Today, I almost got killed by a teenager driving a Range Rover. He might have been seventeen. Maybe not even that old. He wore a ballcap. Sideways. Music was blaring.

I was walking my dog when he swerved toward me. I heard tires screech. I leapt out of the way, hit the dirt, and rolled. It was so much fun. I wish I could do it all over again.

I caught a glimpse of the driver through his passenger window. His head was down, looking at something in his hands. I’m guessing he was either reading a receipt, a check from Publishers Clearing House, the results from a paternity test, or looking at a cellphone.

Though, something about the way he was swerving tells me that he was sending a text message. In fact, I am almost certain of this because of the exact way his tires leapt from the pavement.

He was probably sending a very important text message such as: “LOL!” or “ROFL!” Or

quite possibly—this would be just my luck—the pile-of-poop emoji.

Wouldn’t that be a classy way for an average guy like me to die? There I am, out for a walk, a middle-aged man, minding his business, his best years ahead of him, devilishly handsome, when all of a sudden (BAM!) I’m Jello salad on the highway.

All because a teenager was trying to send his buddy the universal emoji for colon health.

When I finally got back home, I was so rattled that I was shaking. So naturally, the first thing I did was hop on the internet and Google how much a Range Rover costs. Here is what I found:

$90,000.00.

That’s U.S. dollars. Not dineros, Euros, Canadian dollars, Franks, Monopoly money, or whatever else there is.

So let’s review:

1. I almost died.
2. Certain SUVs cost more than two-bedroom condos with…

We are driving to a restaurant. I am dressed up. She is dressed up. We are not talking, just driving. The radio is playing Don Williams’ song, “Amanda.”

“...Amanda, light of my life,
“Fate should have made you,
“A gentleman’s wife...”

Soon, we are in a swanky restaurant. All the servers wear black. The appetizers come on square plates, doused with sauces that have fancy names that I can’t pronounce. Everything here costs more than a summer cottage in Maui.

Napkins are spread upon our laps. My wife and I are not talking because we are nosy. At the table next to ours is an elderly man with a woman who looks about twenty-one.

The man kisses her. She giggles. When the old man’s waiter arrives, the man orders aged Scotch. His date orders expensive merlot.

Our waitress arrives. My wife orders sushi for an appetizer. I’m still looking.

When the sushi comes, it looks frightening. The lime green stuff that comes with it looks

like guacamole, but it is actually nuclear horseradish that will disfigure your sinuses for life.

My wife loves sushi because she is more cultured than I am. She has been to foreign countries, she knows the difference between good wine and Boone’s Farm, and she is sharp enough to win Wheel of Fortune.

Somehow, she married a guy who has never been anywhere or done anything. A kid who was once at a famous bar in New Orleans with his buddy, where the bartender offered him a free glass of thirty-seven-year-old Scotch. And this kid—who has always been a few clowns short of a circus—refused the Scotch and ordered Coors instead.

I’ll never forget it when my buddy said, “What were you thinking, you big hick? That Scotch probably costs two hundred bucks per glass.”

My only defense was that I was a fool. And God…

AUBURN, KY—We are staying at the Federal Grove Bed and Breakfast in Central Kentucky. It’s an all-brick colonial house with tall columns.

It looks like the sort of estate that might have a fancy historic name like Funicello, or Vermicelli, or something like that.

The trees are fat. The hills are gentle. The rolling farmland goes on forever. This land used to belong to Jonathan Clark, older brother of William Clark—as in Lewis and Clark.

At breakfast this morning, I kept expecting to run into Abraham Lincoln, or George Washington, or at the very least, Wynona Judd.

This is only my second time in Kentucky. And in the last few days we have driven through the entire state.

Yesterday was an important day, sightseeing-wise. My wife and I are students of early American history. So we made a special point to visit an important landmark which played a pivotal role in our nation’s freedom; the first Kentucky Fried Chicken.

In downtown Corbin, the unassuming eatery still has a sign reading: “Sander’s Cafe.”

The tiny KFC museum is attached to a fully operational fast-food restaurant. A statue of Colonel Sanders sits in the lobby. I had my picture made with the Colonel.

In the dining room, I met an elderly couple who lives nearby. The old woman wore a tank top and used a walking stick. Her husband wore plaid.

“I met the Colonel once,” said the woman. “Lotta people in Corbin met him. He was the most famous Kentuck’n there was.”

“He made good chicken,” said her husband.

“He made REALLY good chicken,” the old woman said.

“That’s what I just said, Dora.”

“I know, but I was saying it again, for the article guy.”

“The article guy don’t need to hear it twice.”

Later that day, Article Guy and his wife visited Richmond, a college town. The enormous courthouse has columns as…

KENTUCKY—Right now, I am in the fellowship hall of First Baptist Church in Richmond. I’m about to tell stories to a room of Baptists.

The entree tonight is barbecued pork. The beverages are sweet tea and extra-sweet tea. These are beautiful people.

I don’t often give speeches at Baptist churches. I speak at lots of other churches, but not usually Baptist ones.

This is probably because I tell a lot of Baptist jokes. I do this because I come from fundamentalist Baptists who will forever be in my blood. They were people who wore lots of Brylcreem and ate too many congealed salads.

But I can’t help it. My people are too easy to make jokes about. The punchlines practically write themselves.

Here’s one a preacher told me:

One day a Catholic priest, a Methodist, a Presbyterian, and a Baptist minister were fishing. They were arguing over which denomination Jesus would be.

The Catholic priest said, “He’d be part of the Roman Catholic Church, no doubt.”

The Methodist said, “No

way. I think after all John Wesley did for the Christian faith, he would certainly be a Methodist.”

“I think he’d be Presbyterian,” said the Presbyterian. “I have no doubt he’d join the Reformed Tradition.”

The Baptist minister shook his head and said, “I’m sorry fellas, that boy’s going to Hell unless he cuts his hair.”

It is hard to make a Baptist laugh. Chances are, if you’re Baptist, you didn’t laugh at that. In fact, you might have even read it and remarked aloud, “Bah humbug,” then went into the other room and horsewhipped your firstborn child.

Again. I’m kidding.

See? That’s exactly what I’m talking about. The people I came from didn’t laugh. In fact, we laughed less than all other denominations combined.

For instance, I once attended an Episcopal church in Mobile that had cocktail hour…

The Highway 127 Yard Sale is a six-hundred-mile junk extravaganza stretching from Alabama to Michigan.

Every August, hordes of people come from all over the U.S. to ride the rural route. It starts in the South, shoots through the Midwest, and finally ends in the Great Lake State.

My wife and I leave Birmingham early, heading for Gadsden, where the route begins. We haven’t done the Highway 127 Yard Sale since we were first married, back in the winter of 1912.

The traffic in Birmingham is nightmarish. People drive like they’ve just escaped from a psychiatric unit. Motorists in the left lane drive upward of a hundred miles per hour and honk at you if you travel slower than the sound barrier.

I do not drive fast enough for Birmingham. I know this because while I am driving, a man in a Land Rover rolls his window down and shows me the Universal Finger Gesture.

He actually takes the time to roll his window down, thereby interrupting

his important text-message conversation.

But once we hit the rural parts, the world becomes more relaxed again. There is a feel to this part of Alabama that can’t be described. It’s like exhaling.

There is an epidemic of kudzu, and an exciting buzz in the air because of all the yard-salers. It’s the same kind of excitement that accompanies all major life-events such as weddings, baptisms, and the Winston Cup Series.

Soon, we see white canopy tents lining the highway. Miles of tents. Miles and miles. And I hear choirs of angels singing in the distance because I know that beneath each of these tents is:

Junk.

I am a connoisseur of junk. A collector, if you will. Inside my garage are mountains of boxes containing rare antiques that—according to many well-respected experts—are worthless.

For instance, I have a collection of Englebert Humperdink records…

6:23 A.M.—I wake up. I hobble out of bed. It takes longer to wake up than it used to. In these morning moments, many thoughts go through my head.

Thoughts like: Why does my back hurt? Did I sleep on a billiard ball last night? What is my name? What is this new pain in my ankle? I don’t remember hurting my ankle. My ankle really hurts. Why does my ankle hurt? Is this even my ankle? I need coffee.

I shuffle to the kitchen. There it is. The coffee pot. I see it. On the stove. Glory be.

But the imaginary voice of my wife speaks to me, even though my actual wife is still asleep.

Imaginary Wife says, “Take your vitamins BEFORE you make coffee, or else you’ll forget.”

But I hate vitamins. My wife buys liquid vitamins that need to be mixed with water. They taste like industrial strength Lysol.

I fill a water glass and mix in liquid vitamins. I toss it back. I gag. I lean over the sink and start to moan. What in God's name is that pain in my ankle?

I hear rustling in the other room. I hear four pairs of paws. They are scratching on the plastic kennel liners.

The heathens are awake. I hear tails wagging. It sounds like:

THWAT! THWAT! THWAT!

The closer I get to the kennels, the faster the thwats become.

THWATTHWATTHWATTHWAT!

I operate with extreme care. These dogs have been cooped up all night and are ready to to reenact the final scene from the “Great Escape.”

The other morning, I opened the kennel doors and the dogs nearly knocked me over and broke my neck.

“Calm down,” I tell them.

The kennel doors open. Two large-breed dogs leap from their crates like Steve McQueen and Charles Bronson bound for freedom. I fall…