DEAR SEAN:

Will you write about your dogs or some kind of animal for my daughter? My daughter loves animals and she’s going through a really hard time, not just with all the coronavirus stuff, but recently her dad (we’re divorced) moved away and remarried someone who has three little girls. It’s been really hard on my daughter. Her little heart is broken.

Thanks,
HEARTBROKEN-IN-ST.-LOUIS

DEAR ST. LOUIS:

Meet Lula Bell. To the rest of the world, she’s just a feral cat. But she and I are deeply in love.

My wife and I named her. And to be honest, we probably shouldn’t be allowed to name cats because we like double names too much.

My friend from New Jersey recently informed me that double names are considered “country.”

I take offense to this. People in my family have a long history of double names. I have uncles and cousins named Ray Ray, Tommy Lee, Amy Jo, Willy Sue, and of course José Jesús Luís Ramirez who married into the family.

My mother was even going to name

me John John since my father’s name was John. I am glad this never happened.

But getting back to Lula Bell. Not only was she was feral, she also had a broken leg. It was bad, too. It looked like it had been mangled in a dogfight or a car accident. It was covered in scars.

The vet looked at the chewed up limb and said Lula would be messed up for life. There was nothing we could do. She might even die.

That’s probably why the poor girl was skittish. Pain will do that to a creature. Lula Bell wouldn’t let anyone come within fifty feet of her. Not even if you were offering her fresh trout. I actually tried this once.

Lula simply wanted you to set the food down, then back the heck off, punk.

Often I would…

A little breakfast joint. The waitress is wearing a mask. I wear a mask. The few customers are wearing masks. All God’s children got masks.

Waylon Jennings is singing on an unseen radio. The whole place smells like bacon and lemon-scented Lysol.

A construction worker beside me is sipping from a mug. He is not wearing his mask per se, it sits atop his head while he drinks coffee. It looks almost like he is wearing a little sunbonnet.

“More coffee?” says the waitress. Her own mask impedes her speech, so it sounds like she’s saying, “Mmm kpfff?”

The waitress is wearing rubber gloves. After she touches his cup for the refill she removes her gloves, throws them into the garbage, and gets a fresh pair.

“Thanks,” he says.

“You’re welcome, darlin’.” she says.

A little boy sits at the counter a few seats from me. His mask has licensed cartoon characters on it. He lifts the mask before each bite, then pulls it back over his face to chew.

“Take your mask off to eat, honey,” says his

mother.

“But,” says the little kid, “I like wearing it.”

This is a very different world than I’m used to.

The bell on the door dings. Three workmen come walking into the joint. They are not wearing masks. They are wearing work clothes, ball caps, and they are covered in sweat.

“Masks,” the waitress says to them. At least, I think she’s the one doing the talking. I can’t see her mouth moving.

The men dig surgical masks out of their pockets, wrap them over their faces, and apologize. They all sit in a booth with Sunbonnet Guy, who is apparently their pal. They browse the menus.

After a few minutes, one of the men starts talking about his daughter. It’s a brief conversation, but from what I gather, his daughter has just been released from the hospital. She’s had some…

I was a kid when I saw Charlie Daniels play. At least I think it was him. I could be mistaken. I remember sitting in the cheap seats of the dim Nashville auditorium to see the Grand Ole Opry.

My father was whistling, two-fingered. That’s the funny thing about the Opry. Even though it was a place for seeing a show, it wasn’t a place where people were quiet.

No sir. An Opry man didn’t merely applaud the Statler Brothers, Grandpa Jones, or the immortal Sarah Cannon. This was a place where a man put both fingers into his own mouth and whistled like he was calling horses.

That night my father was eating something. Peanuts I think. But he still managed to whistle between every song, and after every joke. Fingers in the mouth.

The irony is that he was a bad whistler. Some whistlers could shatter glass, but my father sounded like an asthmatic jug player.

That night, I was so enamored with the guy playing a fiddle onstage that I

tried a two-finger whistle, just to show my support. I managed to spray spit all over the lady in front of me.

She gave me a dirty look and I apologized, but she was not buying it.

The guy with the violin was large. Big brown beard. Sunglasses. He looked like a Pentecostal deacon wearing a silverbelly cattleman’s hat, and a belt buckle bigger than a hub from a Studebaker.

Looking back, I hope it was Charlie Daniels because Charlie played a tune that became an American fixture in those days. It was a song that everyone’s daddy listened to while changing the oil or fixing the bathroom sink.

I am of course talking about a song that involves the Devil going down to Georgia, looking for a soul to steal.

It was a country song that my Bible-slapping mother hated so much that she would have…

The thing about adventures is that you don’t know when you’re having them. They happen quickly. And if you’re not paying attention, you’ll miss them.

I’m not talking about huge adventures. Obviously, if you’re zip-lining across the rainforests of Belize, you’re having quite a day. No, I’m talking about the little life-events that we somehow didn’t notice until quarantines, social distancing, and face masks came along.

Like the adventure of:

Trying New Restaurants. What a great adventure, walking into a hole-in-the-wall joint and wondering: “Will this food have tentacles, or will it be delicious?” That is an adventure.

Specifically, I am thinking about the time my wife and I stopped at a barbecue joint in middle Texas and the waitress said that “turkey fries” was the special. I was thinking, “Why not?” I love fried food.

I cleaned my plate. People in the cafe were elbowing their neighbors and pointing at the redheaded Floridian. A few truckers made the Sign of the Cross.

That was a great day. Remember adventures like that? Oh, we used to have tons of

them. We never even knew they were happening.

There was the adventure of meeting friends for supper. The adventure of your cousin’s godawful piano recital. The adventure of the DMV. You never knew if you were going to get Cheerful DMV Lady, or DMV Lady From Hell.

There were the adventures found in little storefronts. Places where you’d buy something small, like a book, a knick-knack, or surgically sharp Japanese cutlery.

Or the olive store. Yes. That’s right. Last year, I found a store that specialized in hard-to-find olives. I didn’t even know such things existed. A Greek lady let me sample hundreds of olives until my mouth was stinging.

I was buying olives like a stockbroker hyped up on Mountain Dew. “I’ll have fifty pounds of Manzanillas and Seveillianas,” I’d say. “And gimme a pound of Arbequinas.”

My bill was…

9:02 pm—My wife and I parked beside the bay, facing the water, to watch the fireworks. I hear the distant sound of children laughing in the night. The popping of far-off bottle rockets.

It’s July Fourth and it’s been a weird day. I can’t pinpoint why. Maybe it’s because it’s been overcast. Maybe because we’ve been quarantining for a 42,382 days. Maybe because this year’s holiday has about as eventful as watching the Lawrence Welk Orchestra play “Beer Barrel Polka.”

Which is exactly what I did this afternoon. A cable channel was playing “Lawrence Welk Show” reruns. I watched about four male singers in sparkly ascots sing “Red Sails in the Sunset” while Myron Floren showed the world how the accordion should be handled.

And now I am here to watch the fireworks before going home to remove my teeth and go to bed.

There are a few other cars here tonight. Maybe four. In the vehicle beside ours are young kids. Their car windows are down, they eat red-white-and-blue popsicles.

They say little-kid things like, “COOL!” And: “COOLCOOLCOOL!”

I

believe this is the only word they know.

“Hey! Look!” one kid shouts to the other, pointing at any object ranging from a booger to a live water buffalo.

The other kid will say, “COOL!”

Their mother is young. Wiry. She sits upon the hood of her car—a mid-90s Nissan. When she arrived earlier, her vehicle made a loud noise. CLACK! CLACK! CLACK!

Her Nissan needs a new CV axle. I know this because I once had a ‘98 Altima with the same problem. You could hear me coming from a mile away.

The woman looks tired. She’s kept the same cigarette going for the last thirty minutes while playing on her phone.

“MOM! Can we have another popsicle?”

“As long as you share!” says Mom.

“COOL!”

I get the feeling that this woman is so tired that she wouldn’t…

It’s for the kids, really. Carol does it all for the kids. The American-flag decorations, the cookouts, the fireworks, and the patriotic bunting in the backyard. It’s all for them.

It’s going to be an interesting holiday. Normally, Carol’s family throws a shindig for the Fourth. But not this year.

Carol comes from a German family. Her great-grandparents came to the U.S. by boat. So all the ancient ways go unremembered. Carol’s grandkids, for instance, actually eat ketchup on their hotdogs.

My grandfather would roll in his grave.

The Fourth has always been the holiday when Carol’s family would visit. A big reunion. They would tell their children about the old days, and about baling hay on a Georgia farmstead. Kids love these stories.

But today there will be only three people at Carol’s house. One husband. An adult daughter. One grandchild.

There are summer disappointments like this happening all over the nation. Coronavirus is spreading faster than pee in a public pool, and everyone’s Fourth is affected.

In Ohio, Upper Arlington’s parade is marching a longer route so people can space themselves

several miles apart. Let us pray for the tuba players.

In Texas, Willie Nelson will throw his annual picnic concert—sort of. It will be a digitized virtual concert.

In Albuquerque, fireworks will be launched from four spots throughout the city so people can watch from the safety of porches.

And Carol’s family of four will eat hotdogs and potato salad in their backyard.

“The fireworks,” says Carol. “That’s all my grandkids are worried about. This virus doesn’t scare them, these kids want fireworks.”

Who doesn’t?

There will be a display downtown that people can watch from their cars. Carol will take the grandkids. They will eat ice cream in the front seat and watch the sky light up like… Well. The Fourth of July.

It’s a strange time to be alive. From Maine to California beaches are…

Yesterday I met an elderly man in the supermarket parking lot. He was loading his car, I was loading mine. He wore a surgical mask. So did I.

Beneath his mask all I could see were his bushy, white eyebrows, with stray hairs that grew 8 feet long and curled sideways like little corkscrews from hell.

Do me a favor. When I get old, if my eyebrows look like this, tie me down and take the horse clippers to me.

Anyway, my new elderly friend was very nice. He was telling me about his childhood during the 1940s. The Great Depression had just ended in the U.S. But not entirely. You don’t just snap your fingers and say, “Depression’s over!”

His family lived in mountains of North Alabama. They were poor. They used outhouses. He and his brother hauled drinking water from the creek because they couldn’ t pay their water bill. And life kept getting worse.

His mother got sick. His baby brother died. His father left for California to find work and never

came back. These were not hard times. These were horrible times.

“Listen,” the old man said, “after growing up the way I did, I figured out the trick to finding happiness. Care to guess what it is?”

No. I didn’t. Because my carton of ice cream was about to melt.

He went on, “The only way to be happy is to be unhappy.”

I had to rub my chin for a second before making a profound and thoughtful remark: “Do what?”

The old man told me that the Great Depression made him a happy man. Not at first. But when it was over, it was pure euphoria. Good jobs were suddenly available, money was better, the War had finally ended. Everyone kissed the ground and thanked the sky.

“You can’t appreciate spaghetti and meatballs until you’ve had to live on ketchup soup,” he said.

I…

COLUMBUS—I must be crazy. I am riding a bike through this Georgia town, following my wife, who is riding her bicycle with no hands.

The weather is perfect today. Birds litter the live oaks that line the cobblestone streets. The Chattahoochee River is roaring in the distance. And my wife has lost her mind.

We came to Columbus to buy two second-hand bikes that my wife found in the classified ads. They are nice bikes. The thing is, I don’t even know if I remember how to ride a bike.

I gave up riding bikes in the sixth grade. I remember the day clearly.

Robert Danielson dared me to ride no-handed. I did it for five seconds. Then I fell onto the pavement face first. My mother said it was the most expensive dental bill she ever saw.

“Slow down!” I shout to my wife.

“WHEEEEEEE!” my wife says. Then my wife removes her hands from the handlebars again.

“Stop that!”

But she can’t hear me. She is carefree, pedalling, punching the air, singing the theme

song from the movie “Rocky.”

I should not be here. I am not a fan of the bicycle. If God had wanted man to ride bikes he wouldn’t have made biking shorts look so dumb.

Still, I am a big fan of the classified ads. You can buy a lot of nice things in the classified section. And in my family, we bought used things from the newspaper all the time. Most everything we ever owned was fourth-hand stuff.

I was brought up by a man who read the classifieds like some men follow the stock market. My cradle was lined with the “Thrifty Nickel” newspapers.

My father was always looking for a deal. He believed that the newspaper was the best place to buy cars, lawnmowers, radial saws, Christmas decor, wedding anniversary gifts, etc.

The thing is, buying used stuff always requires something…

I got a letter from a man named Mark. Mark is 78 and lives alone with his Chihuahua, Boo Boo, who has a very active bladder.

“I’m always taking Boo Boo outside,” says Mark. “Even at three in the morning, I don’t want him going on my rug.”

Mark has been stuck indoors since the COVID-19 outbreak. His life is a good one.

He gets his groceries delivered. He has a guy cut the lawn once per week. But he feels pretty depressed lately, being stuck in his den. He was so sad that he wrote to me.

Here’s what’s on his mind:

“When I was young,” says Mark, “I always wanted to see Europe, with a backpack, and just live my life, but I never did it, I guess it’s too late now. Isn’t that silly?”

Silly? No. In fact, I got to thinking about all the bucket-list things that I have wanted to do but probably never will. Such as rope a steer, win the lottery, or figure out how to make beer.

Also,

I have always wanted to hang glide. One time, I actually got a chance to hang glide with a professional. He gave me a call one morning and asked if I wanted to come. Free of charge. I told him I was busy.

I realized a valuable lesson that day; I do not want to leap off a cliff.

Although I did go bungee jumping once. I do not recommend it. The reason this happened was: My wife called me a wuss in public.

My wife was only taunting me. I am a cautious guy who has a hard time paying a hundred bucks at an amusement park to throw himself off a building. Which is basically what bungee jumping is.

“I am not a wuss,” I insisted.

“Are too,” she said.

The next thing I knew, a few teenage experts were leading me…

I walk a lot. When my neighbors see me on the road they recognize me and my dog. I’m a hard guy to miss. I’ve been trotting these roads for a few decades. People usually honk, or wave, or hurl steel objects out the windows.

I have been walking a lot in the past four months of quarantines since there isn’t much else to do besides eat.

My favorite time of day for walking has always been night. You sweat less. You can think more clearly. And you have no idea how immense the night sky is until you try to take the whole thing in at once.

I started this walking business after my father died. I was a chubby boy, and I was only getting chubbier. Lots of people feed you when someone in your family dies. And they just never quit. You can gain a lot of weight going to funerals.

Pretty soon I was eating homemade biscuits like they were gummy bears. And don’t get me started

on Mounds. Sweet God. There are support groups for people who like Mounds the way I did.

Above all, I was a big fan of cheese. Cheese is a lot more magical than some give it credit. There are thousands of different kinds, not just the varieties you see in the supermarket. People in European countries, for instance, name their children after cheese. Lutherans in Wisconsin, I understand, actually thank God for cheese as part of the Lord’s Prayer.

Anyway, when I was a boy, the longest duration I had ever walked was nine minutes. I know this because right before my father died I was in P.E. class and the teacher told us to walk around the gymnasium so he could time us.

I don’t know why he had us do this. Physical education class was supposed to be about dodgeball, climbing ropes, and snapping towels in the…