, the mafia.

Moreover, I’m the wrong guy to ask for help because I’m not a businessman. I suck at business.

A good example of this is when I was a Cub Scout. We Scouts sometimes went door to door, selling homemade cookies which our moms had baked. I don’t know why we did this. The Cub Scouts are not classically known for their cookies like Girl Scouts.

When you attend a Cub Scout troop meeting and witness a dozen boys entertaining themselves with poorly executed professional wrestling chokeholds, or telling jokes whose punchlines consist solely of bodily noises powerful enough to register on the Richter scale, you do not immediately think “cookies.”

Nevertheless, we sold cookies. I was a bad salesman. My only sales technique was to knock on a door, then blurt out, “SORRY FOR BOTHERING YOU!” Then I would speed-walk away. If someone had wanted to actually buy cookies from me, they would’ve had to chase me home and purchase them from my mother.

It was raining when we saw the big cross. In the distance. We’d been told about the cross. We knew it was near. Everyone on the trail had been talking about it.

It’s called the Iron Cross. Or “Cruz de Ferro.” It sits on the trail, located at the highest point of the Camino de Santiago, between Foncebadón and Manjarín. It’s tall, really tall. And surrounded by a massive mound of rocks.

We pilgrims had our rocks in our pockets, intended for leaving at the cross. It’s a tradition. The rocks represent your burdens. You’re supposed to pick out a few rocks when you start the trail, carry them for weeks on the Camino, then leave them at the cross. It’s symbolic. And, if I’m being honest, a little cheesy.

But everyone does it. So you must join them. Some people even bring rocks from home. They carry them on the plane and everything. Try explaining this to the TSA personnel.

The rain picked up tempo. My 5X palm leaf cowboy hat was dripping

at the brim. The cowboy hat had been a Godsend on the trail. You never realize how functional a cowboy hat is until you wear one in the rain.

I’ve been wearing a cowboy hat since I was a boy. My father wore cowboy hats, and he wore them non-ironically. He came from farmers and cattlemen. It’s just what they did.

I stepped up to the cross. I reached into my pocket for my rocks.

When you view the mound of stones up close it will move you. Many stones are decorated with artwork. There are photographs. Hair ribbons. Baby shoes. Notecards. Wedding rings. There are farewells to loved ones, written on looseleaf pages, covered in cursive.

I placed my rocks at the cross. I had three. It doesn’t…

I can’t write. I don’t know why.

Every time I sit down, I can’t do it. Namely, I keep asking myself “Why are you writing this?” Then I get up and go outside.

I’ve been writing professionally for upwards of a decade. And suddenly, I don’t know why I’m doing it. What’s wrong with me?

Since my wife and I finished walking the Camino de Santiago, life just feels different. I don’t mean “different” in a woo-woo, spooky way. I mean in a practical way.

Part of my mind is still hovering somewhere over the Iberian Peninsula, flying over orange groves, deserts, and Galician mountains.

Maybe I feel strange because you don’t spend 40 days on foot, beneath a hot Spanish sun, carrying your possessions on your back, and not find yourself a little overwhelmed when you walk into, say, Publix supermarket.

Our local grocery store has 1,008,327 different varieties of orange juice. We have pulp free, pulp intensive, 100% juice, 50% juice, and %100

juiceless orange juice. There is almost an entire aisle dedicated solely to peanut butter.

Maybe I’m disoriented because, as you walk the Camino, you are walking mostly in silence, through primitive villages, some with less than 50 residents. And it’s so quiet out there. Whereas, America is anything but silent.

When our plane touched down in Chicago, my wife and I scurried across O’Hare International Airport to catch our connecting flight.

The knowledge that we were in actually America hadn’t quite settled into my brain yet. I still FELT like we were in Spain. So when I found an airline employee, I asked for directions to our gate in Spanish.

The employee just looked at me with a blank face and replied: “Learn freaking English, sir.”

And I knew I was home.

Since then, nothing has seemed the same. I’ve been spending a…

We entered Santiago de Compostela at 2:11 p.m. On foot. We’d been hiking since sunup. Our pace was slow. Our clothes, threadbare. I was muttering the 23rd Psalm—a kind of private meditation on the trail. 

Two tired pilgrims. Thirty-six days on the trail. Five hundred miles. Thousands of public toilets, none of which have been properly cleaned since the installation of the previous pope. 

We looked bad. Smelled bad. Felt good. Splintered rubber, flaking from our soles. Mud-frosted backpacks. Athletic tape, wrapped tightly around my shin-splinted legs. 

For a brief moment, hobbling into Santiago, I wasn’t sure which century we were in. Were we modernized American tourists, trudging across 21st-century Spain, with smartphones in our pockets? Or were we 9th-century pilgrims, desperate and tattered, clad in sandals, clambering to see the remains of history’s first martyred apostle? 

I really couldn’t tell you. 

The cobblestone streets beneath us were ancient, polished smooth from centuries of Reeboks. The crowded sidewalk cafès were serving lunch. Café customers were applauding us pilgrims as we marched slowly past. 

“Vaya!” people were shouting with glee. Shouting and cheering. “Ya estás casi

ahí!” 

At once I saw the ornate campana towers, high in the distance. Taller than everything else. Reaching into the clouds. 

“I can see it!” Jamie shouted. “I see the cathedral tower!”

I started crying. I don’t know why. 

“There it is!” said a few pilgrims. 

Everyone’s pace increased. 

Obradoiro Square was crowded with pilgrims. Thousands. Everywhere. Some lying on the pavement, smoking cigarettes, or taking naps with heads resting on their packs. 

Most were new pilgrims, who just started the trail a few days ago. Young. Cheerful. Still fresh. FaceTiming loved ones. Taking mass selfies. Slapping each other on the backs. Howling loudly, as though their newly…