One of the first official dates with my wife took place at her parents’ house. That night, her extremely nosy parents promised not to eavesdrop, nor bother us, nor hide behind the sofa and wait for us to kiss.

Her parents agreed to let us have the entire downstairs to ourselves. And I was nervous. What would we talk about? What would we do? Would her parents leave us alone, or spy on us?

My story takes place in an era when VHS cassettes still roamed the earth. My date and I decided to rent a VHS movie. Although as it turned out, we were so timid we couldn’t actually decide on a movie.

HER: Which movie do you want?

ME: Oh, anything you want.

HER: I don’t care, I’ll watch anything you wanna watch.

ME: Makes no difference. What do you wanna see?

HER: Whatever you wanna see.

ME: I don’t care.

HER: Neither do I, you choose.

ME: No, you.

HER: It’s up to you.

ME: No, it’s your call.

And so it went. Because all young lovers are afraid

to come right out and say something like, “Darling, I do believe I’d prefer to watch something produced by the genius that is Monty Python.”

We had the same hem-hawing conversation about which restaurant to choose for dinner. And in the end, we went hungry because we never settled on a place. We ended up driving in circles for three hours constantly saying, “Where do you wanna eat?” “I don’t care, where do YOU wanna eat?”

Eventually we returned to her parents’ house and spent the rest of the evening trying not to exhibit symptoms of dangerously low blood-sugar.

As it happened, our date night got worse. Because the movie we rented turned out to be the foulest, most inappropriate skin-flick Hollywood ever released. It was so bad we could not watch it.

Five minutes into the film…

First off, I’m thankful for long drives in the country.

If there is anything better than a leisurely drive through America’s hay bales and cotton rows, I don’t care to know what it is.

When I was a kid, we used to take Sunday drives. Around sunset, we’d all pile into the family Ford and drive. Windows down. Shoes off. Farmland whipping by our windows at 45 mph.

Mama sat up front, reading “Good Housekeeping.” Daddy spit sunflower seeds. “Unchained Melody” played on the radio. My sister and I counted cattle.

Times have changed. Today’s families don’t take many leisurely drives. When they do, the kids are busy checking TikTok while Mama keeps one finger on the wheel and snaps selfies.

I’m also thankful for Smucker's peanut butter, 22-year-old F-150s, Levi’s, Folgers, East Bay oysters, national parks, onion rings and stop signs.

I’m thankful for babies, who erase sadness from our world. For clean public bathrooms. I’m even thankful for fools. Without them, the rest of us would never succeed.

I’m particularly thankful for old churches. I love old

churches with old preachers and elderly congregations.

If you’ve ever felt like the world is turning to rotgut; if you’ve ever lost faith in your fellow human, go visit an old church. It will change your mind.

I’m thankful for animal rescues. Approximately 4.1 million dogs and cats are rescued each year in the U.S. And each year, approximately 810,000 strays who enter American shelters are reunited with their owners. Say what you will about this nation, but we rescue more animals than Europe, Asia, or any other continent.

I’m grateful for Pepé the horse. Pepé’s previous owner beat him and dragged him behind a vehicle for several miles. He is missing part of his face, and he’s mostly blind. He was rescued by a 26-year-old woman who adopted him, who sleeps beside his stall each night, lying in a cot,…

I am not sure whether you understand English, but I’d like to think you do.

I’d like to think that you know exactly what I’m saying to you. I’d like to think I speak fluent dog.

Heaven knows, I speak to you non-stop. Because you’re blind. Because you need me to keep talking. When I talk to you, you don’t feel so disconnected. That way you’re always part of what’s going on.

So I’ve been talking a lot since I brought you home. I say anything and everything to you, so you feel involved.

I tell you when I’m going to the bathroom. When I read a book, I read aloud. When we go for walks, I describe what I’m seeing. I talk to you about the green crabgrass, the particular shade of blue in the sky.

Yeah, I know it’s silly. You probably can’t understand me. Although sometimes I’m not sure.

Sometimes I think you actually know what I’m saying. Because there are occasions when I tell you how much I love you. And when you hear this, you sort of

lean into me like you know precisely what “I love you” means.

Other times, when I tell you “It’s going to be okay,” after something frightens you, you tuck your head into my chest because I think that, on some level, you know. You know what I mean.

I can only imagine how scared you get when a loud sound occurs nearby. I can only guess at how disoriented you feel when you stumble off the curb.

I owe you an apology. I’m sorry. I don’t know how to teach a blind dog. I am learning as I go. I have so much more to learn. I’m reading books. I’m watching videos. I’m trying. I promise you, I am. But I am an inadequate trainer.

Any troublesome issues lie within me, not you. You’re doing perfectly. You have…

I don’t engage in controversy. But sometimes I have to. And this is one of those have-to moments.

Namely, because I feel it’s my duty as a citizen of this country to bring important matters to the forefront of a national discussion. And by “important matters,” I am, of course, talking about putting sugar in cornbread.

The other day I was reading one of my mother’s favorite magazines. This magazine is a respected publication. A standard in homes across the southeast.

I speak of a magazine which my mother reveres. She used to read this magazine aloud at Bible studies, baby christenings and baptisms. A periodical which shall remain nameless, but whose title rhymes with “Louthern Siving.”

The article stated, quote, “...The cornbread we consider our best, includes fine yellow cornmeal, butter, and a touch of sugar.”

I read this recipe aloud to my mother. My mother nearly choked on her dentures.

“Sugar in cornbread?” she gasped. “What’s this world coming to?”

Mama had to be calmed with cream cheese and pepper jelly.

Listen. I don’t like to

cause problems, and these are only my opinions, but putting sugar in cornbread is a lot like going to church naked. Sure, it can be done. But don’t expect anyone to ask you over for dinner.

Cornbread is a sacrament to my people, often served with fried chicken, pintos, collards, hocks and greens, or stew. It is a savory dish. It’s not supposed to taste like purple Skittles.

If the good Lord had intended for humankind to eat sweet cornbread, he would have given us all insulin pumps.

And yet this problem persists in America.

Only a few days ago, I visited a restaurant in Franklin, Tennessee. It was one of those fancy joints where waiters and waitresses walk like they’re in need of fiber supplementation. The waitress brought me a hot basket of sweet cornbread.

“Excuse me, ma’am,” I said to…

The man had a dream. In this dream, he died. It happened so quickly he almost didn’t know life was over. One minute he was alive; the next, poof, he was organic fertilizer.

He went to Beulah Land. And it was the whole heavenly enchilada. Everything you’d expect. Mother-of-pearl gates. Twenty-four-carat streets. Greenery everywhere. Like the opening scenes of “The Sound of Music” minus the twirling nun.

The first to approach him was an old man. “We’ve been expecting you,” said the oldster. “There are a lot of excited souls waiting for you.”

“There are?”

“Oh, yes.”

The gates opened. The first soul to come barreling out of the gate was four-legged. Blonde. Slender. Like a pixie. She was the man’s first dog, a long time ago.

“Goldy!” the man shouted. And he was 10 years old again.

This was the dog that raised him. He got her when he was a boy. He picked her out of a cardboard box. She peed on him. She chewed everything he owned.

She was his best friend. Not metaphorically.

Goldy was

with him during the suicide of his father. She was with him through the growing pains of adolescence. Through voice changes. Bad grades. Middle-school crushes.

She was with him until her little body gave out. The boy buried her beneath a cedar tree. He didn’t eat for three days.

Next out of the gate came a chocolate Lab. She was sprinting toward him. Tongue flapping in the wind.

Cody. She had originally been his father’s dog. But after his father’s untimely death, the boy inherited this dog. That’s just how it works.

She was a tender animal. A country dog. And a survivor. She survived copperhead bites, arsenic poisonings from cattle farmers, near drownings, and the one time the boy’s little sister made the poor dog wear a tutu.

But no dog can survive old age. Every dog must fall. Every…

It was late. Her name was Lacy. She jumped out of her car and walked into work, wearing her food-service uniform. Visor on her head. Tired eyes. Slumped posture.

Lacy had been working herself silly to support her two children. This was her second job.

A man approached her. He pretended to ask for directions. He was carrying a knife. A big one. The kind of blade you’d used to clean a boar hog. He backed her against a wall. He told Lacy to get on the ground.

Then, another man appeared. He was wearing a plain T-shirt. Jeans. And he was barefoot. Also, he was roughly nine feet tall. At least that’s how Lacy remembers it from her position, lying on the ground.

The man with the knife took one look at Barefoot Guy and sprinted for parts unknown.

Lacy was going to thank her rescuer, but by the time she got to her feet, he was gone. Nobody nearby recalled seeing a barefoot man.

“I know what I saw,” Lacy says. “I ain’t

crazy.”

A truck driver. The rural parts. He was driving a backroad. It was late. There were no other vehicles in sight. The roads were poorly marked. He was lost.

It gets dark in the country. City mice aren’t ready for the kind of blackness found out in the sticks. He drove through the inky dark, hoping to get a sense of where he was. Hoping to figure out how to get back to civilization. But he only grew more lost.

Then. He saw a figure on the side of the road. Flagging him down.

It was a boy. He was maybe 19. The kid looked like he was hitchhiking. Except he wasn’t. The young guy refused to get in the truck. The young man instead told the trucker he had been sent to deliver a message.

“A message?” the trucker asked.

“The road’s washed…

“I’ve never met a blind dog before,” said the little boy.

He was a foster child, his foster mother was with him. We were all introduced by chance in a public park.

The boy watched my dog, Marigold, walking along, bumping into a nearby fence. We were out for a potty-break. Marigold was trying to find a suitable patch of grass to do what I call, “leaving constructive criticism.”

The boy watched us in rapt wonder. We are a team. Dog and man. Marigold and me.

I am Marigold’s “Seeing Eye” human. My job is to guide her through this world of woe. I have no idea what I’m doing, but I’m trying.

And at this particular moment, I was following Marigold closely with a plastic baggy over my hand, ready to do my duty.

“Why is she blind?” the boy asked.

I chose my words carefully. Because how do you tell an innocent foster child that somebody took a blunt object to this puppy’s head and destroyed her eyes?

How do you tell a child there are humans out there who would use

a length of rebar as a weapon against a soft, floppy-eared puppy?

“Someone hurt her,” I said.

“Why?”

“Not everyone’s a nice person.”

The boy’s eyes grew serious. “Yeah. I know.”

He looked at Marigold prancing along and said nothing. He just observed.

The kid was maybe 6. He wore Levi’s and a striped shirt that showed his little belly. His hair was strawberry. Opie Taylor eat your heart out.

His foster mother said he’s had a rough life. And that is all I’m permitted to tell you about him.

He watched Marigold with great interest. Marigold walks with a cautious gait. Sometimes she high-steps like she’s hiking through tall grass. She does this so she won’t stumble on any sudden obstacles.

We’ve been working on things, every day. When we go for walks, off-leash, I…

DEAR SEAN:

I have been asked to write a column for my hometown newspaper. Nobody knows about the paper, but it’s big where I live. I’m scared. Scared I’m not good enough or that people won’t like what I write. Can you give me some advice?

Best wishes,
AFRAID-I’M-NOT-GOOD

DEAR AFRAID:

Writing a column is a lot like passing a kidney stone. It’s uncomfortable, sure. But when you’re finished, you’ll have a neat souvenir to share with your family.

When I first started writing columns, I was on the wrong side of age 30. I had no training. No experience. No pedigree. All I had were buck teeth and a bad back.

I waltzed into a small-town newspaper office and brazenly asked if I could work there. The woman behind the editor’s desk looked at me like I was three peas short of a casserole.

She asked about my qualifications.

I told her I had no qualifications except that I was currently attending a community college. Also, for breakfast I’d had a V8.

To my surprise, she gave

me a job. I was shocked. Shocked.

Then, the editor went on to say there was a $50 signing bonus for new employees. So I reached into my pocket, got out my checkbook and said, “Who do I make the check out to?”

“No, silly,” she said. “The $50 bonus is for you. It’s for expenses.”

Well, I took that money and applied it toward my celebration expenses. I celebrated by filling my truck with gas, and buying a gas-station eggroll that, to this day, remains obstructed in my gastrointestinal tract somewhere.

But my life was forever changed by this simple job of producing columns. I love what I do.

Since then, I’ve written columns for many newspapers, Rotary Club pamphlets, Girl Scout troop newsletters, church bulletins, nursing home mailouts, and Civic League email prayer lists. And in my brief career,…

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

There is 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, “Daddy! Daddy! Daddy! Daddy!”

“That’s all my kids know how to say,” says one of my exasperated friends. “‘Daddy, Daddy.’ Like a warped record.”

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 young parents seem to have more responsibility than the rest of us civilians. In fact, they’re so responsible that they can’t even focus on a conversation for more than one-point-nine seconds.

They are always too busy looking from the corners of their eyes, waiting for an impending catastrophe caused by 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..”

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 LITTLE…!”

My friend Nathan tells me about being a dad:

“The thing about kids is, they say ‘Daddy’ about fifteen hundred times per day. It’s enough to make you nuts. You get so sick of hearing that word. ‘Daddy, daddy.’”

“Yeah,” another friend says. “For once, I wish my kids would just let me pee without having nervous breakdowns outside the door.”

Meantime, my friends’ wives sit at the other side of the table, rocking babies, talking.…