I met an old friend for lunch today at a neighborhood deli. The portions were generous. The food was good. Our sandwich and burger came with complimentary pickles the size of commercial pontoons.

We found a table in the corner. We ate. We laughed. We talked about olden days. About our age.

He is graying, there are lines on his face, and his hair is so thin he now resembles the late great Fred Mertz. It’s too bad everyone can’t avoid aging like me.

And as I sat there, eating my monster-pickle, I thought about how lucky I am to have friends.

When I was a kid, I remember a framed piece of embroidery hanging above the toilet in my aunt Eulah’s guest bathroom. The embroidery read: FRIENDS ARE OUR CHOSEN FAMILY.

I remember being fascinated with this item when I was 10 years old. I remember sitting and looking at it for long moments of powerful reflection. And as I flushed the toilet and zipped up my Husky jeans, I pondered this phrase.

Friends are our chosen family.

What did it mean? Why would my aunt go to the trouble of embroidering and framing these words?

Then again, my aunt always was a strange bird. Her house was littered in porcelain clown figurines, and her couch was covered in plastic. Her guest bathroom smelled like Shalimar bath powder.

Moreover, the whole bathroom was adorned in pink frilly stuff. Pink this. Pink that. Pink bathmat, pink shower curtain, pink decorative soaps shaped like little pieces of fruit. Pink hand towels.

Even the toilet seat had a fluffy pink carpet-cover perched atop the lid. Carpet toilet-seat covers are never a good idea. Especially if your bathroom is visited by 10-year-old boys with bad aim.

Friends are our chosen family.

This phrase mystified me. What is a friend? Why do we have them? Why are they important? Who were my friends? My…

I am in the sticks. Rural west Alabama. A land of hayfields, cattle pastures, automotive graveyards, and shotgun houses with porch sofas.

You haven’t lived until you’ve taken a nap on a porch sofa.

My vehicle rolls along an uneven two-lane, bucking and jumping over each bump. A blind dog named Marigold is in the passenger seat beside me.

I wave at people napping on their porch sofas. Sometimes people wave back. Other times they just watch me go by and scratch themselves in a deeply personal region.

I arrive in the town of Jefferson. Although calling this a “town” is a stretch. It’s just a wide spot on Highway 28.

Jefferson, Alabama, is the epitome of small. The population here isn’t big enough to form a decent baseball team. There is a volunteer fire department. Two churches—one Baptist and the other kind. And the Jefferson Country Store.

The mercantile is slammed today. There are muddy trucks, bicycles and ATVs parked around the clapboard store like cattle at a feed trough.

I open the creaky

door and walk inside. George and Tammy are singing overhead about golden rings. The whole place smells like hickory- and pecan-smoked meat. Marigold is going crazy.

Tony and his wife Betsy, the owners, are slinging food in an open kitchen. It’s lunch rush. It’s a weekend. The place is elbow to elbow.

The Jefferson Country Store has been open since 1957. It used to be the only depot around for fifty thousand miles. It was also the only United States Post Office. Everyone in Jefferson used to visit this place to get their bank statements and Sears, Roebuck & Co. catalogs.

“People still mail letters here,” says Tony. “But we don’t do money orders no more.”

The innards of the store are a throwback to another era. The walls are adorned with antique tin signs. Red Man Chew. Ford Motor Co. Buy Coca-Cola Here. Nothing…

To the dog abuser in rural Mississippi. The hound you left chained behind the tire shop is with us now. Her name is Marigold.

You beat Marigold so hard she went totally blind. She’s not 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.

The doctor said she suffered blunt trauma to the face and skull. I don’t know how you managed that. But you nearly destroyed her. You must be so proud.

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. She is sweeter than Domino sugar. Happier than Christmas morning. And sunnier than summer in Honolulu.

Currently, she’s relearning how to get around. She bumps into furniture, she walks headfirst into

walls. She uses her nose to lead her. She is sort of figuring out how to be a dog again.

Being blind is 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.

She is still relearning how to use stairs. She trips over curbs. She falls over thresholds. She needs help finding her food bowl sometimes. She loves toilet water.

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…

I receive a lot of emails, but I can’t answer them all. People have suggested I use auto-generated email responses designed to robotically thank people for messaging. But I don’t like this idea. Too impersonal.

When I was 7, I wrote the governor. Weeks later I received an impersonal form-letter with the governor’s signature, urging me to vote.

I read every email, letter and message I receive. Many of these messages are questions. So I’ve compiled the most common questions into a generic Q&A column. Let’s get started:

Q: Dear Sean, I am 1,380 years old and I have just gone through a very hard period in my life. Sometimes I read your work and I wonder what kind of advice you would have for me, specifically, during this difficult time.

A: I am the last guy who should give advice. If you knew me, you’d know I have made a shipwreck of my own life. I guarantee that my advice is not worth squat. I know some people sort of view me as

Dear Abby, but in truth I’m a fool. I am just some idiot who learned how to type.

Q: So you don't have ANY advice for me?

A: The best advice I ever received came from my mother. She told me there are three ways to achieve success in life: The first way is to be sweet. The second way is to be sweet. The third way is to be sweet.

Q: How do you find the stories you write about in your column?

A: Mostly, people send them to me. As I say, I receive emails from all over the world. Yesterday, I got an email from the prince of Nigeria. He was offering me a lucrative investment opportunity in exchange for my personal bank account number. Sadly, he never emailed back. I hope he’s okay.

Q: What kind of stories do you receive most?

TALLADEGA, Ala.— I hit town after lunchtime. I drive around the square. I pass the Ritz Theater marquee. The trading post. Tina’s Homecookin’ Restaurant.

I am looking for Court Street because I am taking a sewing class today. My appointment is at Miss April’s Fashion Girl Sewing Workshop.

I’ve always wanted to learn to sew. When I was a kid, my mother sewed everything. She made our clothes. She even added custom tags to my clothing. The tags read: “Property of Sean Dietrich.”

Mama even started sewing these tags into my underwear. Heaven knows why. I don’t want to meet the man desperate enough to steal another man’s underpants.

Miss April greeted me at the door. Her workshop was outfitted with Singer sewing machines and spools of colored thread. Fun music was playing. The whole place had an energetic, youthful vibe.

“This is a kid hangout,” Miss April says. “Girls come here after school, and I teach them to sew.”

Miss April has been teaching kids to sew for a long time. Sometimes locals buy their daughters

and granddaughters lessons for Christmas. Sometimes underprivileged girls just need something to do with their hands, and anonymous donors make it happen.

The reason Miss April teaches sewing is simple, she explains. “Because nobody knows how to sew anymore.”

Sewing is a disappearing craft in America. In fact, the skill is practically nonexistent.

Fifty years ago approximately 90 percent of U.S. women practiced the skill of sewing. Today it’s around 12 percent.

And the stats get even more dismal. One survey showed that 87 percent of U.S. households own irons, but only 9 percent use them. Another survey showed that one in three Americans can’t do basic household skills such as ironing, sewing buttons, reading laundry tag symbols, or boiling water.

Yes. Boiling water.

So why are these skills disappearing in America? Miss April knows why.

“Because a lot of schools don’t have…

On the 28th anniversary of your suicide I climbed a mountain. Not figuratively. Literally.

I hiked to the top of Mount Cheaha, the way you might have done.

I was in town for a writing gig. Traveling solo. My wife was back home, cleaning up dog poop, giving dog baths, and feeding our dogs so they could continue to make more poop.

I had an entire day to kill. So I checked into the Holiday Inn Express in Talladega. I drove into the undiluted wilderness. And I hiked a mountain.

It was beautiful. Quiet. Nobody around for miles. I arrived at the first overlook, walked to the edge and was overawed.

The world looked like a tiny train model set. Lots of trees. Tiny ribbon-like roadways, cutting through forests. Lakes that looked like puddles.

Cheaha Mountain stands at 2,413 feet above sea level. It is the highest natural point in Alabama. Which means that, at this exact moment, I was standing closer to heaven than anyone else in the Twenty-Second State. Not figuratively, literally.

And I thought of you. I thought about the day you left us. I thought of your red hair. Your freckled skin. And the way you smelled when you would hug me.

You smelled like Speed Stick Musk deodorant. After you died I started wearing your deodorant brand, just so I could smell you all day long.

Then one day, the supermarket quit selling your particular scent. They only sold Speed Stick “Regular,” or Speed Stick “Ocean Surf,” whatever that is. And you were gone forever.

Many years later, I was wandering through a Dollar General when, by chance, I found Speed Stick Musk on a shelf. I didn’t even know they still made it.

I bought it. When I got to the parking lot, I removed the lid and smelled it. I wept like a child.

Now it’s the only scent I wear.

Today on…

Mobile, Alabama. Morningtime. I was meeting someone important.

I pulled into the parking lot of Toomey’s Beads & Bulk Mardi Gras Supply on Macrae Avenue. Which is the kind of store you will not find in any city but Mobile.

Toomey’s is a 70,000 square-foot warehouse that represents one of the largest Mardi Gras supply inventories in the nation. Which is only fitting because Mobile is the official birthplace of American Mardi Gras.

Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise.

Mobile, Alabama’s Mardi Gras bash is the oldest official Carnival celebration in the United States, started in 1703, shortly after the birth of Dick Clark.

But I wasn’t at Toomey’s to buy supplies for Fat Tuesday. I was here to meet Oscar.

At 11:30 a.m. Oscar arrived. The SUV pulled in. Oscar was accompanied by his handler, Andi.

Andi stepped out of her vehicle and opened the back door. Oscar was on a leash. His tail wagged. His entire backside was gyrating.

The easygoing bluetick hound came stepping out of the backseat. All legs.

He was your quintessential bluetick. White,

with salt-and-pepper ticking. Velvet black ears long enough to qualify as safety hazards. A nose the size of a regulation tennis ball.

A collar around his neck was labeled, BLIND DOG.

“Oscar can’t see,” said his handler. “He has no eyes.”

Oscar’s face is beautiful. Classic hound. Except there are no twinkling brown eyes looking at you. They were surgically removed because of congenital glaucoma.

This is why he walks with a unique gait. He lifts his front paws carefully. Gingerly. Every move he makes is with extreme care. He uses his nose to guide himself.

I could see him taking in his surroundings, using only his sense of smell. Muzzle aimed upward in the air. Testing each scent in the wind.

“His nose is how he sees,” said Jenn Greene, his mother and rescuer. “He can see everything with his…