We had a major potato salad crisis at our Fourth-of-July barbecue. Someone forgot to designate a family member to be the official “bringer of potato salad.” So everyone took it upon themselves to bring potato salad. We had 2,927 varieties.

There are few things more American than a full-scale potato salad war. When I saw all that Corningware and outdated olive drab Tupperware lined up on the buffet, all filled with concoctions of boiled potatoes and mayonnaise, it made me feel warm and patriotic inside.

I don’t have to remind you that it’s been a long year. A really long one. This backyard barbecue was long overdue.

Last year my family didn’t even do a Fourth-of-July cookout. There was a pandemic going on. Instead, my wife and I sat at home and played dominoes. We had no covered dishes. No potato salad. I think we ate cold leftover Chinese takeout and watched a “Laverne and Shirley” marathon. And I hate dominoes.

Thankfully, that sad year is miles behind us now.

Today, the aunts and uncles arrived by the dozens, all carrying 30-pound jugs of potato salad. My mother-in-law made several kilos of her special celery-pimento potato salad. Even a few of the little kids had prepared some potato salad, which tasted pretty good once you picked out the Lego pieces.

Meanwhile, my brother-in-law was manning the charcoals, flipping hamburgers, trying to remember everyone’s picky food orders. No two burgers at our get-together were the same. In this modern age everyone is on some kind of special diet.

We had the beautiful people who only wanted 99-percent lean hamburgers. We had “keto” and “paleo” people who wanted high cholesterol beef. And lastly, we had those who chose to eat tofu and grain burgers. “The tofu is colored with delicious beet juice,” reported one vegetarian.

Me? I went straight for the potato salad. My wife had prepared enough potato salad to ruin…

The radio played George Jones at the barbecue joint where I ate lunch. I was eating Saint Louis ribs. Overhead, George Jones sang “He Stopped Loving Her Today.”

Whenever George sings the opening lyrics to this tune, a chill dances up my spinal column and I get sentimental. Immediately, I remember sitting in my father’s truck cab, wearing my Little League uniform, listening to the staticky AM station.

I glanced around the barbecue joint to make sure I wasn't being watched during my musical moment. Then I dabbed my chin with a napkin and helped George remember the words.

I write a lot about old country music, and I’m sure the subject gets tiresome. But I do this for an important and well-planned reason:

Because I don’t have to do any actual research.

But also, because if you and I don’t keep these timeless melodies alive, who will?

As a boy, my family drove great distances to support the cause of Minnie Pearl and Roy Acuff. We paid good money to watch Roy tear up his

apple-tree fiddle and crack jokes alongside Sarah Cannon. Ernest Tubb was still making appearances at the Opry when I was a babe. And I don’t want to let all that go.

The idiocy they’re cranking out on the radio today simply cannot compare to the country tunes of yore.

Classic country is folk art. Plain and simple. It is subtle lyricism based on a two-beat bassline, a steel-stringed rhythm section, and bottled malt beverages. This music was the poetry of stick welders, sharecroppers, and coal miners’ kids. And it’s ours.

When Loretta Lynn sang “Blue Kentucky Girl,” you weren’t merely listening to a radio. You were listening to one of your own take the microphone. This is why whenever Willie sang “You Took My Happy Away,” your daddy’s allergies always acted up.

I don’t mean to be critical, but new country is an embarrassment…

A cafe. I’m drinking coffee, typing on a laptop. I am trying to do some writing. But it’s hard to concentrate. Namely, because I am sitting beside a group of middle-aged women who are having a conversation about Tupperware.

“Do you remember my friend Martha?” says one woman. “Martha has a Tupperware container, she got it at Target, she can put anything in it.”

“Anything?”

“Yep, anything she wants, she just puts it in the container.”

“Martha does?”

“She got it at Target.”

“They have good containers at Target.”

“Martha just loves it.”

“I’d love a container like that.”

“You should go to Target. That’s what Martha did.”

Shoot me.

I’m no longer writing. I’m people watching. My stare travels across the cafe where I see an old man seated alone. He is eating a sandwich, sipping coffee. He wears a ratty ball cap and gazes out the window. I have a soft spot for old men who look out windows.

Over to my left are teenagers—boys and girls. One boy is wearing a Boy Scout uniform, a girl sits beside him. They are holding hands. I smile because these kids

are so happy Norman Rockwell would eat his heart out.

Also, I see an elderly couple sitting behind me. He’s talking into a cellphone, using a voice loud enough to register on the Richter Scale.

Cellphone Guy shouts, “My doctor said my heart is looking good, honey! There’s nothing to worry about! I don’t need surgery after all!”

And the ladies beside me keeps talking:

“Yep, Martha told me the lid just unscrews off her container.”

“The lid unscrews?”

“On and off, just like this.”

“How does it go back on?”

“When you wanna put the lid on, you screw it on. When you wanna take it off, you unscrew it.”

“Whose container is this again?”

“Martha’s container, she got it at Target.”

Give me strength.

So I’m not…

I watched one of those TV award shows last night. You know the kind I mean. The award ceremonies where celebrities you’ve never heard of accept accolades for doing stuff you don’t actually care about.

There is always that miserable part of the ceremony when the winners say their thank-yous.

My wife and I watched one such winner wave his hood ornament around and read through a prodigious thank-you list that lasted about as long as veterinary school. When he finished, my wife turned to me and said, “He didn’t thank his mama.”

I couldn’t believe it.

She was right. Here was a guy on television, winning a major award, sporting a modern hairstyle that looked like it had been coiffed by electro shock therapy, and he didn’t even mention his mother. None of the other winners did, either.

Later that night my wife and I attempted streaming a popular dramatic series. I am told this particular series is popular right now. Known for its “lifelike” authenticity.

In a heated scene that depicted

an argument between a teenage daughter and her mother, things got out of control. They threw stuff. Vases shattered. People screamed. Lots of crying.

The crescendo came when the daughter started cussing at her mother and called her everything but a child of God. At one point the scene became so “lifelike” that I canceled my monthly streaming subscription.

And all this has me wondering what’s happened to the image of the American mom? Our culture used to respect Mama. Mama used to be a sacred institution. Mama was everything.

Once upon a time, pro football players mentioned their mamas during Super Bowls. On the nightly news, civilians inadvertently caught on camera were required by federal law to wave at the lens like an idiot and yell, “Hi, Mom!” And on ABC prime time, “Family Feud” host, Richard Dawson, could be seen French kissing half the mothers…

I was driving around, looking for the nursing home. I drove back roads until I got lost among a tangle of red dirt highways. I called my friend Randall for directions since his grandmother lives at the retirement facility.

“It’s easy to find,” said Randall. “Just roll down your window and follow the Elvis music.”

I eventually came to a rural place with a screened-in porch and a few old guys reclining out front, doing their part in reducing the gnat population.

The nurse was expecting me. She buzzed me in, gave me a name tag, pointed me to the cafeteria, and told me the cafe was serving BLTs today.

“But don’t eat the sweet potato fries,” the nurse said. “They’re a little freezer burnt.”

Check.

I was immediately confronted with a cafeteria full of blue hair, hearing aids, short-sleeved plaid shirts, and pearl earrings. In other words, Heaven.

“More like heaven’s waiting room,” remarked one old timer.

I have long been afflicted with what my mother calls “geriatric-itis.” My life’s ambition is to become an old man.

Mama

used to take me to visit my granddaddy’s nursing home as a boy. Upon entering, I would toddle into the “hearth room” toward the wheelchairs that were parked around a console television broadcasting “Gunsmoke.”

I would introduce myself with my famous line: “Can you tell me a story?”

Mama says the old folks would gather around me like chickens around a junebug. It was only a matter of time before they began fighting over who got to fuzz my hair.

So I got my BLT and sat beside an old man with a bald head, and his wife, who wore a sweater even though it was hotter than Hades outside.

I gave the greeting. I asked for a story.

The old man laughed while eating from his ice cream cup. “Kinda story you wanna hear?”

His wife chimed in. “Tell him…

I am writing from a plane that is stuck on a runway. It’s raining. Hard. I have a screaming baby behind me. Angry passengers surround me.

I have to be in Atlanta tonight to catch a plane home, but it’s not looking good.

We have been on this god-forsaken plane for an hour, waiting out a storm. People are fussy, children scream, a man barks at a flight attendant.

A pilot talks on the loudspeaker and says we will be grounded.

People boo. A few cuss. One man throws a rotten tomato at the cockpit.

No, I’m just kidding. It wasn’t rotten.

And we sit.

One hour.

Two hours.

Three hours.

The pilot intercoms again. He says that after three hours, the government mandates he take us back to the airport.

People boo again. More swearing. A few more rotten tomatoes.

Because the only thing worse than sitting on a plane with loud infants and people carrying exotic strains of deadly viruses would be going back to the airport and sleeping on the hard floor beneath a television that blares 24-hour news.

“Just great,” one

man says.

“Well this sucks,” says the old woman behind me.

“$%&!” says the nun across the aisle.

I am texting my wife because it looks like I am not going to make it to Atlanta until tomorrow.

The pilot taxis back to the terminal. People moan. The storm is getting worse. The rain sounds like gravel on a shed roof. We’re finished.

But then...

At the last minute, the intercom dings. The captain says there is a slight break in the weather, and we are going to “give it a shot.”

Those are his exact words, which terrify the chicken salad out of me. You don’t ever want to hear “let’s give it a shot” uttered by your pilot, your dentist, your thoracic surgeon, or your tattoo artist.

Then again, anything is better than…

The supermarket is busy this morning. And this feels like old times.

During the pandemic, this store was an empty test tube. Employees used to stand by the entrance and take people’s temperatures with radar guns. Cashiers wore Darth Vader masks. Most shoppers hurried through these aisles like they were rushing for the last chopper out of Saigon.

But today, everything feels almost normal. I can’t begin to tell you how nice this feels.

I am in the vegetable aisle, translating the mysterious hieroglyphics my wife calls a shopping list when I notice a woman nearby. She is mid-thirties. She clutches the arm of a silver-haired woman who is pushing a buggy.

The younger woman wears Velcro tennis shoes and shuffles her feet without lifting them, and although it is summer she wears a stocking cap.

She addresses the older woman. “Mom, I need my grapes. Don’t forget my grapes.”

“Of course not, honey,” says Mom.

“You promised me grapes, Mom.”

“I know, sweetie. You’ll get your grapes.”

“Don’t forget.”

When the daughter sees an employee nearby, she makes eye contact. She shows a brilliant smile and waves.

She waves with her whole body. “Hi!”

The employee waves back.

The daughter practically shouts. “I’m Cheryl!”

“Nice to meet you, Cheryl.”

Cheryl is all smiles. “Okay! Bye!”

Mother and daughter leave the produce department.

Meantime, I am dutifully following my wife’s list, which carries me to the tomato sauce aisle where I am staring at roughly 32,384 varieties of canned tomato products.

In a few moments, mother and daughter enter the aisle. The daughter is still holding her mother’s arm and moving forward with a labored stagger.

The daughter is saying, “I don’t like orange juice with pulp, Mom. Please don’t buy that kind again, it’s yucky.”

“Please lower your voice, sweetie.”

“I don’t even know what pulp is. What is that gross stuff anyway, Mom?”

“Ssshhh. Inside voice, please.”

The…

The living room. My 81-year-old mother-in-law, Mother Mary, and I are watching TV while my wife is preparing lunch. Mother Mary sits in her wheelchair, drinking a glass of Coca-Cola. A racy perfume commercial plays on television.

Mother Mary nods to the TV and says, “Those people are sexy.”

I say nothing.

She points. “Especially him. Look at him. I’d sop him with a biscuit.”

I clear my throat and study my shoes.

She takes a sip and says, “You know, this commercial reminds me, I’m out of bath powder, I need some.”

“Ma’am?”

“I need bath powder fragrance. Make sure you write it on my shopping list.”

I’m not certain when I was elected the new shopping-list supervisor, but I retrieve her notepad and say, “Okay, what do I write down? Just… Bath powder?”

“No, you write ‘Estée Lauder Youth Dew dusting powder fragrance.’”

“Okay.”

She chews an ice cube. “And I want the big one.”

“The big one?”

“Yes. Youth Dew bath powder comes in different sizes. I want the extra-large. I use it every day. It’s the signature perfume for all old ladies.”

“It is?”

“Oh, yes.

When a woman starts wearing Youth Dew she is officially an old lady. Everyone knows that.”

So I add the item to the shopping list. Although I do require a little help spelling Estée Lauder correctly.

Silence follows our little spurt of conversation. And the television is now playing a commercial for Victoria’s Secret.

Mother Mary turns to me. “And write on there that I need a new bra, too.”

“What?”

She cackles. “Oh, don’t be such a Baptist. I didn’t say thong underwear. It’s not like I’m telling you my cup size or anything, jeez. Keep your Levis on. I need a new bra. Mine’s old.”

God help me.

I wish my wife would enter the den and rescue me. I’m also praying fervently that the television doesn’t start…

Today I read an anger-fueled article sent to me from a friend. The article was nothing but 600 words of well-phrased rants, complaints and venom. It was awful. And like many truly awful things, it went viral.

When I finished the essay I felt so depressed that I had to take some Pepto-Bismol and lie down. The article bickered about everything. Politics, religion, pollution, crime, taxes, pesticides, SUV’s, celebrity culture, the price of gas.

And worse, hundreds of thousands of people had loved these articulated complaints, thereby agreeing that this world is a totally jacked-up place to live.

Well, far be it from me to contradict this well-known writer’s take on the nature of life. He probably poses some really significant points. But all this unpleasant reading left me asking myself one very important question, which I believe this essayist overlooked:

If this world is indeed in a lost cause, then how do you explain Hershey’s bars?

Let’s think about this logically. Can a world be all that bad as long as it has silken milk chocolate

manufactured by the multinational chocolate and cocoa godsend that is the Hersehy’s Company? I submit no.

Has the essay writer ever savored a Hershey’s bar when it’s room temperature? Has he ever tasted a s’more for crying out loud? Has the writer ever visited Hersheypark family theme park in Hershey, Pennsylvania?

Obviously not because Hershey’s chocolate, in any incarnation, instantly makes the world better.

Certainly, I realize we as a society have our problems, I’m not saying we don’t. But has the embittered author of the seething article ever paused to taste fresh blueberries? How about a purple Cherokee tomato?

If he hasn’t, he needs to eat several. This might also help relieve some of his mild to severe constipation.

I ate an heirloom tomato today, picked from my neighbor’s garden. I had a visceral reaction. I took one bite and I started…

An Episcopal church. A weekday. It’s an ornate building with flickering votives in the corner. The door was unlocked so I came inside. Nobody seemed to notice me, so I pulled up a pew.

There are only two people in this chapel. Across the aisle is an older woman. Her hair is white, her head is down. Behind her is a young scruffy-looking man, head also down.

I wasn’t raised Episcopalian, but I like pretty churches. Plus, Piskies are always good about letting you just pop in and hang out with no strings attached. If I would have popped into a Baptist church they would have already signed me up for nursery duty.

But if I’m being truly honest, I came to this ornate place because I was hoping to get a column out of the deal. These words don’t just write themselves, and I needed inspiration.

Inspiration has been hard to come by this last year. Some mornings I wake up happy as a bumblebee. Other days, I wake up still feeling

the weight of last years’ chaos lingering.

A lot of little changes have occurred in my life since the pandemic. Too many changes to list in one column. Changes like, for example, my pants don’t fit anymore. Also I’m getting more stray gray hairs. And some nights I fall asleep before “Matlock” is even over.

It’s quiet in here. I’m staring at the backlit stained glass and I decide to try my hand at praying.

My problem, of course, is that I am horrible at prayer. Don’t call on me to say grace at your barbecue, I get so nervous I start reciting the preamble to the Constitution and I require an emergency Miller Lite.

The only real examples of prayer during my fundamentalist childhood came from my uncle Tommy Lee, who was an amateur Missionary Baptist preacher. He treated prayer like an improvised Lynyrd Skynyrd guitar…