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…

Call your mama. You asked for my advice about starting college, Chad, so that’s my advice. When you leave for your first semester at Auburn University, don’t forget to call her.

I don’t call my mother enough. I don’t know anybody who does. Which is why you should do it.

Also, don’t take yourself too seriously. Don’t take anything too seriously. I’m not saying to quit brushing your teeth. I’m only saying that lots of students take school way too seriously.

This is your life, Chad. College is Act One.

A few years ago, a study found that seventy-three percent of college graduates don’t even use their degrees. I am one of these graduates. In fact, I don’t even know exactly what my job is.

Which brings me to my next point:

You know nothing. And that’s a good thing. The less you understand about life, the happier you will be. The smarter you try to act, the more you will look like a complete jackass.

Ask any elderly man, he’ll tell you

that life was more fun when he was a dumb kid.

So a good motto for your life might be, “Hi, I’m Chad, and I don’t know diddly squat.”

The reason I tell you this is because the only way to actually LEARN diddly squat, is to not know diddly squat beforehand. So keep plenty of cobwebs in your head, don’t be afraid of not having the answers.

Also, put your phone away. Eat more bacon. Don’t bet against an underdog. Help with the dishes. Go bowling. Adopt a pet. Do not ever—this is very important—put pineapple on your pizza.

Ignore trends. The world is full of trends and fads. Fad-movies, fad-music, trendy decor, shiplap, keto, skinny jeans, edamame, etc.

Even religion has become trendy. There was a time when most churches did not approve of music with drums…

I was a little boy. I was in a bad mood. My mother sent me to my room before supper.

“You march upstairs, mister,” she told me. “You go count your blessings.”

“But MAMA!” I said.

“Count’em one by one, young man, make a long list, or you don’t get any meatloaf.”

I’m thirty-some-odd years too late, but my wife is making meatloaf tonight.

So:

My wife—because she loved me first.

And boiled peanuts. Just because.

And dogs. Every dog.

And people who stop four lanes of traffic to save dogs. And people who adopt dogs. And people who like dogs. And people who spend so much time with dogs that they start to think like dogs.

And saturated fat. Pork. Smoked bacon, cured hams, and runny yolks in my fried eggs.

And cotton clothes that just came off a summer clothesline.

And the sound wind makes when it makes its way through the trees. And the smells of fall. And rain. Garlic.

Old radio shows. As a

boy, a local station used to play reruns of Superman, the Lone Ranger, Little Orphan Annie, the Jack Benny Show, Abbott and Costello, and the Grand Ole Opry. I lived for these shows.

And the girl I met in Birmingham—she’s lived in fourteen different foster homes.

The child in Nashville—whose feet are too big for her sneakers. She can’t afford new ones.

Every soul at Children’s Hospital, Birmingham. Doctors, nurses, janitors, cooks, staff, and patients.

Every child who will be fortunate enough to see tomorrow morning. Every child who won’t.

And tomatoes. Tomatoes remind me of things deeper than just tomatoes themselves. They remind me of women who garden. Women like my mother, who suffered to raise two children after her husband met an untimely end.

Mama. The woman who made me. The woman whose voice I…

The kids in the breakfast joint are twenty-somethings, nice looking, and fit. The kind of people that belong in a running-shoe commercial. Or a beer commercial. Or a fragrance advertisement that takes place on a sailboat.

But something is off. They are taking pictures of their food. Each kid holds a phone above his or her plate.

CLICK! CLICK!

And something else. They aren’t talking to each other. They aren’t even making eye contact.

They stare at their devices, eating with one hand, holding a phone in the other.

After breakfast, my wife and I head across town. I have a busy day. I have a small-town radio interview at ten.

We arrive at the station where I sit in the waiting room. Everyone in the room is young. Nobody is conversing. Lots of phones.

“Nice weather today,” I say to one woman.

She taps on her device and says, “Hmm.”

“They’re calling for rain tomorrow,” I go on.

No answer.

“The building’s on fire,” I say. “We’re all gonna die a

horrible death.”

“Hmmm.”

I turn to the guy on my other side. “What’re you in for?”

But he’s listening to music on earphones.

And everyone else is gazing at electronic devices until their faces are slack-jawed and streams of drool fall from the corners of their mouths making puddles on the floor, which the custodian ought to be cleaning up, except he’s playing Fruit Ninja on his phone right now.

I’m invited into the sound-proof booth. We’re on the air. I wear headphones.

The host is not looking at me. Instead, he is looking at a phone. The engineer behind soundproof glass is playing on his phone, too. I could be wearing a taxidermied alligator skull for a hat and nobody would even notice.

This is getting bizarre, I’m thinking. I don’t think I’ve locked eyes with…