DEAR SEAN:

Hi. I am 9 years old and I have always wanted to meet you because my mom has been reading me your stories since I was little. Can we meet? Can I be in your truck and see your dogs? I’m a nice girl and smart and I have a pet turtle named Milton and I am learning to play ukulele. I am good in school, especially P.E. My hair is brown. Are you a big talker because I am. I love macaroni and cheese, what do you like? Will you write me back? I know you’re busy, but my dad died just like yours did. So we are really simular.

Thank you,
WAITING-FOR-YOUR-REPLY-IN-PHILADELPHIA

DEAR PHILADELPHIA:

I would love to meet you. You are welcome to come for a ride in my truck provided you (a) bring a parent, and (b) have had all your shots. A little about me:

I am middle aged, goofy, and not super smart. My hair is red.

I was never very good in P.E.,

which my generation did not call “P.E.” We called it “gym” because that’s the location where it took place. The gymnasium.

Our gym teacher was a part-time middle-school football coach and a part-time heavy equipment operator who often forced us to do the same activities that inmates are compelled to do in prison camps. Such as dodgeball, tight-rope walking, or climbing the 100-foot rope. Which is an archaic form of torture, especially for kids who were deemed “overweight.”

Which I was. I was a chubby child. Being chubby and having red hair at the same time is like having a bullseye tattooed on your buttocks.

So whenever I climbed the 100-foot rope—also known as the Rope of Death—I was only able to climb about three feet off the ground before I gave up and let go and fell belly-first onto the flimsy wrestling mat, which was a…

I am playing the banjo, sitting near the swimming pool at my hotel in Pensacola. I’ve been on the road for six days, playing music and performing my one-man spasm in different states.

There are a bunch of kids out by the pool, playing on cellphones, texting each other although they are two feet apart.

There is a blaring radio playing “Beat It” (1983) by Michael Jackson, a song which sounds remarkably like garbage can lids being played by guys with socket wrenches.

The song I am practicing is the old-time tune “Blackberry Blossom” (1860), a song my grandfather loved and often played on mandolin. I am not a great banjo player. But you see, that’s the thing about the banjo, you don’t have to play well to sound truly awful.

One of my uncles picked a banjo. He always said the beauty of the banjo was that, no matter where you were, no matter how many people were around you, everyone nearby would suddenly leave the room.

But that is not the

case this morning. As I am playing, a young man quits playing with his phone and wanders toward me and. Without saying a word, he sits in a patio chair beside mine. He listens to a few songs. And when I am finished, he applauds.

Finally, he speaks. “Is the banjo hard?”

“It is for me.”

The kid just sits there and keeps looking at me. “What’s the difference between a banjo and a guitar?”

“When you play a guitar you flatpick the strings and cause vibrations to resonate from a spruce top. Whereas when you play the banjo you will die unmarried.”

I hand him the banjo, and he tries to play. The music he makes sounds truly horrible. Welcome to the club, I tell him.

So I give the boy a cursory lesson. I teach him to play an old song named “Do Lord, Do…

Becca arrives at the pool before noon. She is wearing a purse that is pink. Pink shorts. And running shoes.

Becca is 11, and she is blind. Her body is peppered with scars from past medical operations. Open heart surgery. Lymph node removal. You name it; Becca has undergone it.

The lady behind the pool check-in desk asks me to sign a waiver, assuming responsibility for this child. I hesitate. My wife and I are childless. The closest I will ever come to having a child is watching the CBS Peanuts Christmas episode.

So I sign my name. Becca is my friends’ youngest child. If anything happens to my friends’ child, it will be my everlasting aspirations on the line.

My wife takes Becca to the girl’s locker room and gets her changed into her suit. I wait in the hallway. This takes four or five presidential administrations.

When the females emerge, Becca holds my arm for guidance as we wander through the hallways. When we get to the water, Becca eases into the

pool.

Once she is in the pool, she is no longer blind. I don’t know how to explain this, but it’s like Becca was born in chlorine.

And although I know this sounds crazy, sometimes when I look at Becca, I don’t see her at all. I see her mother. A mother who I assume Becca resembles.

I see Becca’s little profile, and I see a wayward young teenager so addicted to drugs that her child was born with a number of maladies. I wonder where that poor young woman is today. Or whether she is alive.

Meantime, Becca is playing in the water with my wife. They are splashing each other. They keep asking me to join them in the water, but I don’t do pools.

Namely, because I have a hairy back. It’s not pretty when I take my shirt off, so my policy…

There are three or four neighborhood cats who sit on my porch each morning as I write. They are feral animals. They were here when we moved in. Nobody owns them. But they are fixtures in our neighborhood.

My morning writing routine is pretty predictable. I awake early. I go out to the porch. I sit in my patio chair and work on writing projects while my neural networks, still hazy from sleep, struggle to spel wurds corectly.

Meantime, the cats just sit there, perched on a ledge, looking directly at me as I tap a laptop. Sometimes I have to stop typing because I can feel their gazes weighing on me.

“Are you hungry?” I sometimes ask them.

They don’t even blink.

“I said do you want to eat?”

Nothing.

So I stand up to go inside and get some cat food and they all skitter away as though I am going to fetch an axe.

Cats are funny. Entirely different from dogs. I am a dog lover. I have been owned by 16

dogs in my lifetime. And what I’ve learned about dogs is that they are mostly fun-loving creatures who—and I mean this with all sincerity—have the intelligence of potato salad.

Dogs are cheerful, trusting, and generally get excited about almost anything. I could hold up a head of expired iceberg lettuce and talk in a high-pitched voice and my dogs would start wagging their tails. “LOOK! HE’S GOT OLD LETTUCE!” they would be thinking.

I am convinced, dogs will be the first creatures admitted to heaven because they are guileless. After all the dogs have been admitted into heaven, if—and only if—there is any extra room up there, cats might get in. Because cats are streetwise and worldly creatures.

If cats had cellphones, they would never text you back. Not even if your house was on fire. You would text a cat all day long and…

“You are feminist moron...” one email read. The next cheerful message read, “You’re a woman hater…” Another message said, “Why don’t you take a new Barbie doll, remove it from the box, and wedge it in your…”

I won’t finish the previous sentence because this is a family column. I will, however, say that Matel would not be thrilled about what the author suggested.

These messages were in response to a column I recently wrote about seeing the movie “Barbie.” At the time I wrote the column, I had no idea mentioning one movie would stir up such consternation.

So I would like to apologize.

I also want to say that I am actually a Barbie doll fan. Not a huge fan, mind you. But Barbie dolls have been part of my life for as long as I can remember.

As a boy, my sister played with Barbie dolls. My mother had an old collection of vintage Barbies from her own childhood. Flight Attendant Barbie (1961), Career Graduate Barbie (1962),

Astronaut Barbie (1965).

So there were lots of Barbies in our house. And we neighborhood boys were very curious about these dolls. Which is why we boys performed all sorts of experiments with our sisters’ Barbies.

You must understand, of course, that we were guys. Guys are naturally curious. We boys, for example, learned that the limbs of Olympic Skier Barbie (1975) do not bend unless they are first prepared in an oven preheated to “broil.”

We also discovered that Aerobics Instructor Barbie (1984) hair is highly flammable. My cousin Ed Lee also stumbled on the amazing possibilities of combining Barbie dolls with over-the-counter bottle rockets.

My sister even had Shaving Ken; you could actually shave Ken’s five o’clock shadow with a sponge-tipped razor. Although Shaving Ken was not true to life. At least not in my experience, inasmuch as men in my family had hair on their backs, not…

Recently, it came to my attention that I was one of the remaining four Americans who had not seen “Barbie.” In case you’re one of the other three, “Barbie” is a wildly popular movie that is making waves in all the headlines.

The New York Times recently said that “Barbie” is “...about becoming your own hero.” CNN stated that “Barbie” is “...Important for normalizing women’s health.” Toisto Magazine called “Barbie” the “most important film of the year.”

“Barbie” has reportedly impressed the Hollywood establishment because it proved that, to produce a hit movie you don’t need computer graphics, elaborate CGI effects, and a huge production budget to create hype. All you need is a huge promotional budget to create hype.

So I decided to see “Barbie” with my friend Dan, a former law-enforcement officer, who asked me to accompany him and his two daughters.

I haven’t been to the theater in a long time. I think the last movie I saw was “Steel Magnolias.” Mostly, because my people weren’t big movie goers. We were sanctified Baptists who

did not believe in going to the movies for fear that it could lead to mixed bathing.

When we got there, the first thing I noticed was that lots of young women were there to see “Barbie.” I could tell this because they were all dressed in neon pink.

“I’ve seen ‘Barbie’ four times,” one 22-year-old woman told me. “It’s just a great movie, with an important message.”

I asked the young woman what this message was, exactly.

“Um,” she went on, “like, it’s about, like… Like. I don’t know. You just have to see it.”

Another group of teenage women stood in line with their boyfriends. The young women had already seen “Barbie” twice. This was their boyfriends’ first time.

“We made our boyfriends come with us this time,” said one the girls. “Because it’s a super good movie.”

“Oh my God,”…

“Sean, when are you going to say something about America and the pitiful state we’re in…? A lot of people are speaking out… Have you heard the song “Rich Men North of Richmond”? It’s about American oppression… But you have remained silent and are thus part of the problem.

“...The longer you turn a blind eye to our national troubles, the more respect I lose for you. When are you going to call out what’s wrong with this country?

“Respectfully,
—Jan”

Dear Jan, I’d like to tell you about a scene I saw about four years ago.

I was at a Piggly Wiggly in a no-name U.S. Southeastern state. I was traveling on business. I was almost to my hotel when I stopped to buy some Chili Cheese Fritos and, God willing, a six-pack.

As I was wheeling into the store parking lot, I noticed a young woman and her two kids standing on the corner. They were begging.

I have a policy. I give to people who beg. Not because I am a good guy.

I’m not. I am a selfish American who spends more money on streaming video services than I do helping the needy.

But I once had a cousin who was addicted to meth. This cousin commonly resorted to panhandling on street corners.

My cousin once told me the amount of cars that passed by when he begged was staggering. He once said, “You never feel more invisible than you do when you’re on that street corner holding that stupid sign.”

This mother was holding a cardboard sign. She had scabs all over her face and arms. I don’t know much, I know what the scabs are all about.

The sign read, “My kids are hungry.”

The woman’s kids were standing directly beside her. And she was dressed in rags. I parked in the parking lot and I watched her for a while.

Finally, I…

You don’t find places like this anymore. You just don’t.

Brenda’s Kitchen sits off Highway 45 in Chester County, Tennessee. It’s a tiny restaurant, located next to the Tractor Supply. The kind of under-the-radar joint that serves country food. Not “country-style” food. Not “home-style” food. But real-people food.

It’s an average Wednesday. Lunch rush. The parking lot is full of muddy Fords and Chevys. Which is a good sign. You couldn’t fit a bicycle in this parking lot edgewise.

I walk inside. Paneled walls. Vinyl tablecloths. The place is adorned in Chester County High School colors of blue and white. Go Eagles.

Most customers either have white hair or none at all. There are several pairs of Velcro shoes. You see a lot of camouflage. Boots galore. I count six pairs of overalls in this joint.

Six.

This room smells like coffee and bacon and chocolate cake. Pie coolers hum. A TV plays the news. Old men in the corner are dog cussing politicians. There is a sign on the wall which reads, “No profanity.”

Miss Brenda

is seated at a table, sipping tea, watching it all. She is lean, with cotton hair and an easy smile. Whenever a customer enters, she greets them only with her eyes.

This is a little town. Everybody knows everybody. The servers know what customers want before they enter. Because that’s the thing about towns like this. In a small town, whenever you don’t know what you’re doing, everyone else does.

Brenda’s Kitchen has been around for 17 years. She started this place after she retired. She had always wanted to have a restaurant.“Guess I just like to feed people,” she says. “Or maybe I’m a glutton for punishment.”

The menu is elegant, but uncomplicated. All the classics are here. Today Brenda is serving pot roast with potatoes. Mashed potatoes. Greens. Black eyed peas. She even has chess pie.

You have to drive a…

My favorite hymn is the one about leaning on everlasting arms. I got to thinking about this song today when I was sitting on the porch with my sister. We were both singing.

“Leaning, leaning,
“Safe and secure, from all alarms…”

My sister is a 33-year-old woman. She is beautiful. Funny. And she’s got a way about her. She’s meek. And you can just tell that she’s been humbled in her life.

I know a thing or two about being humbled. Which is a very different thing than simply “being a humble person.”

Being a humble person, for example, means that you don’t cut in line, take the last biscuit, or sing karaoke.

But being “humbled” (past-tense non-restrictive intransitive verb) is a thing that is done to you. Usually, without your consent. Being humbled is an experience that feels a lot like getting your head shaved.

I have been humbled a lot throughout life. In fact, I will be humbled as soon as I submit this very column when a reader with an English

degree writes to me and says there is no such thing as a “past-tense non-restrictive intransitive verb.”

My sister has been humbled too many times for anyone’s good.

It all started when my father died in a traumatic way, an event I’ve written about enough. When this horrible thing happened to my family, my sister and I both quit going to school.

At the time, I was 11, and had no use for sentence diagrams dealing with worthless concepts, such as, to pick a concept at random, intransitive verbs. My sister, however, was in kindergarten when she quit school.

As a result, my sister didn’t learn how to read until she was 20 years old. She became highly skilled at hiding this. Some people never knew she couldn’t read.

When you get older, it gets harder to learn how to read. And once you miss…