DEAR SEAN:

I have been asked to write a column for my hometown newspaper. Nobody knows about the paper, but it’s big where I live. I’m scared. Scared I’m not good enough or that people won’t like what I write. Can you give me some advice?

Best wishes,
AFRAID-I’M-NOT-GOOD

DEAR AFRAID:

Writing a column is a lot like passing a kidney stone. It’s uncomfortable, sure. But when you’re finished, you’ll have a neat souvenir to share with your family.

When I first started writing columns, I was on the wrong side of age 30. I had no training. No experience. No pedigree. All I had were buck teeth and a bad back.

I waltzed into a small-town newspaper office and brazenly asked if I could work there. The woman behind the editor’s desk looked at me like I was three peas short of a casserole.

She asked about my qualifications.

I told her I had no qualifications except that I was currently attending a community college. Also, for breakfast I’d had a V8.

To my surprise, she gave

me a job. I was shocked. Shocked.

Then, the editor went on to say there was a $50 signing bonus for new employees. So I reached into my pocket, got out my checkbook and said, “Who do I make the check out to?”

“No, silly,” she said. “The $50 bonus is for you. It’s for expenses.”

Well, I took that money and applied it toward my celebration expenses. I celebrated by filling my truck with gas, and buying a gas-station eggroll that, to this day, remains obstructed in my gastrointestinal tract somewhere.

But my life was forever changed by this simple job of producing columns. I love what I do.

Since then, I’ve written columns for many newspapers, Rotary Club pamphlets, Girl Scout troop newsletters, church bulletins, nursing home mailouts, and Civic League email prayer lists. And in my brief career,…

I am eating a cheeseburger, sipping beer, looking at a restaurant full of families and kids.

There is a band playing. They couldn’t be any worse if they detuned their instruments and started making bodily noises over the microphone.

But the children are loving the music. Some are dancing. Others are screaming, “Daddy! Daddy! Daddy! Daddy!”

“That’s all my kids know how to say,” says one of my exasperated friends. “‘Daddy, Daddy.’ Like a warped record.”

I love kids. I have always wondered how people with children enjoy their lives. I look around at a table of my middle-aged friends and I am thinking of this very thing.

These young parents seem to have more responsibility than the rest of us civilians. In fact, they’re so responsible that they can’t even focus on a conversation for more than one-point-nine seconds.

They are always too busy looking from the corners of their eyes, waiting for an impending catastrophe caused by a screaming toddler.

My friend Billy, for instance, is trying to tell a story, but his sentences are incoherent because he

keeps diverting his eyes toward his kids. “Hey,” he begins. “You remember when we were fifteen…”

Billy turns his head.

“...And there was that water tower….”

Another head turn.

“...With the Hallelujah Chorus and..”

Then he jerks his head and shouts, “PUT YOUR SISTER DOWN, RIGHT NOW! RIGHT NOW, I SAID! DON’T MAKE ME COME OVER THERE! I SWEAR, I WILL WHIP YOUR LITTLE…!”

My friend Nathan tells me about being a dad:

“The thing about kids is, they say ‘Daddy’ about fifteen hundred times per day. It’s enough to make you nuts. You get so sick of hearing that word. ‘Daddy, daddy.’”

“Yeah,” another friend says. “For once, I wish my kids would just let me pee without having nervous breakdowns outside the door.”

Meantime, my friends’ wives sit at the other side of the table, rocking babies, talking.…

AMY TOOTHAKER—Happy birthday, Jamie. Though Jamie and I became friends later in life, I feel like I’ve known her forever.

I knew we’d be forever bonded when we were up to our elbows, cutting up frozen chickens after Hurricane Michael, Lucy-and-Ethel style. Jamie can laugh like no one else and she brings that joy to everyone around her.

CASHIER AT PIGGLY WIGGLY—You mean the lady who was just in here? It’s her birthday? What do you want me to say about her? Um. Okay. Let’s see. She was a nice person. Gosh, I don’t know. I feel uncomfortable saying things about someone I don’t know.

MANDY MCKENZIE HOKE—Jamie has the heart of an angel, but you better not mess with the people she loves. I’m glad I’m one of those people… And I’m also a little scared of her.

KATIE HUELSBECK—I love talking to Jamie. She’s always ready to listen, even our heavy conversations are filled with laughs. And those biscuits are fire.

LYLE SANDQUIST—It’s not every day you get to meet someone who can do EVERYTHING with such efficiency.

She is

able to schedule, coordinate, stay on top of orders, bills, mailings, dogs, dog sitters, housecleaning, relatives and friends who come through her house like hotel guests, grocery shopping, cooking exquisite menus, providing directions, booking hotels, vet appointments, and still, after all that, she’s able to be kind, sweet, congenial, social, and loving! Happy birthday, Jamie.

THE WASTE MANAGEMENT GUYS—She always separates the recycling stuff just right.

LANIER MOTES—I remember I was helping Jamie cook for a catering event. Sean showed up with an accordion. Only one of us was amused. And that person was me.

LESLIE SCHMIDT—​​I’m so thankful for Jamie and the love for family, flowers and dogs that we share. She is beautiful, genuine and real, and I love that about her. We need more Jamie’s in the world.

BENTLEY MARTIN—She has always been so special,…

Noon. A Mexican taco truck. Birmingham. This parking lot is packed, if there was an empty square-inch of space it’s already filled with a Nissan or a Kia.

Earlier this morning, I was on a radio show. The host drilled me with loaded questions. It was a disaster. I was supposed to be plugging my new book, instead the host was asking slanted questions about hot-button, divisive topics.

The problem is, I don’t know how to answer divisive questions. I’m not a smart guy. I didn’t graduate high school.

Moreover, I wasn’t a particularly bright student to begin with. I was always getting letters and numbers mixed up. In fact, it took me 30 years to figure out that “taters” was spelled with a P.

I’m not qualified to talk about controversial issues. I have a hard enough time just spelling my last name.

The host’s main question of the morning was, “What do you think will save this country?”

Sadly, I had no answer for him. My only salvation was to fake a bladder emergency.

But I’m thinking about his question

right now, standing in this taco truck line.

What will save this country?

Ahead of me in line is a female police officer. She wears a blue uniform, ballistic body armor, and a chest-mounted radio. She is powerfully built. She could twist me into a human pretzel, dip me in garlic sauce and serve me with a Mick Ultra.

“Ma’am,” I begin, “can I ask you a personal question?”

“Sure.”

“What do you think will save this country?”

She frowns. “Save this what? Whatchoo mean?”

So I repeat the question.

“You know what I think will save this country?” she finally answers. “People looking out for each other, people being a blessing instead of being selfish.”

I nod and write it down.

I order chilaquiles verdes, which is my all-time favorite Mexican dish. I was first introduced to…

You probably don’t know this, but today is National 87-Year-Old Day. The reason you don’t know about this particular holiday is because I just invented it a few seconds ago.

I created this holiday especially for a woman named Miss Jodi, from Bent Tree, Georgia, who is, in case you haven’t guessed, 87 years old.

Miss Jodi’s children told me she has been under the weather lately. So this is why I wanted her to have a holiday of her own.

Oh, sure, I could have simply said “I’m praying for you to get well, Miss Jodi.” But this phrase is so often misused that sometimes I’m afraid the words have lost their meaning in our culture.

When I was a kid, people used to say they were “praying for you” all the time. But you always knew they probably weren’t.

Good folks would rush up to you after church, shake your hand and hurriedly say, “I’ll be praying for you!”

But somehow you knew, deep inside, they were just hurrying through the motions so they could

beat the Methodists to the Mexican restaurant.

But getting back to my new holiday. As I say, this is a big deal. National 87-Year-Old Day is going to be huge all over the U.S. They’re going to close down schools and businesses, throw monstrous parades, and have two-for-one pitchers at the local Freewill Baptist churches.

And it’s all for you, Miss Jodi.

Admittedly, I’ve never been to Bent Tree, Georgia, but our childhood preacher was from Jasper. He had the personality of coleslaw. He preached two great sermons in his career. The day he joined us, and the day he left.

Even so, I imagine the mayor of Bent Tree will be calling Miss Jodi soon to offer her a key to the city. And if he doesn’t, I think we should all call the locksmith and chip in to have one cut.

Her letter came via snail mail. She’s 16. Her beautiful handwriting makes my own penmanship look like chicken fertilizer.

She’s an exceptional kid. Wants to be a graphic designer one day. Loves horses. Favorite book is “Huckleberry Finn.” Her favorite author is Mark Twain.

We’ll call her Becky.

“Dear Sean,” Becky’s letter began, “why are people so mean on social media…?”

It all started this summer. Becky posted pictures online. They were images her mom took while she was at the lake with friends.

Four teenage girls with arms draped around each other. Smiling. They wore modest bathing suits. They were eating ice cream. Normal kids. Just having fun.

The images received fistfuls of hateful comments from some of Becky’s classmates online. It really hurt.

“We’re not the tiniest girls in school,” she wrote. “I’m overweight and I’m not super pretty, but people were so mean that I literally wanted to die.”

There were over 73 ugly comments on Becky’s post. It started with kids she knew, then the remarks were coming from people she’d never met.

She finally took

the photos down.

“Help me deal with haters,” Becky wrote. “I feel so bad about myself.”

I can relate to what you’re feeling, Becky. I was a child who never seemed to fit the mold. I had a wider waistline than most of my peers. My childhood doctor actually told me, point-blank, that I was overweight.

The exact word he used was the F word.

He laughed endearingly as he pinched my pink tummy and said, “Good heavens, this boy is FAT.”

He told me to be more active, to take better care of myself, to eat better, to consume less sugar, and then he lit another unfiltered Camel and offered the nurse one.

So I disliked myself, growing up. Which made me a prime target for bullies. To make matters worse, I wore godawful jeans my mom purchased from…

I was driving. I was hungry. I had to pull over because I was about to eat my own steering wheel. The Tennessee autumn was in full swing. I had a long way left to go.

I found a meat and three in a strip mall. Lots of trucks in the parking area.

You can trust a place with trucks in the parking lot.

Everyone knows that if you see a throng of Fords and Chevys in a restaurant parking lot, the said establishment has exceptional fried chicken. If you see Cadillacs and Buicks, they will also have excellent congealed salad.

The server behind the sneeze guard asked what I wanted. He was tall, gaunt, wearing a hairnet. His neck and arms were painted in a gridwork of tattoos.

“Chicken of meatloaf?” he said.

“Chicken,” said I.

Fried chicken is a dying art in America. I was raised fundamentalist; fried chicken is my spiritual mascot. Fried chicken is holy food. And it is the only dish I don’t mind eating cold. Next-day chicken, straight from the fridge,

is better than Christmas.

The server selected drumsticks that were roughly the size of a James Patterson paperback.

“You want veggies with it?” he said.

“Does the pope go in the woods?” I said.

The list of side dishes was plentiful: Mac and cheese, fried green tomatoes, squash casserole, turnip greens, butterbeans, pintos, great northerns, zipper peas, cornbread salad, slaw, tater logs.

And don’t even get me started on the sweets. You had peach cobbler, lemon meringue, blueberry dump cake, caramel cake, chess pie, and complimentary syringes of insulin.

When my foam box was loaded to capacity, I filled my cup from the tea dispenser. The man who served me was on break, waiting to fill his tea.

We started talking. After a few minutes of conversation, I learned that he had just got out of prison.

“I was turned down for ten…

Today my wife and I visited the Callahan School for the Deaf & Blind with our dog. We were running late. Our vehicle squealed into the parking lot on two wheels.

I applied deodorant in a timely manner, ate two fistfuls of Altoids, and made my way inside.

Marigold is my blind coonhound. She goes everywhere with me. We do everything together. I drive; she sleeps. I watch television; she sleeps. I work; she sleeps. I go out for tacos; she eats all the queso.

Mrs. Hess invited us to visit the school today, since many of the students can relate to Marigold.

We were buzzed in through the doors. I apologized for being late. Everyone told me it was no problem, which made me feel worse.

The first thing that struck me was how ordinary the school looked. Callahan looks just like any school in Anytown, U.S.A. Like every school you’ve seen a-million-and-six times before.

Same cinderblock walls. Same tight hallways. Same smell. Why do all schools smell the same?

But that’s just the surface appearance. Because

nothing about this place is common.

Mrs. Hess has been working here for a long time. She’s seen it all. She’s had students enter her classroom in need of tender care. She’s seen these children find their voice. She’s seen them kick butt and take names.

Callahan is a public elementary school, they get kids here from all walks. This place is a miniature snapshot of Mobile.

“Welcome to the most rewarding place on planet earth,” says Mrs. Hess, ushering us forward.

Marigold and I approached the library. There were teachers waiting nearby. Outside the door, a cluster of tiny walkers and guidance canes were parked together.

“They’re ready for you,” whispered one teacher.

The library was packed to the ceiling with kids, waiting for their late presenter. I was greeted with several little faces beaming at me as we entered. Children…

It was 12:21 a.m. There were no restaurants open in Fairhope at this untoward hour.

Unless, of course, you counted Sonic Drive-In. And if I wanted the joyous experience of dining in my vehicle, I could save time by dumping boiling grease into my lap.

So it was Waffle House.

I stepped into the surgically chilled air of America’s greatest eatery and found my usual seat.

Waffle House dining rooms are predominantly designed the same way. A Waffle House in Benson, North Carolina, for example, is set up just like the one in Albuquerque.

So I always choose the same seat. I always select the leftmost seat at the very end of the bar. Back of the house. Nearest the refrigerators. Against the window.

I sit here for two reasons. One, because the air conditioners at Waffle House will freeze your vital organs. Two, the air vents can’t reach you back here.

Tonight, our grill-person was named Larry. He was tall, with Rosie Greer shoulders and a perpetual smile.

I asked what he was smiling about.

“Oh, I always smile,”

he said.

I asked why.

He shrugged his granite shoulders. “Customers need to feel like they’s at home.”

Larry is a relatively young guy. At least he seems young to me.

He recently suffered a heart attack. The cardiac event was so bad that his doctors weren’t sure how much destruction had been done. They placed him in a medically induced coma to reduce damage to his brain.

Life came to a standstill. His family went into a kind of half mourning. If you’ve ever had a family member in a coma, it’s exactly like going to hell, only with more vending machine food.

Larry survived his heart attack with almost no lingering effects. One week after he left the hospital, he was back at the grill, cooking.

“Cooking is what I do,” he said, flipping eggs with a gentle…