Buc-ee’s convenience store sits outside Athens, Alabama, like a giant squatting beaver.

This Texas-based gas station place is not a mere gas station. Buc-ee’s is a dwarf planet. You’re looking at Six Flags Over Circle K.

And the place is packed today.

“We’re packed every day,” says an older employee wearing a cowboy hat. “Every day is like a Who concert in here.”

If you go to Buc-ee’s, be prepared to wait in a line of traffic. There are 120 gas pumps jammed full of SUVs, compact cars and oversized trucks. They come from all over. The license plates read Maine, Nebraska, Nevada, Vermont, and Alaska.

Walking into the store is like going into an Alan Jackson concert, only less organized. We’re talking 53,470 square-feet of commercial retail space. You see people from all walks. Rich and poor. Old and young. Yoga pants and partial nudity.

They have everything here.

Buc-ee’s features a Texas-style barbecue pit with line cooks wearing cattleman hats. The brisket is good. The employees call you Sugar, which is sweet, but also weird inasmuch as

some of the employees are old enough to be your great-grandchildren.

The food is good. They roast nuts here. Try the cinnamon glazed pecans, they taste like licking the throne of the risen Savior.

They have fudge in every shape, color, and political party. The mint-fudge has been legally classified as a narcotic in three states.

Buc-ee’s serves banana pudding, which isn’t bad. They have ghost pepper jerky that will utterly ruin your bowels.

They sell baby onesies, vape pens, barbecue grills, deer feed, machetes, fishing kayaks, and tactical helicopters. There is a wall of beer.

Also, Buc-ee’s sells the kind of crafty merchandise you’d find in a Hobby Lobby. There are American-flag cutting boards, for example. They sell bejeweled steer-head skulls. There are Buc-ee’s underpants.

I see a bumper sticker reading, “I bet Jesus would have used HIS turn signals.”

It was our place. That’s what it was. I grew up in a little fishing village, nestled in the Florida Panhandle.

This was long before the tattoo parlors, before the T-shirt shops, before Whole Foods and Bass Pro.

Today our little town is not even a shadow of its former glory. On any given month, Destin is inundated with 8 million tourists wearing thong bikinis. And those are just the men.

But once upon a time, we had Pepito’s. It was your quintessential Mexican dive restaurant. It was clean. The staff was friendly. They had ugly orange walls. The joint was always packed.

They served good food. The chips were always hot. The salsa was fresh from an actual tin can. They had ice-cold Tecate.

You could order a “King Burrito,” and you wouldn’t be hungry again for the next three or four presidential administrations.

My first kiss happened outside Pepito’s. It was late. Her name was Teresa. She had red hair and she smelled like Head and Shoulders.

Do people name their kids Teresa anymore?

As a young man, all my friends went to Pepito’s because it was where you went. We spent entire evenings in those booths, discussing who we were going to grow up to become.

For a few bucks, you could fill your belly on queso dip that would turn your bowels into stone. If you had enough cash left over, you could take in a movie across the street.

Years later, I worked at the restaurant next door to Pepito’s. We served cheap sirloins. I was a line cook. I worked in a dank kitchen until 1AM every weeknight, doing dishes.

They were long nights. Pepito’s shared our same dumpster. So whenever I took out the trash, there were always a few Latino guys out there smoking cigarettes, speaking in rapid-fire Español, drinking longneck Pacificos.

I learned to speak Spanish in that alley. I had…

It was quite a night in Heaven. The angels were busy. The cherubim and seraphim were fluttering around, batting their wings, in preparation for the big party.

Moses, the commanding officer, was barking orders at the kitchen staff.

“Did you remember the queso dip?” Moses asked a subordinate angel. “God gets ticked off if we forget the queso.”

“He does?” answered the angel, private first class.

“Oh yes,” said Moses. “Remember Sodom and Gomorrah? That was because God ran out of queso dip during a big game.”

“Really?”

“Yep. And do you remember Noah’s flood? That’s what happens when God runs out of Old Milwaukee.”

So the angels were on top of things. They were making sure all the trimmings for the big party were in place.

They made sure the Igloo coolers were stocked. They made sure the hors d'oeuvres were perfect. They got a deli tray from Publix.

The Beulah Reception Hall had never looked lovelier. There was a massive radio tuned to 650 AM, out of Nashville, Tennessee, so everyone could listen to the “Grand Ole Opry.”

Barbecue had been

catered from A&R Barbecue in Memphis. Ice cream had been flown in from Dairy Queen. The worker angels had hauled in enough queso dip to sink the U.S.S. North Carolina.

“I don’t see why this party is such a big deal,” said one of the angels. “I didn’t know God listened to the ‘Grand Ole Opry.’”

“He does,” said Moses. “God invented country music.”

This party, however, wasn’t just a run-of-the-mill soiree. God was throwing this particular party for one of His best friends. His friend’s name was John.”

“John must be very important for God to throw a party for him,” said the angel.

“He is. God loves him very much.”

“How did John die?”

Moses got quiet. “Does it matter?”

Soon, the party was underway. Guests started arriving. Within moments, the reception hall was full…

BIRMINGHAM, Ala.—I was trying to write a column about what’s doing in Alabama when a blind dog wandered into my office. This dog crawled into my lap, started snoring, and began emitting smells. Powerful smells.

The column was going to be about how a current 27-year-old Alabamian contestant on “American Idol” named Johnny Knox offered a bribe to celebrity judges Katy Perry, Luke Bryan and Lionel Richie. The bribe was sourdough bread. And it worked. Because this is the current IQ of the television industry.

“I think you’re only going to get better,” replied Katy Perry, with a mouthful of carbs. “We need to [transform you] from sourdough starter to a loaf.”

You have to worry about this country.

So that’s what I was writing about when a dog wandered into my office. My office is nothing to write home about. It’s a disorganized mess of books and junk. This room is a sloppy nightmare. My wife calls it The Hellhole because it contains half the organic matter in the known solar system.

There

are three accordions scattered around. A few banjos (I swear, they aren’t mine). I have old boots, several of which are missing heels. Old camping gear. A graveyard of coffee mugs. A rubber chicken named Ed Lee. And Daddy’s ancient Zenith radio, which is busted and only picks up classic country stations or broadcasts involving Red Barber.

So when this petite blind dog meandered into my office and crawled right into my lap, it was difficult to maintain my focus.

Because writing takes extreme focus. The problem, of course, is that I tend to be a little ADD. Throughout my life, I’ve had a difficult time following through on anyth

So as this dog placed her heavy head onto my arm, which was currently engaged in tapping on a laptop keyboard, there was no way I could maintain concentration.

And then came the smells. These were…

I have a thing for trees. I don’t know why. Maybe because I’ve always been a nerd.

I think it all dates back to my days in Boy Scouts. My cousin Ed Lee and I were second-class Scouts, and we earned our forestry merit badges one summer. Actually, I earned both his badge and mine. He mainly read Archie comic books while I did all the fieldwork.

I’ve been obsessed with trees ever since. Namely, because I’ve always felt that trees are the strongest things you’ll ever see. Trees endure the hell of an earthly life, and they just keep on living.

Strong.

The first officially published story I ever wrote was about a longleaf pine. The story was published in my small hometown paper in Florida.

In Florida, the longleaf is our flagship specimen. At one time, they covered 90 million acres in the southeast. Now they cover less than 3 percent of that.

Throughout history, mankind has ceremoniously massacred longleafs to build his railroads, his battleships, his Dave and Buster’s and his crappy

D.R. Horton express homes.

The mighty longleaf is endangered, in case you were wondering.

I will go out of my way to visit a good tree.

There was the Angel Oak, just outside Charleston, South Carolina. The oldest oak east of the Mississippi. Sixty-five feet tall, 28 feet in circumference. Its branches cover 17,000 square feet. The largest limb reaches 187 feet long. The tree is 500 years old, predating Leonardo da Vinci’s Mona Lisa.

I’ve also seen the Methuselah tree, in the Inyo National Forest. The tree stands in a distant location between the Sierra Nevada range on the California-Nevada border.

The Methuselah is 4,853 years old. That’s a Stone Age tree. It’s not just the oldest tree on earth. It is the oldest living organism on Earth. You want to talk about strong?

The exact location of the Methuselah is kept secret to…

Tonight, I am in a band. I am only a guest musician. But the guys on stage are my friends.

It’s a great night. Bright lights are shining in my face. There are happy people in the audience. And I can’t think of many things I love more than playing music with my friends.

Bruce is on the harmonica. George is on the lap steel. Jack is on bass. Steven is on the drums. Another Stephen is on Hammond. Jerry is tearing the keys off his saxophone. Mike is playing congas. And I am playing piano.

There’s an old saying about bands. The quickest way to get the band to sound good is to shoot the piano player.

Old joke. One I’ve heard many times. But then, I’ve heard them all throughout the years.

Q: What do you call a piano player without a girlfriend?

A: Homeless.

Q: What do you throw a drowning keyboard player?

A: His amplifier.

I’ve been playing piano since age 9. The way I started playing piano was, my father bought an

old spinet from the classified section.

One December afternoon, Daddy and three of his fellow ironworkers hauled the piano into our home and put the instrument into our dank basement, just beside the water heater, beneath the framed embroidery which read:

“Watch ye therefore: ye know not when the master of the house cometh.”

My father bribed his friends to help him move this piano by paying them with beer. His friends were feeling no pain. As a result, by the time the piano got to the basement, the thing looked as though it had fallen down three flights of stairs. Because, of course, it had.

But it sounded great. I was over the moon to have MY VERY OWN PIANO.

Mama asked Daddy whether he was going to buy me piano lessons. He replied, “If the boy wants to play bad enough,…

It’s raining on Saint Patrick’s Day. Birmingham is caught in a mess of grayish fog. Sort of the way you’d imagine Ireland might be.

I went to a tavern to meet friends so that we could engage in the cherished American pastime of drinking green beer.

I’ve been drinking green beer on Saint Patrick’s Day ever since I was old enough to watch Mister Rogers. I am Scots-Irish. We are beer fans.

My mother’s roots come from Northern Ireland where beer was probably invented. Which is why my mother chose a traditional Gaelic first name for me.

As a boy, the name Sean was always a source of great confusion for classmates who didn’t happen to speak second-century Gaelic. They couldn't figure out the pronunciation.

In third grade, for example, on the playground, a young street tough named Vinny Stepnowski asked, “Why do you spell your name like that, dorkface?”

“That’s what my mother named me.”

“It’s a stupid name,” Vinny said. “Why would anyone name their kid Sean?”

“Because if she’d named me Vinny, I would’ve had to wear a bra.”

I was in a body cast

for nine weeks.

I walked into the beer joint. The place was packed for Saint Paddy’s Day. TVs everywhere. Music blaring. My friends weren’t there yet, so I waited at the bar.

I sat next to a guy who was using a wheelchair. I’ll call him Patrick because this is my column and I can do whatever I want.

Patrick was drinking beer through a straw because holding the glass proved to be a chore with his weakened hands. He was alone.

“Pull up a stool,” said Pat.

Patrick and I shook hands. His grip was light, but he squeezed. He had a thick beard and he wore a UAB Medicine sweatshirt.

“Happy Saint Patrick’s Day,” he said.

“Same to you.”

“You Irish?” he asked.

“Yes.”

“So you must like Guiness?”

“If…

Brenda’s Barbecue Pit is about the size of a walk-in closet, only smaller. The nano-building stands on Mobile Road near Washington Park in Montgomery. It’s a working class neighborhood. They do take-out only.

No credit cards.

There is a line of customers four miles long today. Some customers look like they came directly from work. There is a man in custodial blues. A woman in medical scrubs. A guy in a suit.

It’s a sunny afternoon. Birds chirping. A souped-up Cadillac passes by, windows tinted in roofing tar, with a booming stereo loud enough to crack dental fillings. And I am drunk on pecan smoke.

There is an old woman in the car parked beside mine, windows down, smoking a cigar. She smiles her few teeth at me.

I ask her if the food here is good.

“Good ain’t the word, baby.”

I ask how long Brenda’s has been here.

“Long time,” she replies, smoke wafting from her nostrils. “Longer than I am old.”

I’ve eaten barbecue in 44 different states; everywhere except North Dakota, Wyoming, Alaska, Hawaii, and New

Hampshire. People tell me Brenda’s is the best of all time.

Bold words. Especially when considering some of the barbecue joints this vast country has to offer. I’ll start with a few unlikely winners.

Cattleack Barbecue in Dallas, located in an ordinary strip mall. The line was out the door. Once inside, a waitress offered me free beer while I waited. I repeat, free beer. The food was spiritual.

Ubon’s barbecue joint. Yazoo City, Mississippi. My booth featured duct tape on the upholstery. The ribs tasted exactly like cherubs singing Handel.

Kaiser’s Barbecue in Salt Lake City. The joint looks like either a former tattoo parlor or a repurposed strip joint. The prime rib was so good my wife slapped me. Twice.

Suzy Q’s, in Buffalo, New York. The staff thought I talked funny. Long ago, you would have termed…

“It’s my birthday,” the email said, “and my dad forgot me…”

The young man writing to me just turned 14 years old. We’re going to call him Mark.

Mark lives outside New Orleans. His parents are divorced. Mark lives with his mom. Mark’s mom had to work late this year for his birthday.

Last night, Mark’s father was supposed to cover for her. His father was supposed to swing by and pick up Mark to hang out. They were going to celebrate the big One-Four together. See a movie. Get some pizza. Do guy stuff.

But Mark’s dad never showed.

It was a Tuesday evening. Mark got dressed up for his birthday. He sat on the porch, waiting dutifully. Mark was wearing his nice clothes. He kept checking the time on his phone. He kept peering down the street, to see if his father’s car was coming. But no cigar.

Finally, at sundown, Mark went back inside and watched some television. Then he wrote to me because—you have to worry about this boy—he likes my writing.

“My dad

doesn’t love me,” his message began.

Well, Mark, before I say anything else, let me wish you a happy birthday, kiddo. Congratulations. Fourteen is a huge birthday. It’s the period of life when you’re not quite a man, not quite a boy.

At age 14, you exist in a phase of life we call “Man-Boy Phase.” It’s a phase where you are keenly aware of things like newly sprouted body hair and armpit odor, but you also still unwind at the end of a long day by using fresh boogers to terrorize your little sister.

You’re still a kid who loves Legos. But on the other hand: You currently spend the same amount of time fixing your hair as it took to complete the Sistine chapel.

Fourteen. A heck of a year.

I remember when I turned 14. What a tough year…

Hi, God,

It’s me again. I know it’s been a while since my last prayer, so I don’t blame you if you choose not to listen to a hopeless sinner like me.

The truth is, I’m just not a very great guy. I wish I had a better excuse than this, but I don’t. And if I offered you a better excuse, you’d know I was lying.

I’m slothful, plain and simple. I have bad habits. Sometimes I don’t do the right thing. And oftentimes, I just plum forget to pray.

The reason for this is because I grew up in a Baptist fundamentalist household. My mother forced me to pray each night at gunpoint. We uttered morbid prayers that struck terror into the hearts of children.

I prayed each night, for instance, that if the Rapture were to occur, and Gabriel blew his trumpet, that I wouldn’t be left behind. I prayed this every night, without exception. I was terrified that if I wasn’t taken in the Rapture, I’d be left here on earth to suffer with

all the Methodists.

And then there was the prayer Granny made me memorize. “Now I Lay Me Down To Sleep.” There has never been a more sadistic prayer than this childhood classic.

“Now I lay me down to sleep,
“I pray the Lord my soul to keep;
“If I should die before I wake,
“It’s because I was a bad little boy and I truly deserved to be asphyxiated in my sleep.”

My wife. Now there’s a true prayer warrior. She keeps a handwritten list. Every night before supper, my wife prays for each person she’s ever met since third grade.

My wife prays for everyone. From the Vietnamese exchange student she met in preschool, to former U.S. president Bill Clinton.

I have a difficult time staying alert during her suppertime prayers. My head sinks lower with each passing…