I am driving through Everytown, USA. Kids are riding bikes along a street that weaves by brick storefronts. A boy rides past me. He has baseball cards on his bicycle spokes. I can hear the glorious sound his wheels make. And I am sucked backward into childhood.

I hope this nation never stops putting baseball cards to bicycle spokes

But then, maybe we already have. Baseball cards are a thing of the past. Young folks quit collecting them long ago—I heard this tidbit on the news.

As a boy, I had shoeboxes full. I had my father’s ‘52 Bob Feller—The Heater from Van Meter. And a ‘57 Hank Aaron.

I wonder if today’s kids know about Hank “the Hammer” Aaron.

Anyway, I stopped at a local gas station for some coffee. Only, it wasn’t a “gas” station. The proper term is: “filling station.” There’s a difference, you know.

A gas station is found along interstates. A filling station has old men sitting out front. If you’re lucky, those old men are boiling

peanuts.

The young man running the register was twenty years old. He had one semester left at Auburn. He was your all-American kid, and he looked like the kind who knows about baseball cards on bicycle spokes.

He glanced at my coffee. “Aw, you don’t want THAT coffee,” he told me. “It’s four hours old.”

Before I could say another word, he dumped the coffee and made a fresh pot.

They don’t do this at interstate “gas” stations.

I hope this nation never loses filling stations.

I browsed the aisles while coffee brewed. My eyes lit up when I found things from my childhood. Candy cigarettes, taffy, and a few other things that reminded me of the days spent catching fireflies.

I paid and left. I waved goodbye to the old men sitting out front. One gentleman was whittling a stick.

Mister Vernon died last night. He went easy.

You never met him, but you knew him. He was every white-haired man you’ve ever seen.

He spoke with a drawl. He talked about the old days. He was opinionated. He was American. Lonely.

Miss Charyl, his caregiver, did CPR. She compressed his chest so hard his sternum cracked. She was sobbing when the EMT’s took him.

Caregiving is Charyl’s second job. She’s been working nights at Mister Vernon’s for a while.

She arrived at his mobile-home one sunny day. Mister Vernon was fussy, cranky. A twenty-four carat heart.

She listened to his stories—since nobody else would. He had millions.

He talked about creeks, mudcats, frog gigging, bush hooks, and running barefoot through pinestraw and Cahaba lilies.

And he talked about Marilyn. Marilyn was the center of his life once. His companion. But she was not long for this world.

He talked politics, too. Charyl and he disagreed. Mister Vernon would holler his opinions loud enough to make the walls bow.

He was a man of his time. An oil-rig worker, a logger, a breadwinner, a

roughneck. He helped build a country. And a family.

Each day, he’d thumb through a collection of old photos. His favorite: the woman with the warm smile.

Marilyn. The woman who’d helped him make his family. Who’d turned his kids into adults. Adults who had successful lives and successful families. They live in successful cities, they do successful things.

“He sure missed his kids,” says Charyl. “They hardly came to see him. They were so busy.”

Busy.

Last night, Vernon asked Charyl for a country supper. She lit the stove and tore up the kitchen. She cooked chicken-fried steak, creamed potatoes, string beans, milk gravy.

“Marilyn used to make milk gravy,” he remarked.

She served him peach cobbler. Handmade. The kind found at Baptist covered-dish suppers.

“Marilyn used to make peach cobbler,” he said.

After supper,…

My dog stole my cellphone. I was trying to watch the Braves game when she stole it from my armrest and left for another zip code.

Thelma Lou, the bloodhound, is sixty-five pounds of droopy eyes and ten-miles of legs. And she is sprinting toward parts unknown. Muscles flexed, ears flying. We’re talking full-on demonic possession. And I’m chasing her.

Of course, any dog owner will tell you that it’s a bad idea to chase a dog. You must never chase a dog. Dogs are programmed to run away from you when you chase them.

Instead, experts stress that the best way to recall a dog is to pat your thighs and unleash a string of profanity that causes small trees and most domestic varieties of hydrangeas to die.

Not me. I’m chasing and hollering:

“THELMALOUTHELMALOU!!!”

Thel is already a mile away, galloping a dirt road into a neighborhood of mobile homes. The trailer-park neighborhood is quiet tonight. Folks are sitting in front yards, seated in lawn chairs.

One man is shirtless, with many tattoos, his name is Miller. Miller’s mother—I’d guess late-seventies, maybe—is seated beside him. She is smoking a cigarette and wearing a patriotic bathing suit which provides less coverage than number 08 dental floss.

Granny is spraying Miller’s kids with the water hose. They are laughing and giggling.

“What kinda dog is that?” Granny asks me.

I’m not making eye contact with Granny in case of any possible swimsuit malfunctions.

“A bloodhound,” I say.

She stabs her cigarette and adjusts her bikini top. “Nice-looking dog, Sweetie Pie. What’s your name?”

She winks at me.

So Miller decides to help me. He chases Thelma. And he runs faster than I can. He darts away so quick that his baggy jean shorts almost rip and he nearly spills his beer.

But Miller is committed to…

How I got invited to a corporate business convention isn’t the story here. But let’s just say there are lots of people wearing nice suits and finishing sentences with: “Did I already give you a card?”

There is a guest speaker. He is famous. I don’t care for him. His talent: complaining.

He complains about America, religion, the economy, pro-sports. About lukewarm fried eggs.

The people love him. They applaud after each purple-faced rant.

The woman next to me says, “Oh, I watch his show on TV all the time. Don’t you just love him?” She grinned. “By the way, did I already give you a card?”

I do not love him. If you ask me, he needs considerably more fiber in his diet.

I leave the main event and make the long drive back home. The sun is setting. It is a stunning sky.

I don’t know what’s happening to the world. People are angry. TV personalities earn seven-digit incomes by getting peeved.

Well, maybe I am feeling particularly inspired by the guest speaker. Because I have a mind to make a list

of my own complaints.

My first complaint: sunsets.

Sunsets don’t last long enough. They only give a few minutes of sky-painted glory, then it’s goodnight, Gracie.

I know. That’s not a real complaint, but give me time, I’m new to this.

Complaint two: puppies. They grow up too fast. There is nothing half as marvelous as razor-sharp puppy teeth. This, I know.

I’m also complaining that there aren’t more barbecue joints.

I don’t mean the fancy kind where waiters wear all-black and use iPads to email copies of your receipt. I’m talking concrete-block joints with ugly bathrooms, decent service, and food that your doctor warns you about, served in red plastic baskets.

Something else: I wish people gave more compliments for no reason.

Hardback hymnals. I’m not happy about their disappearance. Give me elderly Miss…

It’s the middle of the day and I just woke from a nap. My bloodhound has her head on my chest. She is snoring. There are noxious fumes coming from her backend. I’m worried she’s about to make a pile on my bed.

My nap was not a good one. Sadly, this is because I wouldn’t know how to take a decent nap if I tried. I come from Baptist people who believe napping to be the Eighth Deadly Sin.

The only person I knew who took naps was my uncle. He was a believer in midday rest and he used to claim that this was the secret to a happy life.

“The secret to a good life,” he once told me. “Is after lunch, strip your clothes off, fold’em up nice and neat, and take a nap.”

My uncle took naps in his ‘52 Dodge RV with the windows open. Nobody ever bothered him when he napped because we didn’t want to know what Baptists

looked like without clothes.

He was an odd bird. He had a large handlebar mustache and he spoke with a funny cadence. I can close my eyes and hear his unique voice in my head, telling a story. His stories were good. His work ethic was not.

One summer, my uncle attempted to fix our air conditioner. It took eighteen days, fourteen thousand cigarettes, and a lot of naps. Finally my mother knocked on my uncle’s RV and said, “Screw it! I’m buying a new air conditioner.”

He was in the middle of a nap at the time.

My uncle was his own man. He rolled his own cigarettes, recycled his coffee grounds, went fishing whenever he wanted, and didn’t mind letting others cook his supper.

He minded less if someone offered to buy lunch. My uncle’s favorite pastime was inviting people to lunch at…

I am driving five hundred miles south. I’m going home. But my trip gets off to a rough start because the woman inside my GPS is a Godless heathen who refuses to talk to me.

I’m driving blind through South Carolina—eating crackers and pimento cheese.

The cheese was a gift from a woman at a country church I visited this morning. I sat in the back row in a room of mostly white-hairs.

After service, Miss Nelle sent me on my way with pimento cheese, a jar of homemade peanut butter, and a SOLO cup of banana pudding. Leftovers from the church refrigerator.

I have never met Miss Nelle before today.

So I’m rolling through the Carolinas and the scenery takes my breath away. Tall trees, swallowed in green. Sprawling farmland, framed with sky.

And suddenly, I realize that I’m lost without the help of the devil-woman in my GPS.

I stop at a filling station outside Ridge Spring. I’m here to buy a map. The clerk has tattoos and a bushy beard.

“Sorry, dude,” he says. “We don’t sell

maps, but I can get you to Georgia, easy.”

He guides me to Augusta using the ancient, but widely practiced art of hand gestures.

Augusta—I’m in a bookstore. I ask the cashier to show me the atlases. She hands me a Rand McNally paper map. The kind of maps I was raised on.

This was the same kind of map Chad Williams’ daddy taught us how to read in Boy Scouts, when he took us white water rafting in Tennessee. It was the same camping trip that Elliot Stevens got so constipated he had to go to the emergency room.

The bookstore woman has greenish hair. She is pregnant with twins. She also tells me she is an amateur poet. I ask her to recite a poem.

She doesn’t even pause. She rattles off a magnificent verse about twins.

Heaven…

Columbia, South Carolina—I stopped in the Capital City for food. I find a simple, no-frills chain-restaurant that is filled with cars.

I’ve been driving since morning. I’m not picky. A cold beer would be nice. Maybe a burger.

There’s a ten-minute wait. Even the bar is full.

So I wait outside. That’s when I see her. She is on the sidewalk. A small woman with white hair and rough skin. She wears a red T-shirt with the words: “Y’all Hush” on the front. She is smoking.

She tells me she’s waiting for the rest of her dinner party. But there’s a problem.

“My son had a flat tire,” she tells me. “God, I’m so worried. He is coming from Augusta.”

I can tell she’s nervous. She tries him on the phone, but he doesn’t answer.

“Oh,” she says. “I hope he’s okay. I’m worried ‘bout him.”

She lights another worrisome cigarette.

So I keep her company.

She tells me about her son and his two daughters—her beloved grandbabies. This brings a temporary

smile. For a moment, she’s not worried, but a granny.

Our conversation doesn’t go far. I ask basic questions. I’m just trying to keep her talking. Talking fights off worry, my mother always said. I’m not sure if this actually works, but it’s worth a shot.

I learn about her. She’s from Waynesboro, Georgia, originally. She got married when she was eighteen. Her boyfriend did the honorable thing and married her. But his honor only lasted three years.

He left her with one kid and a second on the way. She was a baby herself when he ran. She was young and scared. It was the classic sink-or-swim scenario.

She dog paddled.

“I worked hard all my life,” she says. “Didn’t never ask NOBODY for help. Taught my kids work hard too, and to be respectful…

Mount Airy, North Carolina—blue mountains in the distance. Rolling farmland. Picture-perfect downtown. The home of Andy Griffith is just like it always was. Small. Sweet.

I’m on a park bench, holding a bouquet of roses. I’m waiting for my one-on-one interview with the oldest surviving Andy Griffith Show cast member, Betty Lynn—better known as Barney’s girl, Thelma Lou.

An elderly woman is gardening beside me while I wait. Her hands are covered in soil. Her husband is with her. Shirley and Bob Perkins are in their eighties. They’ve lived here since the earth cooled.

I ask if they ever met Andy Griffith.

“Met him?” Shirley elbows her husband. “Why, Bob’s distant kin to Old Andy.”

I ask what “Old Andy” was like.

“Oh, he was exactly like on TV. Don’t listen to nobody who says otherwise.”

When our conversation ends, Shirley says, “Before you leave town, get a pork chop sandwich from Snappy Lunch, there’s always a long line, but it’s worth the wait.”

I’m escorted into the museum.

Ninety-one-year-old Betty Lynn rolls into the room in a wheelchair. Her hair is red, she sports a yellow blouse and yellow pocketbook. My heart sings.

I hand her the bouquet. She kisses my cheek. Yes. My cheek. My very own cheek. She kisses this. With her lips. I’ve had a crush on Thelma Lou since boyhood. Now that I’m with her, it’s gotten worse.

“Tell me about Andy,” I ask.

“Old Andy?” she says. “Those were the best years of my life. I still watch the show and laugh.”

Her personal story is a good one. She tells it, using a trademarked cheerful voice that is unaffected by age.

“Who woulda ever thought?” she goes on. “Little old me, the new face of Mayberry.”

She lets me ask a million questions until our interview ends. She kisses me again. I…

Spartanburg, South Carolina—morning. A hotel lobby. I am drinking complimentary coffee, eating a complimentary breakfast.

I have spent the past days on two-lane highways. I like small highways. I can’t do interstates because they are filled with amateur NASCAR drivers with deathwishes.

Interstate folks travel at lightning speeds. People like me weren’t built to do anything fast. We move slow.

For example: those last two paragraphs took me approximately nine days to write.

A woman walks into the hotel lobby. She’s wearing a T-shirt that reads: “Clemson University.” Her teenage son is with her. He wears cargo shorts, an orange hat, he has a prosthetic leg.

Soon, he and his mother are eating breakfast beside me. I’m typing on my laptop about interstates.

He initiates contact.

“What’re you writing?” he asks.

“Oh, I don’t know,” I answer. “I’m kinda hoping something will just come to me.”

“Do you think it’ll work?”

“Maybe.”

“So you must be a writer and stuff?”

I shrug. The truth is, I’ve never been sure about what I

am. I’ve worn different hats, and called myself different things.

I hung drywall with a Mexican man named Jesús, I ran a deep-fryer in a kitchen, I mopped floors in a food court, I played piano in pathetic barrooms. And once when I was twenty-two, after a wild night in Southaven, I got ordained in Mississippi.

It was never meant to last.

“Well,” the boy says. “I’m a writer, too.”

I ask what he writes.

“Oh, stories about superheroes and stuff. Sometimes I write about hot girls.”

Here is a man who knows what he likes.

“Yeah,” he goes on. “I pretty much write about everything. I also write music. But mostly about superheroes and stuff.”

And stuff.

He started writing months after a horrific car accident. He doesn’t fill me in…

Athens, Georgia—I’m at a dive restaurant. The food isn’t fancy, but the beer is cold. I am starving. I’ve been on the road for two days, bound for North Carolina, I am depleted.

This place is slammed. I head to the bar.

Last night, I stopped to speak to a room full of Baptists. They were a tough crowd. They didn’t laugh, and they wouldn’t even clap when I sang “Will the Circle Be Unbroken.”

After the show, I was feeling low. To tell stories to a dead audience is like being buried alive in cat-litter-flavored Jell-O.

After the show, a boy approached me. He handed me a note that was folded like a paper football. He darted away without saying a word. I shoved it into my pocket and forgot all about it.

So, I’m sitting at the bar, twenty-four hours later, and I discover the paper in my pocket.

The kid had a lot to say in his note.

I won’t read you his letter, but

I will tell you that the kid is eleven. His mother is a waitress, a house painter, she runs the sound equipment at church, and cleans the sanctuary. Times are hard.

But he wanted me to know that he enjoyed my show—even though nobody at the First Church of the Frozen Chosen even cracked a smile.

He closed his letter by saying:

“...You did really good tonight, Mister Sean. You are loved.”

I folded the note and choked back alligator tears. It’s not every day a stranger says they love you.

Anyway, my bartender is an older woman. She is rushing to keep up with her workload. The men at the bar are impatient.

“Another, beer, honey,” one man says.

“I need mayo on this burger,” says another.

“Silverware? I need silverware!”

“Sweetie, I ordered an Ultra, not…