Reeltown, Alabama—the high school parking lot is slam-packed with cars. People are parking on the grass, trucks park over at the fire department. I find an open space on the school lawn.
My wife and I enter the gymnasium. It’s loud inside. There are four hundred people seated at cafeteria tables. There is enough fried chicken in this room to short-circuit the U.S. government.
Local ladies tend to the crowd, dressed in aprons. High-school girls with pitchers refill sweet tea, young men with football jerseys gather empty paper plates.
This is a fundraiser for Wallace Mann.
You’d like Wallace. He is a country preacher in this community. And in this world, there are two different kinds of preachers. Country preachers, and everyone else.
“Brother Wallace always made the rounds,” said one man with white hair. “Do you ‘member when country preachers used to make the rounds? No, you might not, you’re too young.”
As it happens I once I worked as an assistant to a
preacher who made “the rounds.” He spent four days each week driving to hospitals, standing at bedsides, visiting nursing homes, holding hands, or taking out trash for an elderly man who couldn’t get out of his recliner.
“That’s what Brother Wallace would do,” the old man goes on. “He did it every week without fail before he got sick, he made the rounds.”
Mister Wallace is positioned near the stage in a motorized wheelchair. ALS has taken its toll on him. He is not able to move like he used to. Sometimes, just talking wears him out.
Miss Ann feeds him with a plastic fork. His family is seated around his table. He is wearing his high-school colors.
“Oh, he loves Reeltown football,” says his wife. “He used to play here, you know. He tells everyone he was was defensive guard. He used to guard the the…