A few more things I love: Kathryn Tucker Windham, bottle trees, Magnolia Springs, the color yellow, anything made of oak, slow-moving trains, Hank Williams, American buffalos, and breakfast. 

My mother-in-law is watching television, sipping a milkshake. I’m sitting with her.

She’s slurping so that I can hardly hear the television.

It’s just as well. The folks on TV are hollering at each other about political issues, mass shootings, patriotism, and weather conditions. 

My mother-in-law changes the channel and slurps louder.

Different network. Different newscasters. Same five-dollar issues. She changes it again. More shouting. More shameless slurping.

She flips the channel.

The Home Shopping Network advertises commemorative American-flag lapel pins made from recycled cellphone batteries. Only $19.99. Call now.

My mother-in-law turns the television off. She slurps her milkshake so hard the ceiling is about to cave in.

“You know,” says Mother Mary—the sophisticated voice of 1958, and all-around model American. “TV sucks.”

Truer words have seldom been spoken.

Once upon a time, I enjoyed the idiot box. I don’t anymore. The faces on television talk too much about the gruesome and repulsive. They make commentaries only on things they hate.

I wish more people talked about things they loved.

Like daisies. Why aren’t folks talking about those?

Earlier today, I

pulled over to pick some. I got carried away and picked a whole armful. I wrapped the bundle of stems with duct tape and tossed the bouquet onto my dashboard.

I don’t even know who I picked them for.

You know what else I love? The late great Don Williams. I heard him singing about a woman named Amanda on the radio. I turned it up. The lyrics made me think about a woman I love.

A few more things I love: Kathryn Tucker Windham, bottle trees, Magnolia Springs, the color yellow, anything made of oak, slow-moving trains, Hank Williams, American buffalos, and breakfast.

I love the box of family photographs in my closet. Sometimes, I look at them and revisit black-and-white ancestors I never knew.

I love coffee—black and strong. Hashbrown casserole from Cracker Barrel. And my…

I’m sorry for what’s happening in the world. I’m sorry hatred gets so much camera-time. 

Newnan, Georgia—two sisters, swimming the Chattahoochee. It’s a pretty day. Alyssa Calhoun and her five-year-old sister, Kendall. They are best friends, joined at the hip.

The five-year-old drifts from shore. She can not swim against the mighty Chattahoochee. She screams.

Alyssa swims after her. They get pulled downriver. Alyssa dives beneath her sister, digs her feet in, and lifts her above her head.

When authorities find them, they are facedown in water. The youngest is alive. Alyssa Calhoun dies a hero.

She was fourteen.

Montgomery, Alabama—a teenage girl in a gas station. She places two bucks on the counter, and she is sobbing.

“I’m outta gas,” she says. “How am I gonna get home?”

The woman behind the counter comes to her. They hug. The girl presses her face into the woman’s chest.

The woman says, “Oh, honey.”

People in line pool their money to buy the girl a full tank—with change left over.

Charlotte, North Carolina—Debbie lives alone. She has no children. She is legally blind and wears thick glasses she calls “Coke-bottle lenses.”

After getting diagnosed with breast cancer, her world falls

apart. Neighbors see her come and go to treatments, riding a taxi.

She’s skin and bones.

One day, a group of neighborhood kids arrives on her porch. Boys and girls, holding platters of baked goods.

They tell her they want to do her grocery shopping, cooking, cut her lawn, dust her furniture. She agrees. They work for her. They watch television with her. They even play games and eat pizzas in her den.

One boy recalls: “We turned Miss Debbie’s into a hangout, so there’d always be people around her, keeping her smiling.”

The kids stay with her until the end.

Before Debbie passes, she remarks, “Always wanted to be a mother, those children let me kinda pretend I was.”

This morning. The first thing I see on television news is mass murder in Las Vegas.…

If I ever make it to old age, God willing, I will wear jeans, suspenders, oil my hair, and utter five-word blessings at the supper table.

Somewhere outside Smyrna, Tennessee—several elderly people in wheelchairs sit parked on the sidewalk at a restaurant. They’ve just deboarded a nursing-home bus.

A herd of nurses in purple scrubs wheel the small army into the restaurant in wagon-train fashion.

In the dining room, the old folks take up four tables. Their wheelchairs are positioned in a long row.

One of the battleworn nurses explains, “You think this is something, you shoulda seen us rolling around the damn zoo.”

When their food arrives, everyone holds hands. An old woman in a wheelchair asks a blessing in a loud voice.

She says the same five-word prayer every old timer uses at a supper table. An ancient prayer which younger generations quit using a long time ago.

“Lord, make us truly grateful.”

I catch myself smiling. If you've never seen an old woman pray, you should.

Everyone mumbles, “Amen.”

Seated on my other side is a young couple. She is pretty, with dreadlocks pulled backward.

The man with her is wearing a fire-medic uniform—radio attached to his shoulder.

The man touches the girl’s hand and I overhear

him say, “I was thinking we could go to the lake when I get time off, and finally have our honeymoon.”

“OH REALLY?” she says. “I’d LOVE that.”

Not long into their meal, his radio makes a noise.

In the back of the restaurant, there is a group of men, also wearing radios. They receive the same transmission.

The man kisses his girl. He calls his friends from the back, they leave together.

Minutes later, I hear sirens in the distance.

An elderly couple walks through the restaurant doors, holding onto one another.

She’s small, and walks with a hunch. He is wearing jeans, suspenders, and has oiled hair.

If I ever make it to old age, God willing, I will wear jeans, suspenders, oil my hair, and utter five-word blessings at the supper table.

They…

The world has gone crazy. It’s mass hysteria. Hurricane Irma is coming, and some people are losing their cotton-picking minds. 

Pensacola, Florida—a long line of vehicles at a gas station. I am waiting behind a woman and her daughter. She holds a baby in her arm.

The gas pump is not accepting her card. She keeps trying. No luck.

There’s a man in a car behind her. A very nice, German car that costs more than a new liver.

He shouts at her. He honks. “C’mon!”

The world has gone crazy. It’s mass hysteria. Hurricane Irma is coming, and some people are losing their cotton-picking minds.

The woman hands her baby to her daughter—who looks like a fifth-grader.

The woman walks inside to see the cashier. She is gone a few moments before returning with her face in her hands. She looks like she’s about to cry.

“My wallet!” she shouts to her daughter. “I don't have it!”

Without skipping a beat, the young girl reaches into her jean pocket, and hands her mother a handful of dollars.

The lady’s dam breaks. If tears were nickels, she'd be a millionaire.

The girl gives the money to her mother with a brave face. And I can’t see

how much she gives, but it’s a wad.

More honking from Mercedes-Man. He slams his hands on his wheel.

The woman fills her car with gas. The daughter rocks the baby in her arms.

When the woman finishes, they crawl into a dilapidated Ford and drive away. Their car makes a grinding noise, like it needs a new axle. And I’m fairly certain she’s leaking oil.

Mercedes pulls in behind. He whips forward and jams his brakes. He leaps out, slams his door, and tries the pump. But something’s wrong.

He cusses, then marches inside.

He returns, accompanied by the attendant. The clerk places a yellow baggy over his gas-pump handle.

Out of service.

Cars are honking at Mister Mercedes. The man pulls into the next pump, behind a van. He waits.

When it’s…

So the news is blaring on a television in my room. It’s been playing the same angry scene for five days. An unruly crowd. Riots. Barricades, torches, and policemen bearing helmets and shields.

A nice car stalls in traffic. Horns honk. People shout. Four Mexican men leap out of a dilapidated minivan. They push the broken down vehicle from a busy intersection.

In the front seat: Jocelyn. A seventy-three-year-old woman.

When she is out of harm's way, one of the men says something in English:

“You need a ride, ma’am? We’ll take you wherever you wanna go.”

They drive her home, across town. She offers to pay for their gas. They decline. She offers to feed them. They accept.

Years later, Jocelyn dies. At her funeral, Jocelyn’s daughter sees a group of unfamiliar Mexican men.

Chase. He is middle-aged and clumsy. He has the idea to repair his own roof. He climbs on the house while his wife is away.

He loses his footing. He trips. The shrubs break his fall—and his leg.

A neighbor’s fourteen-year-old son sees the accident. The boy calls 911, then performs first-aid. The kid even rides to the hospital inside the ambulance.

When Chase awakens, there

is a boy, sitting at his bedside, mumbling a prayer.

“Called your wife,” says the kid. “I found her number in your phone.”

There’s a girl. I’ll call her Karen. As a child, she was raped and abused by her father. Karen left home when she was old enough to drive. She drove six states away and tried to forget her childhood.

And she did. One divorce and two kids later, things were looking up. She had a job managing a cellphone store, a nice apartment.

Her aunt called one day. Her father was sick. Stomach cancer was eating him from the inside out.

“Why the hell should I care?” was Karen’s response.

She didn’t sleep for a week thereafter.

Anyway, today I hope someone you love tells you how they feel about you—even if you already know it. And I double-hope they show you. No. I triple-hope it. Quadruple-hope. Times infinity.

I hope you have a good day today. I don’t mean an oh-my-God-I-won-the-lottery kind of day. That would be too much euphoria for one afternoon.

No, I hope you have a plain, old-fashioned good day.

Like when an old friend calls and you talk for three hours. Or when you hear “Always On My Mind” on the radio.

I hope you meet someone who impresses you. Like the man I met at Lowe’s yesterday.

He had no legs and one arm. He drove a motorized wheelchair. He was buying supplies to fix his bathroom sink. His young son walked beside him.

We had a conversation, waiting in line. Before I left, the man shook my hand and said, “Hey man, I hope you have a good day.”

Me.

Anyway, today I hope someone you love tells you how they feel about you—even if you already know it. And I double-hope they show you. No. I triple-hope it. Quadruple-hope. Times infinity.

May you get kissed by a dog, a kid, or anyone with white hair. I hope you kiss back.

Kisses get hard to come by once you get lines on your face.

I hope you forget about people who did you wrong. And when you try to recall painful times, I hope you can’t remember a damn one.

I hope you think about your granddaddy. Or your granny. Anyone who called you, “child,” “young’un,” or, “baby.” And may you remember what kind of simple world this place was when you were young.

I hope you feel important.

And I hope someone tells you how nice you look. It’s good to feel attractive. And, by God, you are.

I hope you eat something rich. I’m talking food your doctor warns you about. Such as: vanilla ice cream with caramel, fried chicken from a paper bucket, a Dean’s layer cake, a chili-dog with extra onions.

I hope you sit on a sofa…

...But I don't mind telling you that I don’t believe it. Not because I am an ignoramoose—at least not a full-blooded one. But because I have seen things.

Georgiana, Alabama—Kendall’s Barbecue joint is not just a barbecue joint. Inside this tin-roofed place is God’s own kitchen. The pulled pork here is nothing short of Biblical.

And today I need a little pork. I’m on my way to a memorial service.

I pull over for lunch. Large pulled pork. Extra pickles. I’m eating in my truck with windows down. It’s hot outside.

A young couple in a Taurus pulls in. Dirt on the fenders. The boy is tall and skinny. His pants are too big. She’s pregnant.

There are three kids with them—all redheads. God help those children.

The young man is covered in sweat and dust. They get their bag of food and head toward the car. He helps kids into carseats. He kisses each on the forehead.

The woman says to him, “Hurry, come quick! Feel him kick!”

He comes to her. He presses an ear to her swollen belly. His face lights up. He kisses her.

Then, they share a look.

After they leave, an older

man orders at the counter. He has white hair, overalls, sweat spots on his shirt.

When he gets his paper bag, he takes it and walks to his truck. There is a dog in his vehicle.

While the man eats in his driver’s seat, I see him through his window. His mouth is moving, and he’s smiling.

I’ll be dog if he isn’t talking to that pup.

When he finishes, he stuffs a tobacco pipe with his thumb, cracks the window, and lights it. The dog gives the man a lick on the cheek. This makes the man smile.

Which makes me smile.

Next: a heavyset man orders food. He has broad shoulders and thick arms. He is…

Chitlins. I’d rather lick a possum between the ears. However, my saintly mother spent her entire youth popping me with a hairbrush for the express purpose of teaching me to do “nice things.”

I’m watching a Mexican construction crew. They are working on a friend’s house. It is the weekend, and the sun is twelve kinds of brutal.

At noon, they prepare lunch in the shade of a live oak.

The cook for the outfit connects an electric hot-plate to a power cord. He is pan-frying something strange-looking.

He asks if my friend and I want to join them for lunch.

“What’s that you’re cooking?” asks my friend.

“Tacitos tripas.”

I ask what this is, exactly.

The other men giggle.

“I think,” the man explains. “You call them chitlins in Americano. You wanna try?”

Chitlins. I’d rather lick a possum between the ears. However, my saintly mother spent her entire youth popping me with a hairbrush for the express purpose of teaching me to do “nice things.”

So I agreed to try some.

As it happens, I’ve seen some other nice things recently.

For instance, yesterday, in the Walmart checkout lane. I saw a woman with a full cart. She had four

children.

She tried to pay with a card. It was declined.

Her teenage daughter removed a wad of bills and said, “Lemme pay, Mama. I got babysitting money.”

“That’s a REEEEAL good daughter,” said the cashier.

“The best,” said her mother.

Here’s another: I was at a traffic light. I saw a man with a long beard and a guitar on his back. I have seen him before. I’ve even given him money. He’s a nice fella who smells like a distillery.

I saw an arm reach from a car window ahead. The hand was holding a What-A-Burger bag.

The man took it, then sat cross-legged in the median to eat.

Listen, I know this world isn’t all confectioners sugar and honey bees. I know life is hard, I’m no fool. I know hatred is out there, just waiting to beat the hell out of another victim.

Fayetteville, North Carolina—the middle of the night, on the interstate. She was on her way to start a new life in a new place.

She pulled over at a rest area.

It was dark. She was young. A man came from nowhere, forced her into a car, and held a gun to her. He told her what he was about to do to her.

Then, someone kicked open the window and pulled him off. There was a fight. Her attacker was never caught. Her hero was never found. She was unharmed.

“My mom thinks it was an angel,” she says. “I think so, too.”

Birmingham, Alabama—Daryl saw a man walking the highway. He offered the man a ride.

The man said, “No thanks,” and mumbled something nonsensical.

Daryl dove past him the next afternoon. And the next. One day he pulled alongside the man and said, “Please let me do SOMETHING for you, sir.”

The man said, “I’m so scared, dude. Help me.”

Daryl brought him home. He made contact with the

man’s sister, who said her brother suffered from schizophrenia. He’d gone missing days earlier.

In a few hours, the family was reunited on Daryl’s front lawn.

“You saved my brother’s life,” said the man’s sister. “And mine.”

Flowood, Mississippi—on Tuesday afternoons, Mary instructs a gymnasium of women, of varying ages and fitness levels, how to dance hip-hop.

One of her students—an elderly woman—had chest pains.

The ambulance came. Mary rode with her to the hospital. She lied to nurses, claiming to be the woman’s daughter so they’d let her into the woman’s room. She called the family.

One emergency open-heart surgery later, the old woman is alive and moving.

“Anybody woulda done what I…

He talked about one thing in particular that evening: anonymous acts of charity. And for some reason—call it good timing—her husband took the idea seriously.

My mail-lady handed me a stack of mail and said, “Looks like mostly bills.”

Then, she lit a smoke and we talked about a whole lot of nothing. Namely: the weather. Though we do have some things in common. For example, we both have too many bills.

Good talk.

When she left, I opened my stack of mail. She was right. Bills. Coupons, real-estate flyers, a Bass Pro catalog, and a gift certificate for a free chiropractic consult in a bad part of town.

And one thick envelope from Georgia. A three-page letter.

The author of the letter is ninety. She has stunning penmanship. Her name is Louise. I've never actually known a woman by this name. But I wish it would make a comeback.

“I am not good on your Facebook,” Louise begins. “I still write letters...”

I wish more people would.

She’s from the old world. Her husband was a blue-collar. A grease-covered face who smiled at her just right when she was eighteen.

He was rowdy, but he settled down the moment he slipped a ring

on her finger. Rings do that sometimes.

“A minister came through our church," she said. "I brought Joey to listen to a quite captivating speaker...

“And though my husband was less than impressed with Methodism as a whole, the minister made it through to him..."

The holy-roller did more than make it through. He talked about one thing in particular that evening: anonymous acts of charity. And for some reason—call it good timing—her husband took the idea seriously.

At lunch after church, he wrote a Bible verse on the back of a business card—one which he carried in his wallet for many years. It was the only Bible reading she ever saw him do.

The verse:

“...A man who has two coats is to share with him who has none; and he who has food is to do likewise."

That same…