Straughn, Alabama—thirteen years ago. It was a spring morning. The sun was low. Birds made noise. The Straughn High School football stadium was packed. Coach Taylor read a eulogy.

Kirsten was gone.

She was a softball player. Her Tiger teammates sat in the stands. So did rival teams from nearby schools. Her friends wept. Her family sobbed. It was a black day.

She was fourteen. A deer ran in front of the truck. They swerved. Flipped. It was bad.

“I had Kirsten when I was eighteen,” her mother tells me. “We kinda grew up together.”

Her mother is older now, Kirsten’s funeral is only a memory. But she was a good kid. Straight A’s, cheerleader, student ambassador, church-involved. She was cut from rural cloth.

Between ball practices, Kirsten did youth group. After that, she'd ride muddy four-wheelers until the sun went down.

Then the worst.

Churches in nearby counties held vigil for the unconscious girl. Kirsten's waiting room saw the most visitors to ever grace Sacred Heart’s halls. Welcome to small-town Alabama. When one falls, so does the whole of Covington County.

They needed a stadium just to hold her funeral.

When Kirsten was twelve, she began talking about organ donation. She became so enthusiastic about the idea, her mother got concerned.

“I thought it was odd,” her mother says. But the girl was nothing if not passionate.

Her organs were in coolers only hours after she flatlined.

Years went by. Life moved on. The fourteen-year-old beauty queen seemed to fade into history.

“I HAD to know who received those organs,” says her mother.

So she wrote letters, but never received responses. She kept writing. Nothing. She almost gave up. Then, one day it happened.

An envelope from Okeechobee, Florida. A mother whose daughter had needed a kidney. It saved her life. The recipient's name: Lacey.

Kirsten’s mother met Lacey.

Their first meeting was on Mother’s Day—of all days. It…

We played music for a nursing home. It was a sterile room with fluorescent lights and a funny smell. People kept asking our guitar player to turn up the volume.

That was a first.

It bears mentioning: we have taken the stage in some ugly places.

We’ve played for motorcyclists with names like, “Bruiser,” “Snake Eyes,” and “Ernie.”

We’ve played clogging dances, barroom weddings, family reunions, sixtieth birthday parties, crawfish boils, car dealership sales, shoe stores, one bar mitzvah.

This was our first nursing home.

So, we chose songs the radios quit broadcasting around the time of Harry Truman. Our crowd of white-hairs gave an enthusiastic applause that was as loud as an oscillating fan.

One woman asked if we knew “Keep on the Sunny Side.” Another asked for “Dixie.” We had three requests for “O When the Saints Go Marching.” One for “Viva Las Vegas.”

A man named Benny—suspenders and hearing-aids—asked for “I Saw the Light.”

We played it quiet and slow; he sang all four verses with his eyes shut. Blessings of higher value, I have not received.

There was a

lady who called me Danny and kept asking, “Did you find my Curly?”

I answered, “No ma'am, I didn't."

"Well, did you even go LOOK?"

High and low, ma'am.

I met a man who played trumpet. He was half black, half white. Skin like caramel. They tell me he’s got some stories.

Midway through our medley, one of the nurses asked us to play “America the Beautiful.”

“They like American songs,” she said.

We started the tune, but never got to sing a word of it. The room beat us to the punch.

A man in back stood. He wore an orange cap with a blue “AU” on it.

The rest stood with him. Their voices weak, but sincere. They sang about Purple Mountains Majesty and Fruited Plains while the band kept steady time.

These people are…

This room is the size of two living rooms and a broom closet. It has a drinking fountain, olive green kitchen appliances, a piano.

And it smells like heaven.

I can think of no happier square-footage than a rural church hall—complete with card-tables and casserole dishes. And I'm not talking religion. I'm talking fried chicken.

Yesterday, I walked through the food-line in one such church. I held a paper plate and did my best not to get gravy on my necktie.

It was a funeral. I met the mother of the deceased, she was a wreck.

Before the memorial service: food. You should’ve seen the lineup. I won't go through the whole list, but here are a few standards:

Chicken and dumplings, fried gizzards, deer sausage, and deep-fried backstrap. Drop biscuits, butter beans, squash casserole, creamed corn, cheese grits.

An elderly man sat beside me. Grandfather to the deceased. He grew up in this church. He estimates he’s attended nearly ten thousand socials in this room.

An old woman wearing a houndstooth skirt-suit, sits on my other side. She's on

the funeral committee. She made this potato salad.

It is a majestic concoction. More white than yellow. If I had to rate her dish on a scale of one to ten, I’d give it two hundred fifty-seven.

“It’s just Duke’s and potatoes,” she says. “Ain't hard.”

Maybe not, but this woman has a gift.

When my father died, we ate potato salad. It was in a fellowship hall—water spots on the ceiling, linoleum floors. The food went down like flu medicine.

A girl my age, named Caroline, had made a layer cake with white icing especially for me. I’ll never forget her. She'd lost her mother earlier that year. We were members of the same club.

There was a note on the cake. It read: “If you ever want to talk…”

Here, funeral's are administered by feeders, not the clergy.…

Augusta, Georgia—the VA Medical Center. Her father smoked like a freight train, even though his doctors told him not to. But, he was dying of colon cancer. If he wanted to burn a couple packs, by God, that was his right.

He was Special Forces. Army. He swore like a commercial fisherman. He chastised any who misused the name of the Good Lord.

He'd seen a lot in his time. He'd been a prisoner of war during Vietnam.

Chemotherapy was some kind of hell, even for a POW. After his last round of treatment, he sat in the courtyard of the Charlie Norwood VA for a celebratory smoke. His daughter beside him.

A fellow vet approached. The man was dirty, bearded, tattered clothes. He smelled like the wrong side of a manure shovel. He asked to bum a smoke.

His name was John.

He stayed. They talked. When her mother arrived with the car, her father introduced the new friend.

She gave the man a once-over and said, “You look hungry, John, come on.”

Come on. The

most gracious two words you will ever hear a Georgian say.

They took him home. Not only did John eat supper, he sat with her father and talked. Their conversation lasted into the night.

John stayed for two months.

They made him a member of the family. In return, John treated them like the only blood kin he’d ever had.

“He held Dad’s hand,” she goes on. “He prayed with him when the pain got bad, he wiped Dad’s mouth when he was sick. John even helped Mom and me move him...”

Her father’s last twenty-four hours were bad, but John was there. She remembers him waiting by the door with a washcloth, or a basin. He never hesitated to do what needed doing, no matter the chore.

Just before her father passed, they gathered around his bed with the clogged faces. They…

Yesterday, 10:05 A.M., Gulf Shores, Alabama—the worst thing you can imagine. Twelve kids injured. Four in critical condition. Screaming parents. A shut-down highway. Helicopters. Flashing lights.

This is a beach town. Here public schools still observe Mardi Gras—a holiday when anyone owning a trumpet plays Dixieland.

And of all places, it happened at the annual Fat Tuesday parade.

I’ve attended a handful of times. Once, when I was a high-schooler, watching my friend play tuba. Once with my cousin—who was so drunk I had to hold him upright.

This isn't like the big shindigs they do in Mobile or New Orleans. It's a small event. A family day. Kids sit on shoulders. Homemade floats get towed by Silverados. Parents cheer.

This year, it was hell on earth.

The Gulf Shores High School band looked good. The sax-section bobbed its horns in rhythm. The drumline tapped out a steady cadence. Lots of smiling. Students waved to parents.

Without warning, an SUV screamed forward. Kids got mowed down. Instruments twisted. Twelve-year-olds. Seventeen-year-olds. Babies.

Like I said. The worst.

“They looked like rag-dolls,”

one person remarked. “It was so freaking scary, it didn’t seem real.”

Someone else saw the driver leap out of the vehicle. It was a seventy-three-year-old man. The look on his face was one of shock.

One woman said, “I was thinking, 'Oh my gosh this is some terrorism act…' But then I saw the old guy and his expression…”

It was an accident that put our section of the world on last night's national news. It attracted cameras, lights, nice-looking reporters.

But, if you’re looking for an ugly ending to this god-awful story, you’re looking in the wrong place. Because this a heart-strong community with salt-of-the-earth folks.

I'm talking teachers, charter-fishermen, boat mechanics, pastors, nurses, landscapers, and Walmart employees.

An entire town huddled together. Parents wearing Mardi Gras beads knelt over teenagers on the pavement. Adults pressed foreheads against…

I'm on a screen porch with a radio. I’m listening to the Braves play Detroit in a spring-training baseball game. There’s a ghost with me. One I haven't seen in a long time.

The ghost makes remarks at the radio.

“If they had a good bullpen, they might have a chance this season…” he says.

Today, the ghost is chatty, I can't hear the game over his talking.

“Hey," the ghost goes on. "Remember the time we played ball after your grandaddy's wake?”

Of course I do.

"I was REALLY something, wasn't I?" says the ghost. I can’t see his face, but I know he’s grinning.

And he's right. He was impressive. That afternoon, the men in the family got up a ball game. They played in an alfalfa field. My cousin played catcher. My daddy stood on a dirt mound, pitching. A longneck bottle beside his feet.

The game wasn't serious—it was a disorganized free-for-all. Kids alongside men. A second-grade girl playing shortstop.

That is, until one cousin stepped to the plate.

He was the same age as Daddy.

And I'll bet there's one like him in every American clan. A fella everyone praises. He’s nice-looking, played college ball, drives a nice car. Perfect teeth.

Gag me.

My father paled in comparison. He was a steelworker with long legs that didn’t fit his body. His clothes hung off his tall frame. He sweat for a living. The closest he ever got to college ball was watching the Sugar Bowl.

But, by damn, did he have an arm.

It was one of the gifts the Good Lord gave him to make up for his heron legs. In high school, he’d pitched so fast that catchers used to tuck sponges into their mitts.

Perfect Teeth stood at homeplate. And that's when the air got cold. The two middle-aged men stared each other down. If this game would've taken place a hundred…

Poteet, Texas—they don’t get too worked up in this town. There’s not much going on. It’s a place with almost three thousand folks. Lots of dust. Windmills. Rural highways. Rusty tractors.

The city's water tower is painted like a strawberry since the town's claim to fame is being the strawberry capital of Texas. That, and this is George Strait's hometown.

This place is also home to Ike Coolidge.

You’d like Ike. Most people do. He’s got personality, charm, class. He enjoys cowboys, Buzz Lightyear, and using the potty. Ike is two years old.

Two weeks ago, he began having stomach pains. At first, his mother, Stephanie, didn’t think much about it. Tummy aches are as much a part of childhood as cowboys and Indians. Only, the pain didn’t go away.

A few days later, Ike was in a bed at Children’s Methodist in San Antonio. They found a tumor outside his bladder.

It was a shock.

His mother says, “Sunday, I was giving him ibuprofen. Monday, the hospital was giving him morphine...”

A community started praying.

What followed was Hell Week.

Monday and Tuesday were nothing but meds and tests. Wednesday: a biopsy—which wasn’t exactly a Texas waltz. Thursday: an MRI, a CT scan. Specialists said the cancer had probably spread. They believed it to be an aggressive type. Twenty percent survival.

The word nightmare comes to mind. But, it's not a strong enough word.

“He’s been so tough,” Stephanie says. “Nurses refer to him as ‘The Rockstar.’”

Which is an understatement. George Strait has nothing on this cowboy.

Ike's mother made camp inside his hospital room. She fielded calls, texts, emails. She lived on coffee and trays of lukewarm food. People visited, some brought gifts. Everyone said a prayer.

Friday, she left the hospital for the first time in almost a week. After her eyes adjusted to the sunlight, she took time to do the things responsible mothers do.…

A gas station. I buy one sweet tea, two scratch-off lotto tickets. The first ticket is a loser. The second: I win a hundred stinking bucks.

I almost hyperventilate. This has only happened one other time in my life—the hundred bucks, not the hyperventilating.

The cashier hands me a hundred-dollar-bill. I don't usually carry paper money anymore. This represents all the cash I have. And it's enough to buy breakfast.

So, I drive a few miles down the road.

My waitress is a nine-year-old. She’s all smiles, and her yellow apron is too big.

“Two eggs over medium, please,” I tell her.

“Two. Eggs. Oh. Ver. Mee. Dee. Yum,” says Tiny, writing on a notepad.

I order a biscuit, too. She needs help spelling.

Tiny runs to the kitchen. I see her older sister at the grill—twelve, maybe thirteen years old. They’re discussing the confusing nuances of my order.

Tiny's mother brings her to my table. “Sir," says Tiny. "What exactly does ‘over medium’ mean?”

I explain—soft yellow, hard white. She yessirs me and I feel like Methusela's uncle.

But I'm in a good

mood. Just yesterday, I stopped at an antique store near Greenville, Alabama. They had everything from old Jimmy Carter campaign posters, to Depression-era fishing reels.

The lady behind the counter asked me, “You like Indians?" Then she showed me a collection of miniature hand-carved wooden chiefs.

She handed me one. The brave wore Sunday feathers and held a tomahawk.

"My granddaddy carved this," she said. "You can have it.”

"Really?"

"Yeah, I got a million of'em. I give'em away sometimes. It's what he would've wanted."

I had a granddaddy who carved.

A few minutes later: my friend called. He said he's expecting his first child. This is big news. Five years ago, the doc told his wife she was barren. He cried on the phone.

Then, this morning: a hundred-dollar bill for a man who never has…

We weren’t good friends. We were too different to be close. But we worked together, traveled together. There was no getting away from him.

I guess that sort of made us friends.

He drank too much and smoked too much. He did harder stuff nobody knew about. But his personality was inviting. He could make friends with a doorknob.

He’d grown up tough on the outskirts of Atlanta. As a boy, he learned to play guitar, and he picked the hell out of it. It took him places.

He was close with his mother. She came to his gigs. She never missed, she'd sit front-row.

She killed herself before he was full-grown. After her funeral, he spiraled downward.

When we worked together, he was trying to get his life together. He had a new wife, a new daughter. Both were blonde with curls. He wrote songs about them.

He started going to church, he even joined a Bible Study.

Once, we worked in North Carolina for a week. Asheville. It was late spring. Jacket weather. We had the daytime to ourselves so we went

for drives—he couldn’t sit still for longer than a cigarette.

We landed on twelve-hundred mountainous acres that belonged to Billy Graham himself. I drove, he took in scenery. It was the first time I’d known his mouth to run quiet.

A chapel sat on a rocky hill. We stopped. The building was unlocked and empty. Wood floors, maple pews. Billy Graham’s picture was on the wall.

“You reckon Billy Boy ACTUALLY preaches here?” he said.

“Maybe.”

The chapel had a postcard view, overlooking God’s country.

“You think people who kill themselves go to heaven?” he finally asked.

“Yes.”

“Really?”

“No doubt in my mind.”

He spoke of his mother. He was past the crying stages, and he wasn’t angry, either. In fact, he seemed a little hopeful.

He told me about his ambitions, he had several.…