Noon. A Mexican taco truck. Birmingham. This parking lot is packed, if there was an empty square-inch of space it’s already filled with a Nissan or a Kia.
Earlier this morning, I was on a radio show. The host drilled me with loaded questions. It was a disaster. I was supposed to be plugging my new book, instead the host was asking slanted questions about hot-button, divisive topics.
The problem is, I don’t know how to answer divisive questions. I’m not a smart guy. I didn’t graduate high school.
Moreover, I wasn’t a particularly bright student to begin with. I was always getting letters and numbers mixed up. In fact, it took me 30 years to figure out that “taters” was spelled with a P.
I’m not qualified to talk about controversial issues. I have a hard enough time just spelling my last name.
The host’s main question of the morning was, “What do you think will save this country?”
Sadly, I had no answer for him. My only salvation was to fake a bladder emergency.
But I’m thinking about his question
right now, standing in this taco truck line.
What will save this country?
Ahead of me in line is a female police officer. She wears a blue uniform, ballistic body armor, and a chest-mounted radio. She is powerfully built. She could twist me into a human pretzel, dip me in garlic sauce and serve me with a Mick Ultra.
“Ma’am,” I begin, “can I ask you a personal question?”
“Sure.”
“What do you think will save this country?”
She frowns. “Save this what? Whatchoo mean?”
So I repeat the question.
“You know what I think will save this country?” she finally answers. “People looking out for each other, people being a blessing instead of being selfish.”
I nod and write it down.
I order chilaquiles verdes, which is my all-time favorite Mexican dish. I was first introduced to…
I have here a letter from Randy. “Sean,” the note begins—people are always calling me that. “Do you have any words of wisdom I can give to my son?
“My son, Jason, is getting married on Friday, and I am responsible for his wedding toast. I’d like some wisdom to pass on, the only problem is, I don’t have any.”
Well, Randy, I asked a handful of friends for words of wisdom from elders in their lives.
The rules were simple, the wisdom giver had to (a) be over 75, and (b) they had to be—technically—still alive. The deadline for submission was yesterday. The maxims and folk expressions came in from all over the US.
Here are some:
LINDA, 91—Being frugal doesn’t mean you have to be cheap. Being cheap doesn’t help anyone, and it takes the fun out of life. My late husband was so cheap he wouldn’t have paid a nickel to see Jesus riding a bicycle.
SIMON, 82—A lot of people are into fitness, and that’s great, I guess. But you can’t live longer, you can only
live deeper.
BEVA, 89—Happiness is a town halfway between Too Little and Too Much.
RITA, 83—American girls need to eat real food. Eat until you have to unbutton your pants now and then. Heavensake, there are girls on TV so skinny you can’t even see their shadow.
JERRY, 80—Being rich isn’t the same as being comfortable. My uncle was so rich, he bought a new boat every time the other one got wet. And he was miserable.
ROBYN, 78—Even if someone is ugly to you, don’t be ugly back.
DANNY, 91—This is a generation of workaholics. On the farm, we stopped work every day at three to enjoy our life. But young people today are busier than a cat covering crap on a marble floor. Slow down.
SAM, 88—Being humble don’t mean you ain’t got your pride. But a Rolls-Royce…
“Don’t kiss a girl without being prepared to give her your last name.”
My granny said that.
My father gave me this one: “If you so much as touch a cigarette, you might as well tear up half your paychecks from now on.”
My mother’s axiom, however, is my all-time favorite: “It’ll be okay.”
It might sound like a simple phrase, but my mother said this often. Whenever things were running off the rails. Whenever a girl broke my heart. Whenever I lost my job. Whenever I cried. Whenever I had a common cold that I believed to be, for example, tuberculosis, she said these words. I needed her to say them.
She also said: “Cleaning your plate means ‘I love you.’”
And this is why I was an overweight child.
I could keep going all day.
“Don’t answer the phone when you got company over,” my uncle once said. “It’s just flat rude.”
This one is from my elderly friend, Mister Boots: “That smartphone is making you stupid.”
My grandfather said: “Anything worth doing is worth waiting until next week to
do.” Then he’d crack open another cold one.
My wife’s mother once said: “Always carry deodorant in your truck. You don’t want to smell like you’ve been out roping billy goats when you bump into the pastor.”
Said the man named Bill Bonners, in a nursing home, from his wheelchair during an interview: “I never wanted to be a husband, I really didn’t want that. But I just couldn’t breathe without her around me.”
Mister Bill died only four days after his wife passed.
And one childhood evening, I was on a porch with my friend’s father, Mister Allen James who was whittling a stick, and he said: “Boys, if you marry ‘up,’ you’ll have to attend a lotta parties you don’t wanna go to. You wanna be happy, marry someone who knows her way around a supermarket.”…
DEAR SEAN:
My grampa is not with us any more, he is been really sick last week and now it’s all over. I don’t know what I’ll do now he’s dead, since he was always my best friend. I really don’t know why I’m tellin you all this, but you seem like it’s ok to do.
Thank you,
THIRTEEN-IN-MONTGOMERY
DEAR THIRTEEN,
If you get nothing else out of my feeble words, please remember my next sentence because I believe your grandfather would want you to know this:
You’re going to be okay.
Now, I don’t know how long this process will take. And I don’t know when it will begin. But the main thing to know is that today is not the end.
When I was your age, after my father died, I made a weird discovery about people. You’re going to think this is absolutely ridiculous, but I’m going to tell you about it anyway. And I do this for a very important reason. To meet my total word count.
As a kid I noticed that whenever people asked other people how they were doing,
they always answered from a list of five basic responses.
So let’s pretend someone asks you the following question:
“How are you?”
Take a moment to think about how you might answer this question right now. Within our culture, here are the five basic answers:
—Not too good.
—I’m fine.
—I’m okay.
—Doin’ pretty good.
—I’m great.
These are deceptively simple responses, but they’re deeper than you might think. And the reason I share these with you is because I suspect you land somewhere on this informal scale right now.
Let’s start with the first: “Not too good.”
This is the most uncommon response. Which is a shame, because it’s often the truth.
When someone asks how you’re doing, people rarely EVER answer, “Not too good.” We humans are…
This morning I woke up to an inbox flooded with emails regarding something I wrote yesterday about hope. These were all deeply personal, heartfelt messages.
There were a few emails about divorce. Three were from people losing spouses to dementia. One older lady even sent an email detailing the many orthopedic benefits of going without a bra.
And forty-two emails were about suicide.
Here are a few sample sentences from the letters:
“I was gonna take my own life when I was sixteen… But my best friend called and told me she was thinking of me.”
“My father died by his own doing and I almost died the same way when I was depressed, but my family stepped in… I’m on medication now.”
“We never said the word suicide in my house after my brother died…”
“Well, personally, I’ve always had a love-hate relationship with my bra. For me, the benefits of going braless are simple, no indents from painful wires or straps on your back fat…”
The truth is, I don’t like talking about
suicide any more than I like talking about underwire bras and back fat. For one thing: I’m male. For two: My life has been tinted by suicide.
My father took his life when I was a kid. I grew up thinking about this issue a lot and it got to a point where I wanted NOT to think about suicide ever again.
In fact, this is the reason I spent a lot of time reading humor when I was a boy. Humor is not just slinging jokes and one-liners. It’s a way of looking at the world without losing your mind. It’s sharing the worst moment in your existence in story form, then breaking the tension in the room with a flippant remark about not wearing a bra.
I say all this to tell you that suicide is a very personal subject to me. And…
This one is from my elderly friend, Mister Boots: “Smartphones have made stupid people.”
“Don’t kiss a girl without being prepared to give her your last name.”
My granny said that.
My father once said this: “If you so much as touch a cigarette, you might as well tear up half your paychecks from now on.”
My mother’s axiom, however, is my all-time favorite: “It’ll be be okay.”
It might sound like a simple phrase, but my mother said this often. Whenever things were running off the rails. Whenever a girl broke my heart. Whenever I lost my job. Whenever I cried.
Whenever I had a common cold that I believed to be, for instance, tuberculosis, she said this—I needed her to say it.
She also said: “Cleaning your plate means ‘I love you, Mama.’”
And this is why I was an overweight child.
I could keep going all day.
“Don’t answer the phone when you got company over,” my uncle once said. “It’s just flat rude.”
This one is from my elderly friend, Mister Boots: “Smartphones have made stupid people.”
My grandfather said: “Anything worth doing is worth waiting until next week to do it.”
My wife’s mother once
said: “Always carry deodorant in your truck, for crying out loud. You smell like you’ve been roping billy goats.”
Said the man named Bill Bonners, in a nursing home, from his wheelchair: “I never wanted to be a husband, I really didn’t want that. But I just couldn’t breathe without her around me.”
He died four days after his wife passed.
And one childhood evening, I was on a porch with my friend’s father, Mister Allen James who was whittling a stick, and he said:
“Boys, if you marry ‘up,’ you’ll have to attend a lotta parties you don’t wanna go to. Remember that it’s better to marry ‘down.’”
I never forgot it.
On the day of my father’s funeral, a preacher came through the visitation line and said: “No man ever truly dies.…
I could tell love stories all day.
I got a note from my friend in the mail. He just got married. It was a private ceremony, he didn’t invite anyone.
He enclosed a handwritten poem:
“Thought I’d be single until I rot,
But someone thought I was hot,
Look at me, I just tied the knot.”
Cute.
My friend is a bona fide poet. He went to school for such things. He was an eccentric free spirit who lived alone in a poet’s ratty apartment—which smelled like a wet bird dog.
He stayed up too late, writing poet’s poems. He ate ice cream for breakfast. Cereal for supper.
He had big plans for his life.
Then she happened. He met her at his nephew’s soccer game. She had three kids.
Our middle-aged, fun-loving, bird-dog smelling bachelor became a family man with three kids, a minivan, and a backyard that won’t mow itself.
Yes. I like love.
I know another woman who found love. Her husband divorced her at age seventy-three. She was a wreck. She didn’t think she would survive.
She stayed indoors for a few years, and hardly ever saw
the sun.
Then, something happened. She began to make friends. She went to the beach some. She stayed up late, she went on dates.
Then, he happened. She met a retired boat captain—he steered barges on American river routes.
She married him. He asked what she wanted for a wedding gift. She wanted to see the world. He booked a one-year trip to Europe the very next month.
I could tell love stories all day.
Like the one about Stephanie and her husband—now there’s a story. They were told they couldn’t have kids. It devastated them.
A few years later, her best friends passed away unexpectedly. Her friends were in their thirties, with a two-year-old son.
Stephanie adopted the orphan and welcomed the child into a pink-walled nursery she’d already given up on.
Then,…
Said my friend Louis: “I like cats better than dogs. Dogs don’t judge you, or hold things against you. A guy can be a real jerk and still be a dog guy. But if you’re not nice to a cat, he’ll burn your house down while you sleep.”
“Don’t kiss a girl without being prepared to give her your last name.”
My granny said that.
My father once said this: “If you so much as touch a cigarette, you might as well tear up half your paychecks from now on.”
My mother’s axiom, however, is my all-time favorite: “It’ll be be okay.”
It might sound like a simple phrase, but my mother said this often. Whenever things were running off the rails. Whenever a girl broke my heart. Whenever I lost my job. Whenever I cried.
Whenever I had a common cold I believed to actually be, in fact, tuberculosis. She said this—I needed her to say it.
She also said: “Cleaning your plate means ‘I love you, Mama.’”
And this is why I was an overweight child.
I could keep going all day.
“Don’t answer the phone when you got company over,” my Uncle John once said. “It’s just flat rude.”
This one is from my elderly friend, Mister Boots: “Smartphones have made stupid people.”
My grandfather said: “Anything worth doing is worth waiting until next week to do it.”
My mother once said: “Carry
deodorant in your truck, for crying out loud. You smell like you’ve been roping billy goats.”
Said the man named Bill Bonners, in a nursing home, from his wheelchair: “I never wanted to be a husband, I really didn’t want that. But I just couldn’t breathe without her around me.”
He died four days after his wife passed.
And one childhood evening, I was on a porch with my friend’s father, Mister Allen James—who was whittling a stick—and he said:
“Boys, if you marry ‘up,’ you’ll have to attend a lotta parties you don’t wanna go to. Remember that.”
I never forgot it.
On the day of my father’s funeral, a preacher came through the visitation line and said: “No man ever truly dies. Not really.”
I’ve said this at a few…