I was on my way home. I was taking the scenic route from Alabama to Florida because I love backroads. I can’t stand interstates. Interstates scare me.

I’ve been in an interstate accident exactly once. My truck looked like a smashed Weltmeister accordion when it was over. I never felt the same ease on major highways after that.

Besides, there’s something lyrical about old faded roads that lead you home. People write songs about these ancient roads.

I doubt whether anyone writes songs about Interstate 65.

It was on one such rundown highway a few days ago that my phone rang. It was the voice of a kid.

“Hello?” said the voice. “Is this Sean?”

I was taken off guard. I get a lot of solicitor calls, but never from kids. “Yes, this is him.”

“Your wife gave me your number, is this a bad time?”

“Uh—no. Wait, my WIFE gave you this number?” She hadn’t told me anything about this.

“Yessir, Mister Dietrich.”

“Oh, no. Please don’t call me Mister Dietrich. Mister Dietrich died about 30 years ago. Call me Sean.”

Our conversation

went from there. It wasn’t awkward. In fact, it was nice. He was a boy who had read one of my columns and wanted to call and meet me.

At first I was confused, but then I kind of got into the spirit of our conversation. We became fast buddies, and covered all topics.

“What’s your favorite movie?” the kid asked.

“Toss up between ‘Lonesome Dove,’ ‘Music Man,’ or anything with Abbott and Costello.”

“I like Dumbo.”

“Dumbo is a good movie.”

“I like how he can fly.”

“Well said.”

And this is pretty much how the discussion went. There was no objective to it. No real point. Truthfully, I had no idea what was going on, neither could I understand why my wife would give my number to strangers.

Even so, I like kids. Always…

The old timers in my childhood often used a word I never understood. The word was “Providence.” My people could not articulate the meaning of this particular word because it had more than two syllables.

Also, it really is a difficult word to define. Even now, when researching this column I couldn’t find a concrete definition of Providence. One dictionary said one thing, another website called the word “archaic.” Today the term is so outdated that if you’re a younger person reading this I’ve probably already lost you.

So I’ll explain it’s meaning by telling you how the word was invoked by the rural people of my youth.

Okay. Let’s say there was no rain, the world was crackling and dry, and no farmers were making money from crops. It wasn’t “bad luck.” It was all part of heavenly Providence.

And when the rain finally began to fall; also Providence.

When two people fell in love? Providence.

If someone got cancer and died, people prayed for the family to receive solace in Providence.

Job promotion? Providence.

Finding

$20 in your coat pocket? Major Providence.

My people, you see, did not believe in good luck, coincidences, or even flashy miracles. It was all Providence.

To them life was like a trapeze act. Mankind was always swinging recklessly from trapezes, back and forth. Sometimes man fell, sometimes he didn’t. Either way, there was a divine reason for everything, good and bad. You weren’t supposed to know the reason. That’s Providence.

Thus we did not believe in accidents, happenstances, mistakes, flub-ups, or oversights. Neither did you merely “bump into a neighbor” at the supermarket. It was all meant to be. Mapped out ahead of time. Heaven was not an indifferent observer, but an active participant in your life. Providence.

The reason I bring this up is because I received a letter from a young woman who I will call Rebecca. She is undergoing…

I am thirty minutes outside Birmingham. In the rural hinterlands. It’s a gray day. The sky is aluminum-colored and dismal. I don’t like gray days. They really depress me. To make matters worse, this is a pandemic.

Sometimes I wake up and wonder if this pandemic has all been some sort of elaborate nightmare; maybe one morning I’ll wake up and the world will have gone back to rock concerts and handshakes. But that didn’t happen today.

What I need right now is breakfast. I’ve been on the road a few days. I need carbs. I need cholesterol.

I pull over at an old joint. It’s the kind of rundown eatery with old music playing overhead and waitresses who can balance 38 plates on one arm and a carry bottle of ketchup in their teeth.

The place is socially distanced, masks are worn by servers. This new world feels foreign to me sometimes. I don’t know if I’ll ever get used to it.

My waitress arrives holding a notepad, wearing an N95 respirator. She is cheerful,

and dressed in what appear to be high-school colors. She asks what I want to eat. I go with bacon, eggs, coffee.

The coffee looks like tar and it’s strong enough to resurrect a cadaver. Which is good, I need an energy boost today because gray days sap my enthusiasm. They make me exhausted.

So I’m sipping this caffeinated sludge and wincing, since this beverage has roughly the same pH value as hydrochloric acid. That’s when I notice the people at the table a few spaces away from me.

There is a boy. I’m guessing he’s 6 or 7 years old. He is blind, or perhaps visually impaired. The kid sits beside his mother in a booth, his eyes are open, he is staring blankly ahead.

When the family’s food arrives, his mother ignores her own plate of food and begins feeding the boy.

I am in traffic, riding through Birmingham, listening to an oldies AM radio station. Extreme oldies. The music coming through my speakers takes me to an antique world of hi-fis, beehive hairdos, and weird congealed salads.

The radio DJ says, “...And that was a song from Benny Goodman, now let’s hear one from the Les Baxter Orchestra...”

I remember my granny listening to Les Baxter albums. One such album was called “The Primitive and the Passionate,” ala 1962. On the cover was a photo of a woman who could’ve passed for Sophia Loren, dancing in a sultry way, beckoning to all who looked upon her. Even little Baptist boys.

I remember the record playing on a turntable. It was lush and tranquilizing. When you hear music like that, you are immediately transported to an earlier time, sitting on a plastic-covered sofa, watching someone’s dad—usually named Gary, Frank, or Dennis—use a cocktail shaker to make a Manhattan.

I remember another Les Baxter record. “Space Escapade” (1958). On the cover was Les Baxter dressed in

a spaceman suit with spacegirls falling all over him. Keep in mind, Les Baxter looked a lot like your grandfather’s dentist.

But the record was great. An hour’s worth of exotic orchestral music that sounds exactly like being trapped in a department store with your mother while she’s trying on dresses.

“Attention shoppers,” the department store intercom says. “Special on aisle twelve, make your own julienne fries with the new Fry-O-Matic! Fourteen ninety-nine with rebate. Also, ask your sales associate about our sale on boy’s athletic supporters.”

The radio station is now playing selections from the country music vein. Conway Twitty. Hank Snow. Followed by Buck Owens, singing “Together Again.” I turn it up.

If I close my eyes, I’m sitting in front of a Zenith console TV with my father. On the screen: Roy Clark and Buck Owens are surrounded by their “Hee Haw” gals in…

I am driving Alabama backroads. I am in search of barbecue. I always brake for barbecue.

I am searching the same way Ponce de León once hunted for the fountain of youth. The same way Hernando de Soto once looked for a mythical city of gold. The same way a guy with a dead phone battery looks for his charger.

Whenever I’m on an Alabamian road, I’m always on the lookout for barbecue. It’s my unspoken tradition. Old highways and pulled pork simply go together like French fries and ketchup. Like Peanut butter and blackberry jam. Like two familiar feelings.

In fact if you were to ask me to list the happiest feelings in the entire universe, barbecue would be up there. I can think of few things that rival the smell of distant pecan smoke, wafting through the air and bathing your awareness in the sacred smells of saturated fat.

The scent affects me the same way receiving a phone call from an old friend does. Or a postcard in the mail. Or a

hug from a child, which is something else I miss in this pandemic era. Hugs.

Remember hugs? Before coronavirus, my favorite part about going to church was when service was over, when the preacher finally quit talking and people were allowed to socialize in the aisles. Because this was the moment when you hugged people. In the parking lot, kids would come running, and throw their arms around you like you were long lost pals.

And I would usually say something like, “Do you know that I was just thinking about you?”

“You WERE?”

“Yep, and I was wondering if you liked caramel candy. But, never mind, you probably don’t.”

“YES I DO!”

“No. Caramel is too grown up for you.”

“NUH-UH! I LOVE CARAMEL!”

Then I would give them a piece of wrapped caramel candy. And I would get 29 hugs in return. The…

It’s Girl Scout-cookie season again, which traditionally begins right after deer season, and is followed by Lent.

This is the time of year when words like “Samoas,” “Shortbread Trefoils,” “Do-si-dos,” and “Tagalongs” become household names. A season when many of us transition to wearing sweatpants full-time because we love cookies.

I miss seeing Girl Scouts selling cookies in neighborhoods and supermarkets. A pandemic put a stop to these things, and it’s a shame because I always purchase mass amounts.

Some years ago, two Girl Scout Daisies (kindergarten-age recruits) visited my porch selling cookies. If you’ve never met a Daisy, make it your objective to do so. You will die from cuteness overload.

I told the Daisies that I wanted to buy 100 boxes. I was joking, of course, but they didn’t realize this.

One of the girls had to be revived with cold water. Her friend shouted, “Ohmygosh! Mom! A hundred boxes!”

Whereupon the girl’s mother (this is true) said: “That means we win a pink Cadillac!”

The reason I regularly order cookies is not only

because they’re delicious, but because I believe in these girls. I believe in their values. I believe in their organization. I believe in refined sugar.

My grandmother was a Girl Scout in the early 1920s. My mother was a Girl Scout. My wife was a Girl Scout Brownie—which is the same as a regular Scout, except they don’t file income taxes.

The Girl Scouts represent one of the finest institutions this country has ever produced, and that’s not an opinion. Take, for example, troop leader Miss Emma Hall.

In 1913, during an era of flagrant racism, Miss Emma’s “Red Rose Troop,” in New Bedford, Massachusetts, was welcoming African-American Girl Scouts into its group. And keep in mind, this was happening seven years before American women had the right to vote; and 50 years before public schools would be integrated.

I’m telling you, these girls…

DEAR SEAN:

I have had no energy since the pandemic quarantines started. I might even lose my job over this lack of motivation, but I can’t seem to do anything.

Help,
UNMOTIVATED-IN-ATLANTA

DEAR ATLANTA:

Motivation. What is motivation? Where did it come from? Where did it go? When will it come back? Why am I still wearing the same pajamas I was wearing in March of 2020? Why am I beginning a paragraph with rhetorical questions?

Because. I have no motivation.

If you don’t have any motivation either, welcome to the club. There is a logical reason for why we’re feeling like such losers. And here it is: These are sucky times.

I know of no other way to put it. This is not a normal era, so expecting to feel normal and “productive” is like expecting to spontaneously turn into a turtle. It’s not going to happen.

This pandemic era is like one giant funeral. If you have ever experienced the death of a loved one, you already know what I mean.

A funeral will sap your energy

and leave you totally exhausted. And it doesn’t end after the funeral ceremony. Once the funeral ends, friends will incessantly call to check on you, but you’ll have no enthusiasm to speak to them, so you’ll blow them off because conversations take energy.

Eventually, friends quit calling because you never answer your phone. So you end up isolated. Which means that now you’re REALLY lost. The further you sink, the faster your motivation disappears. Sound familiar?

Here’s the thing. What I just described isn’t called motivation loss. This is classic grief.

Which is exactly what you’re experiencing right now, “collective grief.” And before you tell me I’m an idiot for using this phrase, I didn’t make up that term. Mental health experts did.

We are grieving the loss of a world we grew up in. And we’ve lost a lot.…

My elderly mother-in-law is doing chair yoga while simultaneously slurping a giant milkshake. She moves her upper body, holding senior-citizen-friendly poses, pausing between positions to take noisy slurps from a five-gallon cup.

If I’m being honest, this is highly entertaining. Because every time the TV instructor says, “Now point your jaw to the sky, stretch your neck, release all toxic energy, visualize stress leaving your body, your body is a temple that...” he is interrupted.

SLUUUUURRRRRP! goes Mother Mary with her vanilla milkshake.

Then she resumes her yogic sun salutation.

Milkshakes are a vital piece of Mary’s diet right now because she’s been losing a lot of weight lately. Nobody really knows why she’s been dropping pounds. All anyone knows is that one day her weight was normal; and the next day she was slight.

So Mary’s nurses and caregivers devised a way to get extra calories into her body. They started spiking her milkshakes with Ensure packets, vitamins, and other essential nutrients which have transformed each shake into a glorified bucket of Quikrete.

Mother Mary’s arms

look much smaller than I’ve ever seen them. So do her legs. Her body is leaner than it was a few months ago. And she’s in pain. Sometimes Mary’s caregivers roll her wheelchair around in the house and I can hear Mary moan because her knees are killing her. It’s even worse when they bathe her.

But otherwise, she is the same Mary. Her dry, almost imperceptible sense of humor is still intact. She can still remain quiet for long periods before unleashing a subtle zinger that will fly over the heads of her unsuspecting victims. Such as:

“This bourbon and Coke tastes all wrong. I don’t want to taste the Coke.”

And: “Oh, doesn’t your new haircut make you look so much better than your last one.”

This kind of humor grows on you. Because you’re never really sure if it is…

I am in an outdoor public place watching several kids play on their smartphones. It is a pandemic era. They wear masks. They haven’t blinked in over an hour. Or moved. Just thumbing away. Zero movement. Someone better get these children some urinary catheters.

This is a hard time in history to be a kid.

I can’t get over how different they are compared to the way we were. When we were kids we were not half as “hip” as today’s children. These kids are smart. They have cutting-edge phones, earbuds, skinny jeans, light-up shoes, and unique body piercings. Compared to these modern children we were complete dorks.

Do you know what my uncool friends did for fun? Our mothers made us pick wild strawberries. That’s right. Strawberries. My mother would detect my boredom and say, “You know what we need? We need fresh strawberries.” And away we’d go.

These hip kids are going to laugh us right into the nursing home one day.

Certainly, video games existed during my youth, but my

people didn’t have them. And don’t get me wrong, I would have killed for a video game. But it was a pipe dream. Back then, if you had a video game console, this meant that you wore silk undies and a man named Wadsworth turned your bed down each night.

The first time I ever saw a video game was at Michael Ray’s house. His father was an importer, his mother was a competitive horse jumper and Junior League vice president.

The game was Pong. It was a blank television screen with a singular dot drifting from left to right between ping-pong paddles. This dot traveled about as fast as it took to complete law school. Every kid within three counties traveled hundreds of miles just to see this dot.

My father forbade me from playing such games. He once told me plainly, “Son, if you play…

A snowscape. The long Minnesota prairies were covered in powdered sugar. A lone dirt highway cut through the cotton-white flatlands, which were featureless except for telephone poles, cattle fences, and an occasional muddy mail truck.

There was a small house seated on this horizon. A one-story, unassuming frame home, with a barn.

Inside this humble three-bedroom lives an elderly widow. She’s lonely. Hopelessly lonely. But then, this is a pandemic. We live in a new world, with new rules. Isolation is the prescribed way of life now, and it comes with consequences. What the virus took from her was her friendships. And her smile.

Not so long ago, she was going to church three times per week, reading Bible stories aloud to kids in Sunday school classrooms, teaching them to sing about Zacchaeus, who was a wee little man (and a wee little man was he).

Today, her church doesn’t hold services, except online. She hasn’t left the house in months. And she certainly hasn’t been singing.

Hard? Yeah, it’s been hard. Hardest

period she’s ever known. As a lifelong farmer’s wife you’d think she was used to solitude. But nobody can truly prepare you for the social desolation following the loss of a spouse.

Neither does anyone forewarn you that loneliness will slow down your biology, or that your brain will begin firing less rapidly. But it’s true. Your body becomes tired, you have no appetite, you lose basic conversational skills, and your sense of self-image disappears. Sleep becomes a myth. So does laughter.

And the pandemic made it worse. No more supermarket runs; her groceries get delivered now. She has the internet, but the screens are making her eyes ache. She has satellite television, but nothing is ever on. She pays for approximately 529 streaming services, but she never watches them and can’t figure out how to cancel subscriptions. No more Sunday school songs. No more smiles.

In…