THOMASVILLE—I’m about to make a speech at a local bookstore. I am running late. I speed into town like Dale Earnhardt on a beer run.

I have a soft spot for small towns. In fact, you might say that my entire life has been built by small-town people. Like those in this city.

The streets are lined with shops and markets. The store windows are covered by awnings. There are plants hanging from street lamps. A dog wanders Broad Street. Reddish. Scruffy. He has no collar.

A simple drive around town is worth the price of admission. When you’re here, you’re back in time.

In the historic district you’ll see antebellum homes, Queen Anne architecture, and steep-pitched rooflines. Whitewashed columns on old mansions. Big porches. And people riding lawn mowers, drinking Bud Light, and listening to gospel music on headphones.

But it’s the downtown that everyone comes to see. We’re driving through it at sundown. Every few seconds my wife uses the phrase “Oh, how cute.”

There

are cobblestone streets. Two-story buildings with the tall windows.

A crowd of young women in evening wear poses for a picture on the street corner.

Boys in baseball uniforms meander the sidewalk, following their designated team-dad, who looks like he’s about to have a nervous breakdown.

Women stroll together, toting shopping bags. I see one shop owner sweeping the sidewalk with a broom.

I didn’t think anyone swept sidewalks anymore.

And the dog still roams Broad Street. He stops now and then to see if any passers by want to feed him. No dice.

It’s all too pretty to believe. I keep expecting to see Barney Fife pull alongside my vehicle and accuse me of jaywalking. Or perhaps Floyd might approach me and ask if I need a haircut. And the answer would be: Yes, I do. Badly.

I dart into…

It’s a perfect summer evening. The world is moving slow. It’s hot. The sounds of the world are music. Crickets. Insects. Frogs galore. And the magnificent sound of my redneck neighbor, Jerry, four-wheeling his pickup truck through the mud on the property behind mine, shouting “THAT’S WHAT I’M TALKIN’ ‘BOUT, SON!” out his window.

I am eating strawberries because summer is coming to an end and I don’t want to forget it. The strawberries were good this year.

So were the tomatoes. I ate a lot of tomatoes this summer. People gave them to us wherever we traveled. And we traveled a lot, doing shows in various places.

A middle-aged couple in Palatka, Florida, attended one of my shows and gave me real homegrown tomatoes that were the size of footballs.

In Birmingham, an elderly man gave me a trash bag full of Purple Cherokee heirlooms.

In North Georgia, someone gave me a cardboard box full of Better Boys that his mother grew. I carried

that box on a road trip across the Southeast, the Midwest, and into Texas. I took these tomatoes to every state we visited until they were gone.

Also, this summer I got a tan. Which is kind of a big deal for me. I haven’t had a tan since I was nineteen and someone rubbed pigmented lotion on my arms and legs for a beach wedding. My skin turned the color of a seasick carrot.

I do not tan well. I am a redhead. I have two shades. Winter Pale, and Red Lobster.

This summer, baseball has been exquisite. I have watched the Atlanta Braves play in all sorts of unlikely places while traveling.

I saw them on a TV in a New York City hotel after spending the day translating Northern accents. And in Washington D.C., where my wife and I took a taxi to see…

My friend’s mother, Miss Sylvia, is making cornbread. Her house is alive with the smell. The seventy-two-year old woman cooks cornbread the old-fashioned way. An iron skillet in the oven. Lots of butter.

Sylvia tests the hot bread by poking it with a broom bristle. If the bristle is gummy, she licks the bristle then returns the skillet to the oven. If not, it’s Cornbread-Thirty.

I watch this bristle maneuver. She breaks a piece of straw from her broom. And I don’t want to ask, but I have to.

“Is that broom clean?” I say.

“Relax,” Sylvia says. “It’s just one bristle.”

“But is it clean?”

“Define clean.”

“Has it been used to sweep your floor?”

“This particular broom? Yes.”

“Your dusty, residential, hepatitis-C floor?”

“Yes.”

So this cornbread is contaminated and will probably kill me. But then, I’m a dinner guest, I HAVE to eat it even though the old woman’s floors are frequently used by a family dog who is nicknamed “Egypt” because wherever he goes he makes little pyramids.

Still, I love cornbread. I was raised on

the stuff, just like everyone else in America.

My mother used to make cornbread a few times per week. Sometimes more. Primarily because it was cheap, and my family ate cheap food.

You always knew when it was cornbread night because my mother would make a fresh pot of boiling bacon grease with a few navy beans floating in it. She called it bean and ham soup, but I call it cardiac arrest stew.

Either way, you would use your bread to sop the sides of the bowl. Occasionally, while doing this you would get so giddy that you’d break into song and sing a number from “Oklahoma,” “The Music Man,” or in extreme cases “Jesus Christ Superstar.”

All my life, I considered cornbread to be the fingerprint of a good cook. No two cooks make it alike, and I…

I am on my way to a birthday party. Before the party, I stop at the bookstore because I need to buy a gift. Which I completely forgot to do.

I’m a last-minute kind of guy. I didn’t even plan my own honeymoon until we were in the parking lot, leaving the reception. There were tin cans tied to my bumper.

My wife said, “Where are you taking me?”

I only smiled.

“Oh my God,” she said. “You’re probably taking me to Dothan, aren’t you?”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” I said. “It’s a surprise.”

And it was. For us both. We left for Charleston. Just as soon as I cancelled our reservations at the Super 8 Motel in Dothan.

I’m walking into the bookstore. I know it sounds crazy, but I love this place. I remember when they built it. They spent months clearing the forest behind my old church to build this strip mall.

The day the store opened, I was standing in line among the first customers. I was a young man, walking the aisles, running

my hands along the books. And I was in heaven because I love books.

I even filled out a job application. A week later, a man called my house and asked me to come for an interview. I hung up the kitchen phone and danced a jig.

For the interview, I wore my nicest shirt and my finest tennis shoes. My appointment was early in the morning, before the store opened. I showed up on the sidewalk. The lights were off. Nobody was inside. So I let myself in.

Soon, I was wandering the dark aisles. The place was filled with classic literature. Twain. Dickinson. Whitman. Grizzard. And a bunch of other authors whose names I frequently use at swanky dinner parties.

A gruff voice came from behind me. “Can I help you?”

I turned to see a man with a sour face,…

In honor of college football season, I want to tell you about the biggest SEC football fan I know. He lives in Monroeville, Alabama, which is your quintessential all-American town. Walk the square and take a trip backward on the timeline. Drive around town. You’ll see barbecue joints, a Piggly Wiggly, a Sonic, a world-famous courthouse.

And you might see Kenny.

Kenny is late-forties. He lives in the upstairs bedroom of his parents’ house. A little about him: Kenny likes dogs, people, food, singing, sports, and hugging anyone within a six-foot radius.

Kenny has Down syndrome. There is a touch of gray on his temples. His face has smile-lines. And, if Kenny were to ever donate blood, doctors would discover he bleeds orange and blue.

He is an Auburn University fanatic.

“I’m Auburn’s BIGGEST FAN!” he says.

There’s no doubt. He gives me the dime tour of his bedroom—a shrine to the Tigers.

There are seventeen thousand orange ballcaps adorning his walls. Bo Jackson autographs, Gus Malzahn posters, stuffed tigers, eagle figurines, and Shug Jordan coffee mugs.

During the tour, Kenny

breaks into spontaneous song:

“WAR EAGLE! Fearless and true,
“Fight on, you orange and blue...”

He finishes his performance by hugging me. Kenny gives good hugs.

In the corner is an Auburn Christmas tree, weighted with orange ornaments—he keeps it up year round. Auburn bedspreads, throw rugs, drapes, pillows, light-switch covers.

“When we first had Kenny,” says his father. “Doctors told us our baby had issues. Told us we’d better let him go and institutionalize him.”

Kenny’s father informed the doctor they would do no such thing. Instead, the family built their world around the new baby. They loved him.

“Raising him was the big blessing of our life,” says Kenny’s father. “We were never alone, that’s part of life in a small town. You’re never alone. This community raised Kenny with us.”

Kenny spent twenty years finishing…

Early evening. My mother-in-law (Mother Mary) and I are watching the Andy Griffith Show. We are whistling along with the opening theme song.

Mother Mary is wearing hearing aids. The television volume is turned up as high as it will go, blaring so loud that pieces of the popcorn ceiling are falling into my beer.

We are having an Andy Griffith Show marathon. We start with the first season, episode one.

The plot is simple: Aunt Bea comes to town. Opie doesn’t like her. In the final scenes, everyone hugs. The end. Roll the credits.

Mother Mary says, “TURN IT UP!”

“But Mother Mary,” I say, “the television is all the way up.”

“HUH?”

“I SAID THE TV’S TURNED UP!”

“NO! NO! TAX DAY ISN’T UNTIL MARCH FIFTEENTH!”

“TAX DAY?”

“HUH?”

“MOTHER MARY! TAX DAY IS IN APRIL!”

“WHAT?”

“I SAID, TAX DAY’S IN APRIL!”

“WHY SHOULD I GIVE A RIP WHICH MONTH TAX DAY IS?”

So we watch TV together. And even though we’ve both seen this episode a hundred times, we still laugh at the jokes and whistle with the credits.

Episode one ends. Cue episode two: Andy and Barney catch an escaped

convict.

“TURN IT UP!” says Mother Mary.

“I CAN’T!”

“HUH?”

“I SAID, I CAN’T!”

“WHO DID?”

“WHO DID WHAT?”

“GREG!”

“I DON’T KNOW WHAT YOU’RE TALKING ABOUT!”

“HUH?”

They can hear our television blaring from the U.S. Embassy in Beijing. Whenever Barney Fife speaks, the sound of his voice shatters our windows and cracks one of my fillings.

Even so, this is the best show on the planet. I have loved it for my whole life.

As a boy, my friends always wanted to play “Army,” or “Cowboys,” or if we were in Marvin Kowalski’s basement, “Weatherman.” But I usually voted for playing “Andy Griffith.”

I had the clothes for it, too. My mother bought several khaki-colored safari shirts from the thrift store. If you…

Dust off your turntable. Play a few forty-fives and LPs. Pour yourself three-fingers of Ovaltine and relax. Today is National Vinyl Record Day.

Now, I know what you’re thinking because I was thinking the same thing. You didn’t know there was such a holiday. Well, there is. And it’s today.

This morning, my friend told me about this holiday. I got pretty excited because (a) I have not listened to my vinyl records in a long time, and (b) I couldn’t think of squat to write about this morning.

The thing is, I am like most modern Americans. Usually, I listen to music on my phone, which has terrible sound quality.

Ray Charles, for instance, singing over a crummy cellphone speaker is not nearly the same experience as listening to him sing over a crummy record-player speaker.

So I went to the attic, found my heavy boxes of LPs, and hauled them into the living room. I dropped them on the table, smiled at my wife, then announced in a nostalgic voice, “I think I pulled my groin.”

Whereupon

I collapsed onto the sofa and screamed for fifteen minutes. I really tweaked it good, too. I now walk like John Wayne after his yearly colon exam.

But I have my father’s records to keep me company. My mother’s, too. Most of these albums have been with the family since my childhood. Such as:

—“Hank Williams Sings”

—“Walt Disney’s Country Bear Jamboree”

— “Four Tops Live”

—“Beach Blanket Bingo” (Frankie and Annette go skydiving!)

— “Love is the Thing” by Nat King Cole

—“The Music Man” (1957 Original Broadway Cast)

— “Willie Nelson and Family”

— “Songs, Themes, and Laughs from the Andy Griffith Show”

—“Modern Sounds in Country and Western Music” by Ray Charles

I am listening to albums on an Amplitone suitcase turntable with a brand new needle. They take me back in time. These songs resurrect people I…

The middle of the night. I cannot sleep. I am lying awake, staring at my ceiling.

My wife is not snoring. It’s important that you understand this because women do not like to be told that they snore. It makes them very angry, and they will inflict physical pain upon those who accuse them of this vulgar thing. Which I am not doing. Nor would I ever do.

As a boy, whenever I couldn’t sleep I would think about food. Some kids counted sheep, some added prime numbers, or recited their ABCs. I counted casseroles.

Before drifting off, I would visualize a grassy meadow filled with little church ladies, all carrying casserole dishes, taking turns leaping over livestock fences while the sheep watched them at a distance. And I would count.

“One casserole, two casserole…” And so on.

If that didn’t work, I would move on to counting pound cakes. When pound cakes didn’t work, I would count field peas.

Which is the point I am at

now.

I should probably stop here for anyone who doesn’t know about field peas. I meet a lot of people who hear “field peas” and think of English peas. Which are green pellets often served in sketchy buffet-style restaurants with glass sneeze-guards that do not protect anything from small children who are literally at nostril-level with the mashed potatoes.

Field peas are different. There are billions of varieties of field peas. I’ll name a few:

Crowder peas, Purple Hulls, Big Red Rippers, Whippoorwills, Stick Ups, Turkey Craws, Mama Slappers, Old Timers, Cow peas, Mississippi Silvers, Shanty peas, Iron Clays, Wash Days, Triple Ds, Sermonizers, Butt Kickers, Polecats, Pinkeyes, and Zipper peas.

You haven't lived until you’ve tried Zipper peas with ham hocks and bacon grease.

Years ago, I visited a no-name cafe outside Atlanta. The menu featured only one meal. It was written on…