A snowscape. The long Minnesota prairies were covered in powdered sugar. A lone dirt highway cut through the cotton-white flatlands, which were featureless except for telephone poles, cattle fences, and an occasional muddy mail truck.

There was a small house seated on this horizon. A one-story, unassuming frame home, with a barn.

Inside this humble three-bedroom lives an elderly widow. She’s lonely. Hopelessly lonely. But then, this is a pandemic. We live in a new world, with new rules. Isolation is the prescribed way of life now, and it comes with consequences. What the virus took from her was her friendships. And her smile.

Not so long ago, she was going to church three times per week, reading Bible stories aloud to kids in Sunday school classrooms, teaching them to sing about Zacchaeus, who was a wee little man (and a wee little man was he).

Today, her church doesn’t hold services, except online. She hasn’t left the house in months. And she certainly hasn’t been singing.

Hard? Yeah, it’s been hard. Hardest

period she’s ever known. As a lifelong farmer’s wife you’d think she was used to solitude. But nobody can truly prepare you for the social desolation following the loss of a spouse.

Neither does anyone forewarn you that loneliness will slow down your biology, or that your brain will begin firing less rapidly. But it’s true. Your body becomes tired, you have no appetite, you lose basic conversational skills, and your sense of self-image disappears. Sleep becomes a myth. So does laughter.

And the pandemic made it worse. No more supermarket runs; her groceries get delivered now. She has the internet, but the screens are making her eyes ache. She has satellite television, but nothing is ever on. She pays for approximately 529 streaming services, but she never watches them and can’t figure out how to cancel subscriptions. No more Sunday school songs. No more smiles.

In…

The email arrived this morning. The subject line read, “Bread.” The message read:

“My 11-year-old granddaughter, Bella, makes bread and wonders if you will eat some if she makes it for you?

“We are not sick with COVID or anything like that. Bella’s mom died from breast cancer and Bella has started baking lately because her mother once enjoyed baking. She really wants you to try her bread.”

Well, let me start by saying that I am flattered, Bella. As it happens, I have a long history with bread. In fact, when I was a kid, I was built like a miniature loaf of bread.

Let me explain. When I was around your age I was a chubby redhead. My chubbiness was partly because, after my father passed, to cope with our new grief my mother started baking bread every day.

Looking back, I don’t really know why she was making bread so often. Perhaps because it was cheap. Or maybe because she had a lot of pent-up energy she needed to get

out.

Then again, maybe she was baking bread because she was simply trying to fatten me up. Which is possible. My mother believed redheaded boys were much cuter when they were chunky.

And I know this because whenever she would pinch my soft white belly, she would say, “That’s Mama’s handsome, chubby wubby wittle wedhead.”

For years, I believed that being a chubby wubby wittle wedhead was a good thing.

So I ate a lot of sourdough, French, whole wheat, rye, cinnamon raisin, and white bread each morning. Almost daily my mother would leave these hot loaves sitting out, cooling, and everyone would pause to admire them like works of sculpture.

This was powerful bread. It could beckon you from across the house. And when you saw it sitting in the windowsill, steaming in the early sunlight, you would gravitate toward it like a mosquito to a…

I got a letter from Lucinda, a retired nurse. She lives alone. No kids. Her husband died 12 years ago. Each week she volunteers in the hospital neonatal ICU.

“My job is to cuddle babies,” she says. “It’s the highlight of my life.”

Simply put, Lucinda cradles babies in her arms and loves them. That’s her official task. In neonatal units around the world, volunteers like Lucinda do this whenever mothers cannot be present. This is a very important duty.

Lucinda explains. “Without physical touch, babies die.”

This is because babies are humans. And all humans need touch, otherwise we fail to thrive. Which is why mortality rates in orphanages are 30 to 40 percent.

“The reason I volunteer,” says Lucinda, “is because babies need hugs and so do I. I live alone, I self-isolate, so these are the only touches I get.”

Which leads me to my first question. How many times have you been touched within the last 24 hours?

Take a moment. Think about it. Once? Twice. Not at all? Well then, how long

has it been? Weeks? Months? Years? Somewhere around the installation of the last pope?

Before the pandemic you were touching others more often than you realize. Everyone was.

You’d go to lunch with friends and receive two hugs and four handshakes. Attend a barbecue at cousin Ray Ray’s house; 11 hugs, and a triple hug from Aunt Myrtis. Your niece’s wedding? Hug-a-palooza. Sundays at church? Mass huggings.

But that’s over now. America is not getting ANY hugs during this pandemic.

I have a letter from Alison, in Boston, who writes, “It’s been 10 months since I’ve hugged my mom.”

Here’s another from Ron, in Alexandria, Virginia. “I haven’t had a hug or a handshake in over a year…”

Lillian in Alpharetta, Georgia, says, “I’m a single girl, it’s hard to meet anyone during a pandemic... Sometimes I just want someone to just put…

I am not a fan of doctors. I hate going to the doctor’s office because I’m always afraid they will commit acts of Medical Care upon my body then scold me for being a beer enthusiast.

Even so, no matter how badly I dislike the doctor’s office, you shouldn’t put these appointments off.

My exam went well. Blood pressure is down. Cholesterol is lower. I’m fatter, of course, but at least I’m losing my hair.

The doctor smiled at my chart and said he’s very pleased about my health. Then he took a long gander at me and smiled. He said, “You don’t even look like the same guy I saw last year.”

And his words struck me. Because he’s right, I’ve changed a lot. The previous pandemic year has done a number on me. It’s made me a different man in almost every important area of my life.

Take beer. My beer consumption habits are very different now. Which is almost unbelievable, because to me, beer has always been beautiful stuff. Beer traditionally goes great with

every occasion: baseball games, social events, real estate closings, baptisms, days of the week containing a vowel, etc.

But something weird happened in the middle of last year. Beer became old news. All of a sudden I wasn’t drinking it. One day I realized it had been four months since I’d had any beer. And the bizarre thing is, I can’t figure out why. It happened by accident.

I realize this doesn’t seem like a big deal, but if you knew me you’d know I love beer. I was first introduced to the golden suds when I was a 5-year-old. My grandfather let me sip his Miller High Life because he thought it would be hysterical to watch his grandson spit and go, “YUCK!”

But his object lesson backfired because I adored the taste. At which point I attempted to drink the whole…

It came in the mail. A small package. A cardboard parcel no bigger than a VHS tape. I weighed it in my hands.

Definitely not a VHS tape. For one thing, it’s too heavy. For another, nobody even uses tapes anymore.

Not long ago, families had to rent VCRs from the supermarket if they wanted to watch video cassettes. Unless of course they were rich. In which case they went out and bought their own supermarkets.

Our supermarket movie rental selection was pathetic. The only two videotapes available were the complete first season of “The Lawrence Welk Show,” and “Porky’s Revenge!”

Anyway, I’m sitting on my porch steps and opening the package with a pocket knife. I have an idea of what is inside, but I don’t want to jump to conclusions.

The first thing I see is a printed name on a book cover. Four letters.

“Sean.”

The Gaelic spelling of my first name has long been mispronounced by P.E. teachers and telemarketers alike. It’s unclear why my mother chose this name. She

either named me after my Scotch-Irish ancestors, or she named me after 007.

My money’s on 007. She loved Sean Connery as James Bond. When we purchased our first VCR, my mother would would rent Bond movies from the local library all the time and watch them when she ironed clothes.

She and I were big regulars at the library. I got my first library card when I was in kindergarten and I can still remember signing my name on the back of that card. I signed: SEJMN. Which was close enough for 007.

After my father passed I practically lived at libraries. The elderly librarians were my friends. These were blue-haired ladies who were old enough to have single-digit Social Security numbers. But I loved them.

I read truckloads of cheap paperback books. Not high literature, but low-brow books that I should be embarrassed about.…

One of the first official dates with my wife took place at her parents’ house. That night, her extremely nosy parents promised not to spy on us, nor eavesdrop, nor bother us, nor hide behind the sofa and wait for us to kiss. They agreed to let us have the entire downstairs to ourselves.

I was very nervous. What would we talk about? What would we do?

Well, since my story takes place in an era when VHS cassettes still roamed the earth, we decided to rent a VHS movie. Although as it turned out, we were so timid we couldn’t actually decide on a movie. So our bashful conversation in the video-rental store went like this:

HER: Which movie do you want?

ME: Oh, anything you want.

HER: I don’t care, I’ll watch anything you wanna watch.

ME: Makes no difference. What do you wanna see?

HER: Whatever you wanna see.

And so it went. Because all young lovers are afraid to come right out and say something like, “Darling, I do believe I’d prefer

to watch something produced by the genius that is Monty Python.”

We had the same hem-hawing conversation about which restaurant to choose for dinner. But we went hungry because we never settled on a place. Instead we ended up driving in circles for two hours constantly saying, “Where do you wanna eat?” “I don’t care, where do YOU wanna eat?”

Eventually we returned to her parents’ house and spent the rest of the evening trying not to demonstrate symptoms of dangerously low blood-sugar.

When we entered her family’s living room, her mother and father immediately evacuated to give us privacy. Though, later that night I swear I saw their heads peeking around a corner.

As it happened, our date night got worse. Because the movie we rented turned out to be the foulest, most inappropriate skin-flick Hollywood ever released. It was so bad we…

Remember when you were a puppy? You used to sit by the front door all day and wait for your mom to come home. Because this is what all dogs do.

One reason you did this was because whenever your loved ones would arrive and see you sitting patiently by the door, they’d be so full of emotion they’d blurt out, “Who’s a good boy?! Who’s a good boy?!” And inevitably food would follow.

The truth is, all you ever wanted to hear was that you were a good boy. This phrase made all the front-door waiting worth it. Although you don’t feel too “good” right now.

Right now you’re lying on your side and there is a tube attached to your paw, and the veterinary doctor is injecting something into your bloodstream. Your mom is holding you.

You are panting slowly. You’re trying to wag your tail to show everyone that you’re a good boy. But nothing is happening, your tail muscles are too weak. And you’re struggling to breathe. Your heart is slowing. The lights

are dimming. And everyone is grim.

“Buddy,” says your mom. Because your name is all she can mouth through her tears. “Buddy.”

Somehow, within the innermost depths of your brain, you know what’s happening here. This is something big. Something frightening. Something final.

It takes a moment, but you eventually realize why the vet has a drip line attached to your veins. You understand why this room is getting so dark. This is your end.

You’ve been sick. Violently sick. You’ve been in the ER, the doctor said you have liver failure.

You are briefly sad about this. Mainly, because you are REALLY going to miss your mom. Oh, if you could only communicate to your mom in human language right now. If only there were a way, you know exactly what you’d tell her.

First off, you would thank her for being…

I believe cornbread can save humanity. Before you write me off for being a lunatic, think about it. Nobody can think negative thoughts while eating hot cornbread from a skillet. Cornbread is powerful stuff.

I don’t know if you know this, but cornbread has already saved the nation once. In fact, cornbread is one of the reasons you’re alive right now. I’m being absolutely serious. Allow me to explain:

One of the first foods Native Americans taught the pilgrims—our uptight fundamentalist ancestors—to prepare was cornbread. Thus, our puritian forefathers’ diets were heavy on the cornbread.

It is a fact that cornbread kept our fledgling infant country alive during hard winters and prevented colonists from starving in dire circumstances. Cornbread was life.

So in light of this simple information, this means that, in a manner of speaking, without cornbread, there would be no America. Simply put, cornbread is more American than Chevys, Coke floats, mailbox baseball, and pugs dressed in bow ties.

And I’m talking about the real cornbread here, not the fare from a box.

I wouldn’t feed box-cornbread to a Labrador. No, I’m speaking of corn pone cooked in a greasy iron skillet, smeared with so much butter your cardiologist disowns you.

Long ago, I used to work as a drywall man. One day my coworker, Bill, asked if I’d help drywall his basement. Males are always roping their friends into huge projects like this, often promising to pay them with beer.

The thing is, no amount of beer would have convinced me to help Bill. Because Bill and I weren’t friends. Actually, we were enemies. It’s a long story, and I don’t have room to tell it, but we had a falling out over a girl. So I responded by telling Bill to get lost.

Bill started begging. “Please? Nobody else wants to help Sheetrock my basement. If you help me, I’ll get my mom to cook for…

Let’s try something together. A positive mental exercise. Experts have named this technique with a fancy, multi-syllabled extremely hyphenated term, but I can’t pronounce big words. So I’m going to call it “remembering stuff.”

Ready? Let’s begin. Okay. Let’s start by closing our eyes. Excellent. Now we must2i pwof -jglm2-gukmm sd,vw 23hb uwewe.

Okay. On second thought, let’s both keep our eyes open.

New plan. I simply want you to recall the happiest day of your life. Take all the time you need. I’m talking about the king daddy of your happiest occasions. The time when you were giddy with hopefulness. Any great memory will do.

The reason I’m suggesting this is because I got a letter from a young man named Josh who told me that he has been depressed lately; he’s attempted suicide twice this year. Currently, he is in a rehab, which is where he wrote me his letter.

His message reads: “I just want to feel happy again… I miss being normal. I want to feel like I’m loved.”

That’s when I

started thinking a lot about this happiness business. Recently I read somewhere that simply recalling a happy moment can trigger small flickers of happiness. Which eventually leads to more happiness. Which theoretically will lead to Gaither sing-alongs.

So I decided to take this idea a step further. I called dozens of friends and asked what THEIR happiest moments were. As of now, I’ve spent the entire morning on the phone, talking to nearly 32 bajillion people, writing these happy moments down. Here are some:

“My happiest memory,” says Michelle (age 49), “was when the doctor told me my mom would recover from COVID.”

“Happiest moment?” says Randy (82). “It was when my grandson, Beau, was born. Beau has Down syndrome and he is my heart and soul. I thought my life was complete a long time ago. But then came Beau. Tell your friend,…

I’m in a hotel dining room, eating breakfast. Everyone is wearing masks, some are wearing latex gloves. I am wearing a bandanna around my face like I’m about to rob a stagecoach.

Even so, these scary modern times haven’t changed the state of the American hotel continental breakfast. Nothing can change that. I’m pleased to report that hotel eggs still taste like they were manufactured by the Reebok corporation. And all “sausage-like” products still taste like deflated footballs that were cooked on the radiator of an old Chevy.

The first thing I see in this dining room is a young family, hands folded, eyes closed. They are saying grace. The youngest boy is bowing his head in exaggerated reverence. Eyes shut tightly.

When they finish praying, I hear a communal “amen.” Everyone lifts their masks, and begins to eat.

“Mom?” says the boy. “What does amen mean?”

I love overhearing this kind of stuff. And I’m glad I overhear the kid ask this because sometimes I wonder whether kids still ask these wonderful questions.

As it happens,

I remember when I asked my granddaddy the same thing. I was a 5-year-old. We’d just finished saying grace.

“What’s it mean?” was Granddaddy’s reply. “Aw, well, amen just means ‘over and out,’ ‘ten-four, captain, ‘aye aye, sir.’”

And the thing is, I completely understood what he meant because Granddaddy spoke fluent Kid.

So here I am eating my manufactured “meatish” product, listening to parents explain the mysteries of Ecclesiastical Latin words to a child and I’m smiling. Because I live for this kind of stuff. I love to people-watch.

In fact, during the pre-pandemic era, when I traveled a lot, hotel breakfasts were my favorite moment of the day because you could people-watch all you wanted. I’m finding that people-watching during the COVID era is just as interesting, only a little more poignant somehow.

Three tables over from me, for instance, is…