I met Ray and his grandmother outside Cracker Barrel. Granny had her hands full. Ray was running in circles. Ray is 11 years old.

It was the breakfast rush, the hungry crowd was growing impatient. People stood in clumps, waiting their turns to eat toast, eggs, and God-willing, applewood smoked bacon. Ray ran between the people, hollering.

“Weeeeeeeeeeeee!” Ray said.

Granny called for him, but he was too busy to hear. People looked annoyed.

A hostess paged a table of ten. A group of ten fortunate people followed the hostess into the Promised Land, while the rest of us Children of Israel licked our lips, starving to death beside the licorice whips and horehounds.

The old woman kept calling for Ray. When Ray finally came near, I could see he had Down syndrome.

He was a happy child, and he apparently loved his grandmother very much because he laid himself on her lap.

Granny and I talked. I learned that Granny was a lot more than just

a grandmother. I won’t tell too much because it’s none of my business, but Ray is of no blood relation to her.

This gets confusing, so try to keep up.

Granny’s daughter-in-law brought Ray to her door when he was 2 years old. The girl was married to Granny’s son at the time. Ray came from the woman’s first marriage.

The very next year, the young mother bolted for parts unknown, she left the boy. So Granny adopted him.

“Believe me,” said Granny. “I never thought I’d have a child in my life, it’s not something I expected, and I can’t keep up with him.”

Her husband died several years ago, her son works offshore, and without Ray, all she would have is her cat.

“It’s funny, I had already accepted that I’d be alone in my old age, without anyone to…

I am eating a cheeseburger, sipping beer, looking at a beachside restaurant full of families and kids.

There’s a band playing. They couldn’t be any worse if they detuned their instruments and started making bodily noises over the microphone.

But the children are loving the music. Some are dancing. Others are screaming, “Look, Daddy! Daddy! Look, Daddy! Daddy!”

I love kids.

I have always wondered how people with children enjoy their lives. I look around at a table of my middle-aged friends and I am thinking of this very thing.

These people seem to have more responsibility than the rest of us civilians. I’m fact, they’re so responsible that they can’t even focus on a conversation—at least not fully.

They are too busy looking from the corners of their eyes, waiting for catastrophe, or a screaming toddler.

My friend Billy, for instance, is trying to tell a story, but his sentences are incoherent because he keeps diverting his eyes toward his kids.

“Hey,” he begins. “You remember when we were fifteen…”

Billy turns his head.

“...And there was that water tower….”

Another head turn.

“...With the Hallelujah Chorus and lima beans…”

Then he jerks his head and shouts, “PUT YOUR SISTER DOWN, RIGHT NOW! RIGHT NOW, I SAID! DON’T MAKE ME COME OVER THERE! I SWEAR, I WILL WHIP YOUR SHINY LITTLE…”

My friend Nathan tells me:

“The thing about kids is, they say ‘Daddy’ about fifteen hundred times per day. It’s enough to make you nuts.”

“Yeah,” another friend says. “And I wish my kids would just let me go pee in peace.”

My friends’ wives sit at the other side of the table, rocking babies, talking. My wife is with them.

My wife and I exchange a glance. We are the only childless couple here tonight. We smile at each other.

She rolls her…

Thank you. That is the​ purpose of this column. I want to say “thanks.” I don't know you, but I believe in the good you do.

In public, I see you sometimes and think to myself: "I wish someone would thank them." But I never do because if I did, you’d think I was a complete nut job.

Maybe I am a nut job. But I’m allowed to be that way. After all, I am a columnist—sort of—and that means I am missing some crayons.

Long ago, I used to deliver newspapers with my mother. We used to deliver to a fella who would answer the door in pajamas. He had messy hair and a bushy white beard. He always gave me a five-dollar tip.

He was generous. If he wasn’t home one day, he would pay me ten bucks the next day. He was a columnist, my mother told me. And that’s why he was such a weirdo in weird pajamas. Even his house smelled weird.

I suppose I ought

to thank him while I am at it.

Also, thanks to the man I saw in the gas station who bought a lottery scratch-off ticket. Who won thirty bucks, then turned around and gave the cash to a woman behind him in line. What a guy.

The woman thanked him in a language that sounded like Russian, but he didn't seem to understand, so he answered: “Alright.”

Thank you, Cindy—the woman who translated one of my speeches in American Sign Language for the front row​. She told me I talked very fast and now she has problems with her rotator cuff.

She also taught me how to cuss in sign language.

Thank you to the seventy-year-old man who went back to school to get his GED. And his forty-six-year-old daughter, who tutored him.

And you. You deserve thanks, but you don't always get it. In…

Randy was at a Little League game, watching his nephew play. Only, he was not paying attention to his nephew. He was watching the dugout.

A boy warmed the bench. He was all alone.

Maybe it was the way the kid held his head that made Randy feel so bad. You can tell a lot about a person by the way they hold their head. The kid sort of drooped his chin.

The game was in the eighth inning. The boy wore his uniform, it was spotless, no dirt. He sat beside the water cooler. Head down.

Randy made his way to the dugout and introduced himself. Randy asked why he wasn't playing on the field.

“‘Cause,” the boy said. “I ain't no good at baseball.”

“Don’t say ‘ain’t,’” Randy said. “It ain’t proper.”

This was a course of habit. For Randy’s whole life, his mother had corrected him for using the word “ain’t.”

“Aren’t,” Randy suggested. “Say ‘aren’t‘ instead.”

“Aren’t?” the boy said. “I AREN’T no good at baseball?

That ain’t right.”

Randy had to think long and hard. He couldn’t find the right word to say in place of “ain’t.”

The boy looked at Randy like the man’s wheel was spinning but the hamster was dead.

“Well,” said Randy. “It ain’t a real word, so don’t say ‘ain’t.’”

And so it went.

Randy told the kid his life story. It wasn’t a long tale, but it was a sad one. His father walked out on his mother when he was five. He had to grow up on his own, his mother worked two jobs.

The boy had a similar story. He was alone in this world, warming a bench.

But nobody needs to hear a hard luck story when they have one of their own. So Randy offered to help the kid improve at…

The cookbook I am holding is old. It is every hometown recipe book you’ve ever seen. Spiral bound, thick, stained, and there is a sketch on the cover featuring stately oaks draping over a shaded street.

Inside are the four gospels: church food, wedding food, funeral food, and congealed salads.

You won't find many things holier than these recipes. They are American history, described in standard measurement form.

I once knew an old Sunday school teacher who made buttermilk pie that made grown men loosen their neckties. Once, at a Fourth of July supper, she gave me a slice and told me:

“God wants all his children to be a little soft in the middle.”

And I’ve always believed that.

This particular cookbook I am holding, however, comes from the Brewton Civic League. The recipes within are everything you need to find a happy life.

Cheese grits, Squirrel D’ete, Congealed Cantaloupe Salad, mint juleps, Miss Paula’s pickled shrimp, and Coca-Cola salad—whatever that is.

None of them use the word “margarine,” but “Oleo.” And in this book, you will

also find the secret to perfect fried chicken—peanut oil and Jesus.

You will discover that measurements are open to loose interpretation. A “handful” here, a “passel” there. A “dash,” a “pinch,” a “dusting,” or a “touch.”

Also, there are a dozen variations of chicken-broccoli casserole. Though, the only discernible differences are the varying amounts of cheese.

In this book you will find the exact deviled eggs approved by the Methodist church.

But anyway, I have a long history with homemade cookbooks. In fact, the article you’re reading was typed on a manual typewriter that once typed a similar cookbook.

Many moons ago, I typed 418 recipes using only my index fingers. The recipes were then fed through a Xerox machine which resided in the church office.

After that, the finished recipes were placed into position based on pure favoritism according Mrs. Bellmaker.…

I went to a dinner party at a nice house. The house was in a slick part of town with manicured lawns and sidewalk lighting.

It was the kind of neighborhood where a guard at the gate gives you a disapproving look before he lets your noisy truck into the community.

I helped construct the house where the party was held. A long time ago, I worked in construction when this subdivision was being built.

The irony is, the people I come from don’t use words like “subdivision.” Furthermore, my people have a hard time understanding why anyone would pay association dues when covenants and restrictions prohibit Uncle Bill’s Winnebago from being parked in the driveway.

The house is a four-bedroom-four-bath, and it was one of the first I ever helped build. I was a kid, I still had plenty of freckles, and I was slow at reading a measuring tape.

Anyway, the dinner party was nice, if you’re into that sort of thing. It was catered

by a chef who had a lot of class.

The appetizer was tomato aspic. The main course was quail, topped with soy glaze and mint. This marks the first time I’ve ever had quail that wasn’t retrieved by my uncle’s Labrador.

The portions were microscopic—Barbie could lose weight on meals bigger than this. But then, I was too busy to eat. I was looking at the ceiling.

The sheetrock had a nice orange-peel texture. I hung that sheetrock.

The chef cleared his throat. Fourteen high-society people wouldn’t stop talking long enough to listen. So he rang a little bell. A hush fell over the table.

The chef explained exactly what we would be eating. He used lots of culinary words that went miles over my head.

After his speech, I excused myself to the restroom. I was impressed by the tile-work in the…

It is Spring Break, 2019. That means we are all going to die.

I’m serious—sort of. A spring break in Lower Alabama, and Northwest Florida, means that a simple drive to the grocery store is a deadly tactical maneuver. Spring breakers are on the highways, and they are too busy texting to drive a car.

They steer with their knees, glancing at phones, avoiding eye-contact, texting such vital sentiments as:

“LOL! IKR?”

Today, I passed three car wrecks on the way to get my dry cleaning. Outside the vehicles stood young men and young women who were crying on officers’ shoulders, traumatized by the horrifying reality of coming scarily close to almost losing their cellphones.

Things have changed. Last week, I was in Nashville, using the public restroom in a crowded place. I entered the mens’ room to find every stall occupied.

There, standing before eight urinals were eight young men who were—I am sorry to get too personal—using their cellphones.

That poor janitor.

Sure, I know society has become technologically advanced, I’m

no fool. Still, I miss the days when a fella could visit the bathroom without waiting for the guy ahead of him to finish writing an email to his boss.

My cousin’s son is in town for spring vacation this week. He texted me yesterday to see what I was up to. He is twenty-two years old, and his texts are hard for me to understand because he abbreviates everything.

“How R U,” he texted—no question mark.

“Hey!” I wrote—I took the time to add an exclamation point because that is the kind of guy I am.

He texted in reply: “WYD?”

“You’re gonna have to be a little more clear.”

“LOL! It means ‘What are you doing?’”

“I’m texting a twenty-two-year-old.”

“#Lifegoals.”

“#Whatdoesthatmean?”

“LOL! IKR?"

Give me strength, Lord.

I didn’t want to ask,…