Cleveland, Tennessee. My wife and I are eating at a Chinese restaurant. We’ve been driving for a few hours. We pulled over in Cleveland to refuel and address pressing bladder issues. And we found this place.

The waitress asked what we wanted. We ordered a seaweed salad. This particular salad, however, was colored Legoland green and tasted like eating bait. I did not grow up eating seaweed salad.

My wife took a bite and said, “Remember when we first got married?”

“Vaguely,” I said.

“Remember when we used to get takeout from that Chinese place over by the Kmart?”

“Yes.”

“Remember how we’d always get the seaweed salad with the little thingies on it?”

“I do.”

She took a bite. Green earthworms hung from the corners of her mouth. “What do you CALL those thingies?”

“I don’t. Mainly, I just try to forget them.”

She smiled. She took another bite and I remembered a couple younger kids who used to eat Chinese food a lot.

Me with my long hair. Her with her bangs. We were poor. We had

one window unit A/C in our apartment, which only worked on days of the week beginning with L. Our idea of a big night out was eating Chinese.

The Chinese restaurant in our hometown was cheap. Duct tape on the cushions. There weren’t many places to go for dates. So that’s where we went. Plus, this place had a dart board.

Jamie was good at darts. Very good, in fact. Although, during one Iron Bowl, a dart landed in a very sensitive location of my body. Which leads me to suspect foul play.

But the food at the old Chinese restaurant was stellar. And food has always been so important to the woman I married. Some people eat to live. Jamie lives to eat.

I met her after she graduated culinary school. She wore chef’s whites for a living. She bossed…

You’re going to be okay. That’s not an opinion. It’s not a guess. This isn’t some trite little catchphrase from some crappy motivational book that reads like it was written by a greasy televangelist.

You’re going to be okay. It’s the plain truth. You really are going to make it through this junk you’re going through.

So relax. You don’t have to do anything to make everything okay. You don’t have to close your eyes extra tight, grit your teeth, use magic words, or clap for Tinkerbell.

Yes, things are bad. But you have a little, infinitesimal voice speaking to you right now. And this voice is reading these very words alongside you and saying to you, “This guy’s got a point.”

This is not your voice. It’s a voice that comes from somewhere else. The problem is, you can’t always hear this faint voice talking. Namely, because you’re too busy freaking out.

“You’ll be okay,” the gentle voice will say again. “It’s all going to be okay. You’ll see.”

But you are afraid to trust this voice.

Also, the voice says other things like: “You’re not fat. You’re

not stupid. You’re a smart person. You’re good enough. You’re very fortunate. You’re a miracle. Everyone really likes you, with the possible exception of your mother-in-law.”

So I know you’re sitting there, wondering why you’re still reading this drivel, when I obviously know nothing about you.

But you’re also thinking about how you’ve had a hard last few weeks. Last few months. Last few years. Last few decades.

You’re thinking about how often you pray for relief but it never comes. You’re thinking about how you have tried to put one foot in front of the other, but now it’s getting harder to move your legs. You want to give up.

Meantime, the little voice is practically screaming. The voice says: “Don’t quit! You’re almost there!”

Someday—I know you can’t envision…

I let him help me out to my truck. He was a supermarket bag boy. Maybe 19. Nice kid. Reddish hair. Warm smile. He spoke with a significant speech impediment.

I could not understand what he was saying, per the impediment. The cashiers had decided, apparently, to ignore him. This had to be embarrassing, but it never stopped the kid from trying.

After he bagged my groceries, I could faintly understand him say: “Do you need help out to your car?”

As it happens, I DID need help with my groceries. Namely, because a few days ago, I went tubing on the lake with my goddaughter. For those of you who don’t know what “tubing” is, this is a full-contact water activity not meant for middle-aged men with extremely high copays.

Tubing is when you ride on an inflatable tube attached to a speedboat by a ski rope.

My goddaughter had a marvelous time tubing. So did I. Until I dismounted. Whereupon I flew off the tube at high speed and “slightly” bruised my ribs.

At least that’s how the doctor put it.

“You will experience slight discomfort,” the doc said with a slight smirk.

Sleeping on my on my side has been “slightly” fun. Sneezing sends you into the Fifth Circle of Hell. Pushing a heavy shopping buggy becomes an extreme sport.

So I replied to the bagger, “A little help out to my car would be nice.”

The boy pushed my cart through the parking lot. It was a hot day in Alabama. The boy unloaded my heavy bags, sweating through his clothing, and he was talking up a blue streak.

I felt bad because I couldn’t figure out what the boy was saying, I had to keep asking him to repeat himself.

Finally the boy used all his fortitude to say the following sentence: “I know you can’t understand me, I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be sorry,” I said.…

Dallas. The mid-1980s. There were three Mexican boys in the supermarket. The meat department. They were covered in sawdust and drywall mud. They were eyeing the beef, looking for the cheapest cuts. Counting their nickels and dimes.

But they came up short. They were about to walk away when the butcher came from behind the counter and handed them 25 pounds of ground beef.

That’s a lot of meat.

“The expiration dates are technically past due,” said the butcher, “but this is still perfectly good meat if you freeze it. And it’s just going to go to waste if you don’t take it.”

“How much do we owe you?” asked one of the boys.

“Nothing,” said the butcher. “On the house.”

The three young men looked at each other. No words were said. One of the boys started crying.

“God bless joo,” was their response.

“God bless j’all too,” said the Texan butcher.

Rural Kansas. The man was walking his dog in the neighborhood when it happened. A car wreck took place in front of him. On the street. The

Ford Contour plowed into a telephone pole. Nose first. Game over.

Soon, the vehicle was on fire. Someone inside the automobile was screaming.

“They were horrible screams,” the dog-walker remembers.

He didn’t know what to do, so he plunged into the burning car and dragged the driver from the inferno. There was a baby was in the back seat. He saved the infant, too.

Today, the baby is a grown woman who drives a truck for a living. A few months ago, that truck driver visited a nursing home.

“You don’t know me,” she said, as she sidled up to the elderly man’s bedside. “But you saved my life when I was a baby in a burning car. I just wanted to thank you.”

The old man died last week. The truck driver told this same story at that man’s…

This house is a tomb. Ever since the kid left. We’ve had a kid here at the lake for the past several days. Our goddaughter. She left this morning.

There is evidence a child has been in this house, however. There is, for example, a giant rubber ball, sitting in the middle of our living room.

The ball is shaped like a giant peanut. It is called a “peanut sensory stability ball.” Basically, a child sits on this peanut and it’s ride’em cowboy.

Which is exactly what the kid would be doing if she were here right now. Bouncing on her peanut. Making happy conversation, probably while eating—I don’t know—a popsicle.

Either that, or she would be swimming in the lake right now. The child loves the lake. She adores the lake, actually.

Although the child I’m referring to is blind, and many people naturally assume she is afraid of water, the kid is not afraid. She is obsessed with water.

Over the last three days, the child has lived in lake water. Take yesterday. The

kid woke up at eight. She emerged from her bedroom, already wearing her swimwear and water shoes.

“Good morning!” she said in much the same way you might announce that you won the Florida Powerball jackpot.

“Good morning,” we replied in low-pitched morning voices, drinking coffee, trying to coax our middle-aged eyelids open.

The child ate a bowl of cereal while her aunt Jamie simultaneously slathered the squirming little-kid body with SPF 12,380 sunscreen.

Within seconds the child was in the lake water.

Which felt weird to me, swimming directly after eating breakfast. But then, I was raised by old-school parenting. I was brought up to believe that you were not supposed to swim after eating. When I was a kid, after we ate a Snickers, our mothers forced us to wait at least two or three presidential administrations.

But apparently this is just…

I receive a lot of mail in the form of emails, letters, private messages, texts, Morse code, etc. It is impossible to answer all these messages, so I compiled some commonly asked questions:

Q: This world is a mess, why don’t you ever address the central problems of our society? It seems irresponsible to not cultivate awareness. Why are you pretending that humanity is one great big happy family, and everything is hunky dory? This isn’t helping our country.

A: I think someone needs a nap.

Q: No, I’m serious. Don’t gloss over the question with your glib, sophomoric attempt at ill-timed humor.

A: You could use a beer, too.

Q: Hi. I just want to know: Is Sean Dietrich a real person, or just a secret team of a bunch of wannabe writers pretending to be one guy?

A: We aren’t wannabes. We’re never-weres. Big difference.

Q: Ginger or Mary Ann?

A: Lucille Ball.

Q: Come on. That’s not fair. Please comment on this age-old debate.

A: It’s not a debate. Not really. Dawn Wells, who played Mary Ann on “Gilligan’s

Island,” former Miss Nevada 1960, received more fan mail than Tina Louise (Ginger) and nearly every other actor at CBS Studios combined.

Even after Wells’ heyday she still received some 5,000 fan letters per week from hormone crazed post-pubescent boys, most of whom were offering to bear her children. Not that I would know.

Q: You write a lot about dogs, but why don’t you ever write about cats? Don’t you like cats?

A: As I type this, I am currently on my porch surrounded by six neighborhood cats. Two are sleeping near my feet. One is beside me, communicating telepathically with her giant, yellow, frightening, apathetic eyes.

Q: So why don’t you ever write about cats?

A: I just did.

Q: I am a writer, trying to establish a daily writing routine, I was wondering how often…

Sunrise on Lake Martin. I’m usually the first one awake. I rarely have any company in the mornings. I wake up with the chickens. Most mornings, I sit on my porch alone. Just me and the feral cats.

This morning, however, I had company.

I heard small feet walking onto the screened porch, overlooking the lake. I turned to see a child with messy hair, staggering toward me. A 12-year-old girl in pajamas.

She used her hands to feel her way through the maze of patio furniture. She walks like this, feeling her way around, even when it’s daylight.

My goddaughter sat beside me on the sofa. She sort of crawled into my lap, head resting against my chest.

“Morning,” she said with a yawn. Her breath smelled like a billy goat’s lower intestinal tract.

“Good morning, Dragon Breath,” I said.

She cupped her hand to her mouth and attempted to smell her own breath. Birds fell out of the trees.

I picked crust from her eyes. “You’re killing me,” I said.

“What do you see?” she asked.

“Sunrise,” I replied.

“Can you describe what it looks like?” She

curled against me snuggly.

I looked at the pink sky of morning. Daylight had taken hold of the world.

“You’ve seen one sunrise you’ve seen them all,” I said.

“Wish I could see it.”

I squeezed her. “I have an idea. How about you tell me what the sunrise sounds like.”

She yawned. “What do you mean?”

“I mean, I want you to tell me how a blind person experiences a sunrise.”

Becca curled tighter against me. “You really want to know?”

“I do.”

“Well, you have to close your eyes.”

I did.

“No cheating,” she said.

“Scouts’ honor.”

“First,” she said, “I hear birds. But, I feel like when sighted people hear birds, they don’t think about all the DIFFERENT birds they’re actually hearing. They just hear one sound, birds.…

Becca and I were at the little lake cabin. It was noontime. The interior of the 1940s cabin was a sweltering 92 degrees.

Thankfully, old bungalows were designed before A/C. I opened all the windows and doors, and within mere minutes the cabin had cooled to 91 degrees.

The 12-year-old wore a dripping swimsuit, beach towel draped around her shoulders.

“What do you want for lunch?” I asked.

She thought about it for a few seconds. “Can I have anything I want?”

“Within legal reason.”

She thought again before speaking. “Know what I want?”

“I don’t have ESP.”

“The sports channel?” she said.

“Never mind. What do you want?”

“I want you to teach me to make a sandwich.”

Becca is blind. Her eyes are closed because the muscles in her eyelids are atrophied. So she looks like a renaissance painting of Raphael’s angel.

“I’ve never made myself a sandwich before,” she said.

“Sandwiches are complicated things,” I said. “Even for a sighted person. Making sandwiches is messy. Let’s do that another day.”

“I don’t mind making a mess.”

“I believe you.”

She was not giving up. “Please?”

So

I reasoned with her. “How about I HELP you make a sandwich?”

She shook her head. “I want to do it myself. I don’t want your help. I want you to talk me through it.”

Becca stood in the center of the kitchen, dripping, holding her white cane with the red tip. The faint traces of a little sunburn were starting to show up on her face even though—I swear—I coated her face with a sunscreen product resembling commercial aviation wax.

“Is this important to you?” I said.

“Yes.”

I caved in.

“Good!” She was all smiles. “You sit at the counter, and just tell me what to do.”

“Ten-four.”

The first thing to do was talk her through navigating the inner labyrinths of the unorganized refrigerator. I told her where…

To the dog abuser in rural Mississippi. The hound you left chained behind the tire shop is with us now. Her name is Marigold. We got her a few years ago.

You beat Marigold so hard she went totally blind. She wasn’t even two years old. And you blinded her.

I can’t imagine what she did to make you so mad. She is a gentle dog. Painfully gentle. Plus, she can’t weigh more than twenty-five pounds.

I can only assume that you were not in your right mind.

She had one eye removed, one eyelid stitched shut. The other eyeball is just for show. It doesn’t work, the iris is bloodred and vacant. But it’s a beautiful eye.

Because, you see, she is a beautiful girl.

It’s taken a few years to relearn how to get around. She bumped into furniture, she walked headfirst into walls. She uses her nose to lead her. She is a professional now.

Being blind is still brand new for her. And it’s a full-time job. She is constantly working, constantly trying to map out

her new world.

Constantly deciphering new smells. Constantly trying to determine whether a nearby sound is friendly or otherwise.

She walks with a careful gait. Often, she high-steps, like she’s walking through quicksand. Other times she tests every step, like she’s on a tightrope.

It took a while to relearn stairs. She tripped over curbs. She fell over thresholds. She needed help finding her food bowl sometimes. She loves toilet water.

But I don’t want you feeling sorry for her. I don’t know if you are capable of such feelings. I just want you to know what you did to her.

You made her afraid. She cowers at booming noises. Probably because she can’t see what’s making the noise.

Benign objects, such as, for example, vacuum cleaners, sound like monsters. The sound of a garbage disposal is like a nuclear…

Springville, Alabama (pop. 5,043). I am downtown with a few minutes to kill. I pick up a copy of the Trussville Tribune, sit on a bench by the antique store and count cars.

I count four.

I shake open the newspaper beneath an angry noontime sun. The Tribune is a slender paper. Not much to it. You’d need at least three to line a litter box.

The Tribune is your typical small-town paper. Just like small-town papers used to be. The paper is not loaded with reports of stabbings, shootings, and senseless acts of politics. Just local stuff. It reminds you of a bygone age.

The front page, for example, features important breaking news from nearby Argo (pop. 4,364). The headline reads: “Ann ‘Granny’ Grimes celebrates 100th birthday at Fox’s Pizza Den.”

“God has just been good to me!” Granny is quoted as saying.

Granny has nine grandchildren, 23 great grandchildren, and six great-great grandchildren. She also ties down a full-time job at Fox’s Pizza.

She works in the kitchen, preparing her special spaghetti sauce, prepping food, and

washing the dishes in the three-compartment sink.

The article goes on to say that if you should ever visit Fox’s Pizza, you should ask Granny for proof that she’s 100 and “she will gladly show you her current driver’s license!”

That’s what you’ll find in a small-town paper.

There’s also the weather forecast, sponsored by Trussville Water and Gas. This week’s forecast: you’re going to die of heat stroke.

In other news, the Winn-Dixie in Pinson is remodeling. And, in case you were wondering, 2,000 people attended the rodeo. More on Page 5.

There’s the classified section. The first three for-sale ads are advertising adjoining funeral plots. Get’em while they’re hot.

The community calendar of events is slamming. Visit the Trussville Public Library for summertime stories, read by Ms. Alicia. And don’t forget, ladies, the “Yarn Manglers” knitting club meets on Thursday…