He’s single father. A widower, to be exact. But that’s not the story here.

He waits tables for a living. And on his off-days, he works at another restaurant.

Sometimes, he works with his brother’s power-washing business for extra cash. He does handyman work, and installs home sound systems. He is a busy man.

He does it for his kids.

The money goes out the window as fast as it comes. And he’s away a lot.

His children are used to fending for themselves. They’re used to preparing their own suppers, watching television alone, and tucking themselves in.

But not since she started coming around.

Let me back up.

Nine months ago, he met her. She’s a receptionist at a doctor’s office. She was at his restaurant for her coworker’s birthday party.

He saw her and couldn’t stop looking at her.

By the end of the night, his friends in the kitchen knew he was smitten. They teased him. “Go talk to her,” they said, shoving him.

But, confidence doesn’t exactly grow on trees, and our Lone Ranger has been out of the saddle since high school.

He didn’t

know how to approach her. He was—according to his coworkers—a big, fat, hairy chicken. So, without his permission, one of the waitresses spoke for him.

“See that guy over there?” the waitress whispered into the receptionist’s ear. “He’s the best guy you’ll ever meet. He likes you, but he’s too scaredy-cat to talk to you.”

Ouch, Kemosabe.

But that’s how it started.

A little bout her: she was married once. The doctor told her she couldn’t have kids. It broke her heart, all she’s ever wanted were children.

She likes long walks on the beach, Mexican food, Trisha Yearwood albums, chocolate ice cream, and any book that wasn’t written by Danielle Steel.

They went on a first date. It lasted for sixteen hours. But they darkened no bedrooms, rustled no sheets.…

I’m thinking about the wonderful things my father never experienced. Like all the things my wife and I have done these last years.

Milton, Florida—brick buildings. Old houses. Cute storefronts.

My wife and I roll into town early. The Imogene Theater is our destination for the evening. I’m here to tell a few stories at a benefit for Big Brothers Big Sisters of Northwest Florida.

Everyone tells me this theater is haunted, but I don’t buy it. I was raised by evangelicals. Believe in ghosts? We didn’t even believe in two-piece bathing suits.

This old opera house has been standing since 1912. Hank Williams played here once. So did Roy Acuff, and Minnie Pearl. My late father would’ve danced a jig if he’d known I was taking the same stage as Hank.

Anyway, they say the ghost’s name is Miss Imogene. She roams this auditorium, along with many others.

The stories are all alike. Some report hearing things, some claim to see a girl wandering the balcony. Paranormal enthusiasts around the nation believe this theater is a gathering place for metaphysical beings.

But not me. That’s kid stuff.

I am given the dime

tour of the old hall. There are tall ceilings, stunning acoustics, and ornate woodwork. There is a rope and pulley system outside, once used to hoist steamer trunks for vaudeville performers.

“Here’s your dressing room,” the man says, flipping a lightswitch. “Can you believe Hank changed his clothes in this VERY room?”

“Really?”

“Yep. Hey, maybe he’s even in this room with us now.”

The hair on the back of my neck stands straight up.

“I don’t believe in ghosts,” I tell the man.

“Good,” he says. “Then you won’t mind if I leave Hank in here with you? He’s been getting in my way all day.”

Soon, I am in the dressing room alone. I’m thinking about things.

Mainly, how thrilled my father would have been to know I was in a room where Minnie Pearl once did…

There she is. Yeah, it’s definitely her.

I haven’t seen her in years. She’s standing in the produce aisle of the supermarket, scooping mixed walnuts and pecans into a bag.

Nat King Cole Christmas music plays overhead. It smells like Santa Claus’ aftershave in this grocery store.

She couldn’t possibly remember me. I was the quiet man in the rear of her speech class. I was one of her adult community-college students who lurked in the back rows.

Like most in her class, I was petrified of public speaking. So were my peers.

My first speech was one I’d like to forget. I delivered a torturous five-minute monologue on the proper way to prepare Pop Tarts.

When I finished, she gave a smile that seemed to say, “I hate my life.”

I was an adult male with two jobs, a wife, and a back surgery. I tried my best in her class. And she rewarded me for it.

I’ll never forget her for that.

My classmate, Gary, was a lot like me. He worked menial jobs, he had daughters, bills. We complained

in the breezeway before classes together.

Gary had a stutter—a crippling condition that embarrassed him. Simple conversation was difficult, sometimes almost impossible. Finishing a sentence could take ten minutes.

And when she paired students for final projects, she placed us together.

We worked on our speeches one evening at a sports bar. We set up shop in a booth on a Saturday night and watched the Alabama-Georgia game while scribbling speech notes on paper.

Gary purposed we make our speeches on the crisis facing modern paternity in a national economic holocaust.

“Yawn,” said I. “Let’s speak about baseball, America’s greatest pastime, or stock-car racing, or the ever-elusive, yet highly-documented and indisputably-real Bigfoot.”

We finally agreed on writing about our parents. I don’t remember much else that night, except that our notebooks had beer-stains.

And: Alabama lost to Georgia,…

The musician: refers to everyone as “man.” Even women and innocent children.

1:12 A.M.—I’m in a motel room. It’s a rundown motel with a queen bed that’s about as soft as industrial plywood.

The place smells like mildew. I found a cockroach under my pillow. I named it Bill. I told Bill to get out of my bed and sleep in the bathroom.

The whole world is asleep. I am eating a tuna salad sandwich, watching a holiday special on TV.

I just got in from playing music. I haven’t played with my buddies in awhile, and I didn’t realize how much I missed the old band.

Lately, I have been writing and traveling so much I haven’t gotten to see them. But it all came back to me tonight.

The joint was like every waterhole you’ve ever visited. Neon signs, graffiti in the men’s bathroom, good burgers, a bartender who calls everyone “pal.”

The patrons in this glorified shack were salt-of-the-earth people. They were shouting over each other, laughing, eating. The characters were all the same, but with different

names.

The manager: perpetually mad at the world.

The waitress: tired.

The loud man at the bar: a traveling sales rep.

The musician: refers to everyone as “man.” Even women and innocent children.

I sort of grew up in places like this. These are my people. I was eighteen when I started playing music for a living. In my daytime hours, I would work construction. At nighttime, I would play in spots like this.

On Sundays I would play at church.

The first night I ever played in an actual beer joint was for a Christmas party. I was nervous. People were smoking cigarettes, wearing holiday hats. There were bouncers at the doors. Folks were dancing, holding their belt buckles.

I was raised as a dyed-in-the-wool Baptist. The only dancing I’d ever seen was in a Gene Kelly movie—my mother…

This is going to be glorious. You can feel it. You might write your best stuff ever today.

You are a writer. You open your laptop. You’re inspired today.

This means you might write something profound that will change the way you see the world, life, and the nature of love. But then you suddenly realize that this can never happen.

Because you have dogs.

You can’t write today because you can’t concentrate. The dogs are making too much noise, scratching at the back door.

So you let them outside.

When you get back to your keyboard, you sit to write something.

This is going to be glorious. You can feel it. You might write your best stuff ever today.

You’ve already got the story. You’re going to write about an elderly veteran you interviewed in Georgia, who has dozens of miniature American flags in his front yard. Now THAT’S a good story, and in it you’ll include—

Scratching.

Just forget about the noise and keep writing.

Scratching.

Pay no attention to them. Focus, Grasshopper.

Scratching.

You let the dogs inside.

They bound indoors and begin to play

so hard they knock over a coffee table. Then, even though your Labrador is fully neutered, he becomes so overcome with romantic feelings he attempts a marital act upon your bloodhound.

Your bloodhound sprints to the back door with a love-crazed miniature Lab riding piggyback on her hindparts. A brawl ensues.

So you let them outside.

Finally. Peace and quiet.

You place your fingers onto the keyboard, but you can’t remember what you were going to write about.

Think, man.

“Hey, I’ve got it,” you say. “I’ll write about the leather chair in the corner.”

Granted, it’s not the most inspired idea you’ve ever had, but maybe it will work.

After all, that chair has memories. It was your mother’s. You remember when she used to sit and read her Bible in…

For supper, my mother made oyster dressing like she did every year. Some years it was oyster stew. And I’d always eaten this Christmas fare without asking what the oversized gray boogers were.

I found a box of Christmas decorations in my attic. It’s filled with old trinkets and ornaments from childhood.

There’s the ornament I made in pre-school—a petrified gingerbread man who’s missing half of his face.

An ornament from fifth grade—a miniature Bible, splayed open to the book of Hebrews. It reads: “It is appointed for man to die once, then comes judgement.” A little uplifting treasure from a fundamentalist childhood.

And there’s the clay figurine I made for my father. It is an uneven lump, supposed to be man, eating oysters. But it looks more like a cow eating a ball of gray-colored mud.

I remember when I brought it home in my bookbag. I remember how the sun was in the early afternoon.

I remember my father was seated at the head of the table, asking what I learned in class.

Mama interjected, “Show Daddy what you made in school today.”

I presented him this clay atrocity. He looked at it and said, “What is it?”

“What’s it look like?” I said.

“A Jersey cow

eating a rock?”

“No,” I said. “It’s you, and you’re eating an oyster.”

“Why’re my nostrils so big?”

“Teacher told us to explore symbolism.”

“That means I’m a Holstein?”

“It means that we can make our parents look like whatever we want.”

“So you made me a cow?”

“No, I made you a cow-BOY, see the little hat?”

“I look like a hot-air balloon with a face.”

He hung it on the tree and tapped it with his finger to make it sway. “That’s a big oyster I’m eating,” he remarked.

Oysters are a tradition in my family.

That following Christmas, we awoke early. He wore the robe my mother made for him—he did not wear a robe any other day of the calendar year. Among my gifts were a few records, slacks, some…

It was raining on the highway. Icy rain. She had everything she owned in the back of her SUV.

It was a few weeks until Christmas. She was leaving, going back home to live with parents. Her life was a wreck, she’d given up hope that it would ever be any different.

It had been five years since her husband’s death, but it still hung over her like a long shadow.

Three car lengths behind her:

He was driving a green truck. He was from a different state, on his way to Tennessee, to accept a job in the English department of a community college.

He didn’t notice her brake lights because of the rain.

Crunch.

It was not serious. Her airbag didn’t even deploy. She was in shock, but not hurt.

He helped her out of the vehicle. He led her to the median. She sat on the highway shoulder with her kids. When her surprise finally started to wear off, she let her eyes focus on him.

“W-W-Who are you?” were her

first words.

“I’m the guy who hit you,” he said. “I’m really sorry about this, ma’am.”

“Okay,” was all she could manage to say.

“I really didn’t mean to run into you, it was all my fault.”

“Okay.”

“Are you gonna be alright, ma’am? You’re just in shock, I think, that’s all it is.”

“Okay.”

“Should we call our insurance companies or something?”

Then, it all fell upon her. She began to cry. “My insurance is expired,” she said. “They’re probably gonna arrest me.”

He held her. It had been a long time since she’d been held by someone.

“We’ll work this out,” he said. “I’ll pay for it. We don’t have to call the police, as long as you’re okay. Are you okay?”

“I’m okay.”

The rain…

The older man behind the cash register wore a University of Alabama lapel pin on his apron. And, in rural accent, he said, “Nervous about the game?”

The University of Alabama took the field against the Georgia Bulldogs this afternoon for the SEC Championship football game. Tensions were high in our town.

I ran into a man at the gas station who wore a Bulldogs T-shirt. We pumped gas beside each other.

“‘Bama sucks,” he said, pointing at my Alabama shirt.

“Roll Tide,” I remarked.

Then he started laughing.

“Aw, I’m just kidding,” he went on. “I know Alabama doesn’t suck, but I sure hope they do tonight.”

I told him I would pray for his eternal salvation.

During kickoff, I was still running errands. In fact, I was standing in a long supermarket checkout line. I counted eight shoppers in line who were watching the game on their phones.

And when the Bulldogs scored their first touchdown, a Georgia fan shouted at his phone, “YES! TAKE THAT, ALABAMA!”

There was an old woman ahead of me. She wore teased white hair, pearls, and an Alabama jersey. She turned to me and whispered, “Do you mind watching my cart while I go beat that man’s ass?”

So I

bought supplies for the evening. Namely, beer, chips, boiled shrimp, and chicken wings.

The older man behind the cash register wore a University of Alabama lapel pin on his apron. And, in rural accent, he said, “Nervous about the game?”

“If I was any more nervous,” I said. “I’d have to call the incontinence hotline for support.”

“Me too,” he went on. “Just don’t forget, there’re three kings in this world. The Good Lord, Elvis, and Nicholas Lou Saban Jr.”

He scanned my groceries.

And that’s when it dawned on me. This poor man was stuck at work during the big game. I asked him about it.

“Yeah,” he said. “It’s a bummer, but nobody would work tonight. I wish I were at home, having a beer with my son, we are huge fans. But since he’s been gone,…

His mother died when he was six. His childhood was a lonely one. He’d been raised by his father—a man who worked too much.

No brothers. No sisters. He was a quiet child. So quiet, kids at school wondered if he even existed.

He got older and became a quiet fourteen-year-old. He had a hard time making friends. Most nights you could find him alone at home after school, eating fast food before a glowing TV screen.

She was his neighbor. She was old and feeble, with an oxygen machine. She lived in an ancient home and she stayed inside it.

She was not friendly. In fact, she was downright hateful. Most people avoided her. Especially kids. She would chew up children and spit them out.

She spent her days stuck in an easy chair, staring at windows, watching people walk the sidewalk.

One day, she and the boy started to talk.

She was on her back porch, with her nurse when she saw him pass her.

"Get up here,” she said to him, puffing a cigarette.

“Introduce yourself to me.”

And, even though nobody saw it coming, their friendship blossomed. He opened like a camellia. He talked to her about everything. He spoke about life, about day-to-day things, and what he'd seen in the news.

They became fast friends. They stayed that way through the years.

Her lawn was overgrown; he’d cut it. The siding on her home was rotting; he’d repair it. She taught him to love books. He taught her to be nice.

By his early twenties, he was helping care for her. He called to check on her often. He grocery shopped. He brought in the mail. He carried her to appointments.

And each year for Christmas, he bought her a balsam fir. A live one. He’d place it in her living room, front and center, decorated.

Her face would grow fifty-years younger when she saw…

And just like that, a bad day has become a good day. He unfolds the bill. He looks at Abe Lincoln’s stoic face. Even old Abe seems happy about this particular holiday blessing.

Birmingham, Alabama—the 1970’s. The hairstyles are ridiculous. Fashions are even worse. It’s Christmastime in the Magic City.

Early evening. A young couple arrives in town to visit family. They are working-class poor. He is overworked and underpaid. She is too.

Still, things are looking up. Even though it’s hard making make ends meet, they have each other.

It hasn’t been a great day. But it’s going to be. They just coasted into a Magic City on magic gasoline fumes. They have enough magic cash for the return-trip home, but that’s about all the magic they have left.

They wander into Bruno’s supermarket. They are shopping on a shoestring budget.

The music overhead is Bing Crosby. “Silver Bells” is the tune.

She pushes a cart. He follows. They are only buying necessities. No fancy stuff.

He listens to the music on the intercom. He lets his mind wander while Bing sings:

“Strings of street lights,
“Even stop lights,
“Blinkin’ red and bright green,
“As the shoppers rush home with their treasures...”

He sees something that interrupts his daydream. It’s a five-dollar bill, lying

in the aisle. Crumpled. Nobody is around. He looks both ways.

He bends to pick it up. This is the ‘70’s, five bucks can do a lot. It can buy six gallons of gas, or canned goods for a few suppers.

“Honey look!” he says.

And just like that, a bad day has become a good day. He unfolds the bill. He looks at Abe Lincoln’s stoic face. Even old Abe seems happy about this particular holiday blessing.

“Wow,” she says. “Aren’t you lucky?”

Luck isn’t the word. It’s a blessing from On High. Magic, even. It’s a sign that things are going to get better. That’s what it is.

But it’s short lived. Something’s wrong. There’s a pang in his stomach. He can’t keep this five dollars. He doesn’t know why.…