Gray weather feels a lot like taking a field trip to Hell. Whenever the sky gets like this, I sit by a windowsill unable to gather enough energy for basic tasks; like folding clothes, cutting grass, bathing the cat, or eating barbecue ribs.

I start to miss the sun, the same way I might miss trees, grass, or ice cream if they vanished behind clouds.

Or dirt, especially the red kind. Or muddy creeks and rivers, or large mouth bass and catfish. Or sausages from Conecuh County, biscuits made by hand, pork butts, pork shoulders, and barbecued ribs.

As it happens, I hold a longstanding county-fair record for eating the most consecutive ribs without suffering thrombosis. I’ll show you my trophy sometime — if ever these God-forsaken clouds go away.

Kids. If clouds covered all the kids up, I’d miss them. And babies, too. Fat ones that wiggle when they laugh, like flopping trout. I love children. They remind me of who I am inside — a tall kid with a mortgage.

And since I’m giving my big fat opinions, here’s another: I wish pop-singers would quit dressing like sex-toys. Don’t they know kids watch them on television? Don’t they know there’s more to life than sex? Do they even know what music is?

I guess not.

Well I’ll tell you what real music is. Go visit a classroom full of five-year-olds singing, “Zachaeus Was A Wee Little Man.” Or: “This Little Light Of Mine.” You’ll hear all the real music you can stand.

I’ve never smiled as big as I did when I taught Sunday school, watching twenty kids shatter lightbulbs using only their voices.

We used to sing like that, you and I.

I’m glad we were children once, before the clouds of adulthood came. Because in those days, we were naive enough to be singers, fingerpainters, and storytellers with small vocabularies.

I wish we had small hands and stinky feet again. I wish we were curious, and too distracted to be sad. I wish we laughed so hard we peed ourselves, and that we gave lots of hugs like we used to.

And God, if you can hear me:

I wish I had some more barbecue ribs.