Nighttime. It’s forty-seven degrees in Birmingham. I know this because James Spann says so. I’m pumping gas at a Shell station and eating Cheez-Its.

At the pump beside me, there is a minivan full of loud teenagers. It’s Friday night in Magic City, they are in a good mood. The minivan stereo is blaring dance music loud enough to crack commercial porcelain.

Meanwhile, there is an old man in a tattered tweed coat. His boots have duct tape on the toes. He wears a stocking cap, a long beard, and carries a rucksack. You can smell him as far away as Jackson County.

He approaches the young people.

“‘Scuse me, y’all…” his spiel begins.

And you can tell he’s used this speech several million times. He’s pared the language down to the bare essentials. He asks for money. He makes mention of God. He references military service. He swears he’s sober.

One of the young men stops the man mid-sentence. The young guy is tall, broad, and blonde like Freddie from “Scooby Doo.”

“Listen,” says Freddie. “I’m not giving you any money. Understand?”

He says it just like that. A real hard butt.

The oldster nods. “Yessir, thank you for your time,” he says.

Then, the old man hobbles away and approaches another car. This time he selects a woman in a skirt suit who is dressed as though she has come directly from work.

She is talking on a phone, pumping gas, even though warning labels on the pumps caution that doing these two things simultaneously could turn her into a skirt-suit kabob.

Her car is a black BMW, an M5 Sedan, which costs roughly the equivalent of a tactical grade military helicopter.

She makes eye contact with the old man but doesn’t lower the phone. “Yes? Can I help you?”

Manners, manners.

He stutters. “Yes’m. I’m… I’m pretty hungry, and I—”

He doesn’t get more than a few…

First off, I’d like to thank Miss Karen for telling me this story. Karen, you know who you are.

Our story starts with a young man. This young man had a large snake tattoo on his neck, slithering upward onto his shaved scalp. The frightful tattoo was one of many.

On his forearms, for example, were even more disturbing tats. And these were not the kinds of artsy tattoos you see on suburban, middle-aged dads who drive minivans. These were crude, Sing Sing-style tattoos done with the ink from a BIC pen.

The young, tattooed custodian entered the fellowship hall during women’s Bible study hour one Wednesday morning, pushing a mop. He quietly went about his business, cleaning the church, listening to rap music on earbuds.

The old women in the Bible study group were seated in a semicircle of folding chairs. They stared at the illustrated man with slack-jawed horror.

These were church ladies with hearing aids, Coke-bottle glasses, and quilted Bible covers. These were decent women who wore Chanel No. 5,

and lily-white Keds. Who was this man?

“Is that our new custodian?” asked one old lady in pearls and polyester.

“Surely not,” whispered another. “He looks like an inmate.”

He was, indeed, a former prisoner. The young man had just gotten out of county lockup. The church hired him to do odd jobs, sweep floors, vacuum the sanctuary, and chlorinate the baptismal.

He was a good worker, and a nice guy. There had been complaints about him, of course. Lots of complaints. But none were based on his character. Just his appearance.

Which brings us to Karen.

Karen is 74 years young. She has been attending this 200-member church in the piney woods since infancy. Her husband used to be the treasurer here before he died.

For years, Karen has headed up the committee that produced the annual cookbook on the mimeograph machine. Karen was church secretary…

Dear God,

It’s me again. How have you been? How is the family? Hope you had a good holiday season and that you didn’t have to smite too many people who drove too slow in the left lane. Give Moses my best.

I know you haven’t heard from me in a while, and I’m sorry about that. I’ve been busy lately and I’ve forgotten to check in. But then, I hear you’ve been pretty busy, too.

For example, I heard about that helicopter crash in Philadelphia yesterday. The aircraft was headed to Children's Hospital of Philadelphia with an infant onboard when it crashed in the Drexel Hill neighborhood of Upper Darby.

There were four passengers inside: A nurse, an infant, a pilot, and a flight medic. The helicopter went down like a sack of rocks, and frankly, everyone should be dead. But they’re not.

All survived. All are in stable condition. The officials said it was a miracle. And even though nobody used Your name directly, I knew it was You.

And just today, I got an

email about Bryson, a kid with Burkitt lymphoma, stage three. A few months ago, this cancer covered 90 percent of his body, and after four terrifying chemo rounds the kid was ready to give up.

The worst part was, the type of cancer Bryson has is so aggressive that if one cell is left after radiation treatment, the cancer could blanket him again in a matter of days. Everyone has been holding their breath.

This afternoon, that young man’s grandmother wrote to tell me that doctors believe Bryson might be going into remission. Today is Bryson’s 12th birthday, a birthday he’ll remember forever.

You did that. I know it was You.

You were also involved in the story of Noel and her husband, Chris, who live in a heavily wooded area of Stafford County, Virginia.

During the recent snowstorm, when trees were falling…

He was calling from New Jersey. That’s what it said on my caller ID. As a Florida guy, I know nothing of the Garden State. I’ve visited exactly once, and I was only there long enough to get a parking ticket. And from the parts I visited, it looked more like the Used Car Dealership State to me.

“I wanted to tell you about my ma,” the man on the phone said. “She was a great woman. I thought you’d wanna hear this story.”

I got out a pencil, touched the tip to my tongue, and told him to fire at will.

His “ma” was Italian Catholic. She was a superb cook, a diligent housekeeper, and a devout Frank Sinatra fan. She was small, 110 pounds soaking wet, she loved classical music, James A. Michener, she was an artist and a poet.

After she died, her children found many of her poems and sketches tucked in books all over the old woman’s house.

“We had no idea she could draw so well,” he

said. “To us, she was just Ma.”

But Ma was a major talent. Before she met her husband, she had received an art scholarship. She was a full-time art student, studying to be a painter.

Even so, life has a way of stepping in and making its own choices. She married in her twenties, she dropped out of college, and that was that.

In those days, she and her husband did what most American suburban families did. They bought a middle-class one-story bungalow in the ‘burbs. Her husband got a job in the city. She stayed home and raised the pups.

“She was the best mom in the world,” he said. “She made us all feel like we were Ma’s favorite. Ask any of my siblings, they all think they were the favorite. Too bad they’re wrong. I was the favorite.”

She took them to mass often,…

The little redheaded boy found his grandfather on the porch swing, late at night. The old man was whittling basswood, listening to a ballgame on the radio. The kid let the screen door slap behind him. The boy wore Evel Knievel pajamas.

“What’re you doing up?” said the old man. “Couldn’t sleep?”

“Had a bad dream.”

The old man patted the swing. “Step into my office, Kemosabe.”

The kid climbed onto the swing and leaned against the old man who smelled like burley tobacco, Old Spice, and sweat. The crickets were singing their aria.

“I’m scared, Granddaddy.”

He resumed carving. “Hush now. Ain’t nothing to be scared of. Just a dream.”

The ballgame droned in the background. The Braves were playing the Cardinals and getting shelled.

“What’re you carving?”

The old man held up the block of basswood. “It’s a dog. Hunting hound. This is Shelby.”

The boy looked at the crude canine figurine. It looked more like a deranged ferret than a dog.

“I know it ain’t pretty,” said the old man. “But she ain’t done yet.”

“Who’s Shelby?”

“My old dog. I got her

when I was a little older’n you. I found her. She was caught in a mess of barbed wire in our east field. Nobody knowed where she come from so I took her home and kept her.”

“That was a long time ago?”

“You have no idea.”

“Was she a good dog?”

He inspected his wooden handiwork. “She was.”

“Tell me about her.”

“Well. Old Shelby came ever’ where with me. One time I took her to a church dinner on the grounds. She embarrassed me so bad when she jumped on the table where all the fancy dishes were. Looked like she was surfing. Broke ever’ piece a china.

“I had to work a custodian job at the church that summer for punishment, sweeping the floors, touching up the pews with wood stain.”

I’ll call her Melinda. Melinda is 77 years young, the mother of two. She is your typical American grandma.

She helps arrange flowers at her Methodist church. She belongs to a bridge group. She has two very spoiled lap dogs with double first names. She has been married for over half a century.

Last month Melinda and her husband drove from Florida to California. Her Toyota traversed 2,676 miles across the American interstate system for a very important meeting.

But I’m getting ahead of myself.

Melinda’s story starts about 60 years ago, when she was 16 years old.

It was a different age. Kennedy was president. Gas was 31 cents per gallon. She was pretty, brunette, innocent, and aimless. She had a relationship with the son of a prominent man in town.

Melinda believed she was in love, but teenage romances between rich boys and blue-collar girls are not bound to last. Melinda was in way over her head and social rank, but too naive to know it.

When her family doctor told her she was

with child, it came as devastating news. This was 1961. Rich boys did not father the children of working-class girls. And if they did, the girls were taken away and dealt with.

As I say, different times.

No sooner had her belly began to show than she was whisked out of town. A cock-and-bull story was invented to keep everyone from wondering where she had gone.

“She’s helping at a church camp,” was one rumor going around.

“She’s attending a prestigious school up north,” was another story.

“I heard she became a nun.”

“Didn’t she join the Peace Corps?”

The girl was strongly advised by adults in her life to give her child up for adoption. And by “strongly advised,” I mean she had almost no choice.

This wasn’t what she wanted to do, mind you. But she was 16 years old, so she…

I have a letter here from Kyle that reads, “Dear Sean, I have the ring, I have the girl, but every time I try to ask her to marry me, I chicken out. Please help.”

Dear Kyle, so there I was, wearing a safety harness and standing atop a 318-foot tall iron structure with the world’s largest rubber band attached to my butt. My wife was standing miles below, in a river gorge, shouting things like, “WOOO! YAAAY!”

I was going bungee jumping.

The first thing you discover when bungee jumping is that everyone tells you there’s nothing to worry about. “You’ll be fine!” everyone insists. “It’s mostly safe!”

I had to sign waivers, of course. Lots of waivers. And if you take the time to actually read the tiny print, it will chill your blood into a raspberry slushy.

Here is some of the actual language from the waivers:

“The participant is fully aware that bungee-jumping and all associated activities contains inherent risk and dangers (including serious injury or death), that no amount

of care, caution, instruction, or expertise can eliminate. The participant hereby voluntarily chooses to incur any and all such risks and dangers in the event of death.”

This should have been my first tipoff that what I was doing was supremely idiotic. They do not, for example, make you sign waivers before you go mini-golfing.

Truthfully, I wasn’t sure how I ended up here. I have never had a desire to hurl myself from 35 stories. I was only here because my wife talked me into this inane stunt. She can be very persuasive.

Her line of reasoning was: “You regret one hundred percent of the shots you don’t take.”

This is exactly the kind of thing a loving spouse will often say once you have purchased decent life insurance policies.

So I, the participant, hiked to the top of the tower. When I reached the…

I get a lot of mail in the form of letters, texts, emails, and subpoenas. Many of these messages are questions, which I am not always able to answer. So I’ve answered some here by compiling the most commonly asked questions. Let’s get started.

Q: Do you receive hate mail?

A: This is the Age of the Internet. Everyone gets critical mail. I get it all the time.

Q: Really? What do these people say?

A: I don’t want to talk about it.

Q: Did someone once Tweet about how you were a stupid hick with a head that was “unnaturally big for his body”?

A: Maybe.

Q: How did that make you feel?

A: I measured my head in the bathroom mirror.

Q: So I thought you lived in Alabama, and then I read that you lived in Florida. Which state is it?

A: I live in the Florida Panhandle, which is a unique region we natives lovingly refer to as L.A. “Lower Alabama.” My house is a few minutes from an Alabama town called Florala, if that tells you

anything.

Simply put, every truck in my neighborhood has either an Auburn-University bumper sticker or a University-of-Alabama tag. Also, I actually own a pair of camouflage underpants.

Q: Really?

A: They were a birthday gift.

Q: So which team do you root for, Alabama or Auburn?

A: I may or may not have a tattoo of Nick Saban beneath my camo skivvies.

Q: You have frequently written that you don't like calling yourself a writer. Why?

A: Being a writer in America is one of those occupational categories nobody understands.

You know how when you’re a kid and your teacher asks what you want to be when you grow up? If you were gutsy enough to tell this teacher you wanted to be a writer, chances are she stared at you as though you had said, “I want to…

My phone rang. Unknown number. I answered and expected to hear a robo-recording about important information regarding my automotive warranty. But it was a young man who I am going to call Bobby.

“Hello, is this Sean?”

“Yes.”

Bobby had a story he wanted to share, and apparently I was the guy he was going to share it with. He was adamant about this.

“Do you have a pen?” were his first words.

“How’d you get this number?” I said.

“Your wife gave it to me.”

“Ah.”

“I’m on my lunch break,” Bobby went on. “I’m kinda in a hurry. I don’t have long. You’re gonna wanna take notes. I got a lotta cool stuff to tell you.”

Only, it bears mentioning, Bobby never actually used the word “stuff.” Bobby prefers another famous word beginning with the letter S. This word, I quickly learned, is one of Bobby’s favorite expletives. But since this is a family column, I will use “stuff.”

In the background I could I hear factory sounds and industrial noises. “Where are you?” I asked. “I can hardly hear

you.”

“I work at a mill.”

I got my pen ready. “Go ahead,” I said.

Bobby said he was coming home late from work one night six years ago. He was speeding when a vehicle pulled in front of him on the wet pavement.

He slammed his brakes. He fishtailed on the rural highway. He doesn’t totally remember what happened, but he remembers the sound of the tires screaming.

He was thrown from the car, then pinned against a tree by the same vehicle he was driving. The odds of this happening are almost five trillion to one. Even the emergency workers couldn’t explain how this had occurred.

“It was some really whacked out stuff, man.”

Bobby was alone in the middle of the woods, trapped against a tree by his own bumper. And did I mention he…

My interview was scheduled for noon. It’s not every day you are a keynote speaker for Miss Bernice’s fourth-grade class career day, via video call. I wore a necktie.

Miss Bernice’s class has been interviewing a lot of people lately about their careers by using video calls. She has been introducing the kids to people with different occupations from all over the U.S.

So far, her class has welcomed guests from all fields. The class has interviewed PhDs, celebrated journalists, famous musicians, chefs, well-known songwriters, people who work in finance, pro fishermen, doctors, and anyone else who drives a Range Rover.

I was scheduled to go on after the decorated navy pilot.

While the fighter pilot gave his presentation, I started to feel like a an idiot. I looked at the little camera image of myself on my laptop screen and cringed. My red hair was disheveled, my face looked tired. The bags beneath my eyes could have been used for a Samsonite ad.

Captain America wowed his audience, and I was trying to remember when

and why I became a writer in the first place.

Truthfully, I don’t know when exactly I first wanted to be a writer. I can’t remember ever NOT wanting to be one.

Still, I think it must have happened officially for me in the fourth grade. That was the year our teacher read “Where the Red Fern Grows.”

She would read aloud to us after lunch period, every weekday for an hour. And she did all the voices.

It takes real talent to do the character voices right.

That beautiful woman with the cat-eye glasses and the coiffed hair possessed such talent. I can never forget that period of my life.

We would file into the classroom after gorging ourselves in the cafeteria. She would turn off the lights, sit by the window, and read to us.

Students would gather around her like disciples…