The letter came from 21-year-old Julia.

“Dear Mister Sean,” it began, “I cannot find a job that fits me…

“I keep trying job after job, and I just want to find my true career path… And be happy. What should I do?”

Well, Julia, I’ve had a lot of jobs. My first real job was hanging drywall, after my father died. I was 14 years old. I was chubby for my age. I learned how to sand drywall joints, how to apply drywall mud, and most importantly, I tasted my first beer.

Mister Rick, my boss, was a cheerful man who looked like Otis Campbell. He gave me my first sip. I was covered in Sheetrock dust and sweat, I looked like Casper the Friendly Ghost.

Mister Rick handed me a can and said, “You earned a sip, son.”

I took three sips. He grabbed the can from my hands and said, “Easy, son. I don’t want you getting drunk.”

“What’s it like being drunk?” I asked.

“See those four trees over there? Well, if you were drunk, there’d be

eight trees.”

“But, Mister Rick,” I said. “There are only two trees.”

I was an ice-cream scoop once. That was a pretty good job. I was allowed to eat all the leftovers.

I gained 19 pounds in six weeks.

Once, I worked food service. I was a line cook. I wasn’t very good at it. I lasted one year. On the day I was fired, the head cook took me aside and said, “You’re an employee with incredible motivational skills, did you know that?”

“I am?”

“Yes. Whenever you’re around, everyone has to work twice as hard.”

I worked as a tile layer. I had a job digging drainage ditches. I hung gutter. I helped my mother clean condos and apartments.

And once, I stooped so low as to work as a telemarketer.

“Hello,” I said into the headset, “would…

Deputy Sheriff Jermyius Young was the first in April. He was laid to rest earlier this month. Killed in a traffic accident. A slender guy. Nice looking. Honest smile.

“I loved this young man because he was true,” said Montgomery County, Alabama, Sheriff Derrick Cunningham.

Jermyius was 21.

The next U.S. law enforcement officer to pass was Andrew John Faught (27). An automobile accident in Illinois.

Then, Chief of Police Steven Allen Singer (48), in Lake Lafayette, Missouri. He died of a heart attack. He was pursuing trespassers. At the end of a long shift, he went home and suffered a fatal heart attack.

Then, Lieutenant Rodney Osborne (43). He was shot during a training exercise at the tactical firing range at the Correctional Training Academy in Pickaway County, Ohio.

“One of the best men you could ever ask for,” said a family member.

Special Agent Derek Sean Baer (49) was killed in a head-on vehicle crash in Ranson, West Virginia. He served with the United States Postal Service

Office of Inspector General for 19 years. He is survived by his wife and three children.

And then there was Police officer Ross Bartlett (54). He was conducting a traffic stop in Ceresco, Nebraska. Parked on the shoulder. His patrol unit was struck from behind by a Ford F-150.

There was 26-year-old Police Officer Joseph McKinney. Memphis, Tennessee. He leaves behind a wife and daughter. He was killed in a shootout with two suspects. He was handsome. Nice. Funny. A former Chick-fil-A employee.

And don’t forget Sergeant William Marty Jackson, II. According to the Winchester, Kentucky, Police Department, he was involved in a struggle during an assistance call. This led to cardiac problems later that night. He was in law enforcement for 50 years.

Jackson was 73 years old.

Police Officer Michael E. Jensen (29) of Syracuse, New York. “He was a happy-go-lucky kid, always smiling, always happy,” said Jensen’s childhood…

Well, it’s official. I’m done writing.

The email came in this morning. This one sealed the deal. “Sean,” the message began. “You are a social media attention whore….”

Great way to start a Monday.

“...You’re like all other attention seekers,” the writer went on, “constantly looking for likes and engagement… I’ve been a professional writer for 29 years, and it’s people like you who corrupt the profession. …I think you know what I’m talking about.”

The last sentence ends in a preposition.

A few hours later, a book review on a major bookseller website.

“...[Dietrich’s] book was a laborious and difficult read... I found [the author’s] tone glib and disrespectful. This author might indeed have something to say, but he’s too immature to say it.”

You’re only young once. But you can be immature forever.

Then there was the letter to the editor of one of the newspapers for which I write.

“...I am a former reader of Sean. I was disgusted with his treatment of religion in his last column… I take offense at the tasteless jokes about Baptists.”

Why should you take

two Baptists fishing? Because if you take just one, he’ll drink all your beer.

And here’s another little gem from another newspaper that carries my shoddy work:

“...I found Sean’s article in [name of paper] especially upsetting, especially the jokes about the Baptist tradition. I have been a Baptist all my life. I am 77 years old, and found his humor belittling.”

As it happens, I have been a Baptist all my life, too. I come from a Baptist town. Even our atheists were Baptist, because it was a Baptist god they didn’t believe in.

Ironically, most of the Baptist jokes I’ve learned have come directly from Baptist preachers.

One of my childhood friends, for example, is a Baptist preacher. I recently told him about some negative mail I received.

He replied: “Don’t worry about it.…

I’m writing this for a friend—the state of Oklahoma, who I consider a close personal friend of mine.

I know you wouldn’t usually refer to a whole state as your friend, but that’s what I’m doing here.

Today, a tornado swept through Oklahoma’s bosom. Four people were killed. Over a hundred injured. Two deaths in Holdenville. Another near Marietta. Another in Murray County. Thousands are without power. Even more are grieving.

As I write this, nearly 7 million people across America’s midriff are under a tornado warning. From Texas to Wisconsin. By the time you read this, more destruction could have happened.

I first learned of the Oklahoma tornadoes when I got an email from a friend outside Sulphur, Oklahoma.

“I don’t know if you’re even getting this email, Sean,” the note began. “Our phone service is down, and we don’t have any power… But if you can say a prayer for us, it would mean so much.”

Sulphur. A Rockwellian town of about 5,000. Houses and buildings are rubble. Cars were flung. Busses moved. The rooftops

were scraped off.

“You just can’t believe the destruction,” said Oklahoma Governor, Kevin Stitt. “It seems like every business downtown has been destroyed.”

Things started getting bad on Saturday. The weather service reported that two tornadoes were crossing Oklahoma’s Highway 9. Between Goldsby and Blanchard. There was another sighting east of Tinker Air Force Base. Another tornado headed toward Norman.

“I don’t know what were going to do,” said my friend in the aftermath. “I don’t know how were going to get over this.”

Well, I don’t know much, either. But I know one thing about Oklahoma. They are resilient.

Long before the World Trade Center attacks in New York, I remember being glued to the television after an Oklahoma City truck bomb killed 168 people and injured over 500 in 1995.

I remember the witnesses being interviewed on news channels were all…

It’s 2:15 a.m. My wife’s portable alarm clock sounds. The noise is like a submarine dive alarm. I am awake. I am drinking coffee made from the hotel coffee maker which tastes like boiled jockstrap water. We are doing the Trailblaze Challenge hike today.

I keep telling myself, “We’re doing this for C.C.”

3:03 a.m.—We are in a van with 13 other half-asleep Trailblazer hikers. We are driving to the trailhead where we will walk for 26.3 miles for the Make-A-Wish Foundation of Alabama, an organization that changes the lives of kids with critical illnesses.

My friend C.C. received a wish when he was a kid. He met Peyton Manning. His sister and caregiver is Paige, and she is our dear friend. They are why I’m here.

Namely, because I am not an athlete. I am more of a Little Debbie enthusiast.

4:49 a.m.—Now we’re at the trailhead. “Yay! We’re here!” shouts one perky hiker. It’s early. Many of the other hikers want to punch this hiker in the mouth.

5:12 a.m.—Rational people are at home right now, nestled in their

feather beds. We are now hiking the far flung Pinhoti Trail, miles from human civilization. You could die from an infected blood blister out here.

“This is for C.C.,” my wife keeps saying with each step. “For C.C.”

5:31 a.m.—Our hiking pace is akin to refugees marching to a Russian gulag to be executed. It’s tar black outside, we’re wearing coal-miner headlamps. Someone in our group starts singing to lighten the mood. This person will never be seen or heard from again.

6:45 a.m.—We are not 3 miles in. We still have 23 miles to go. Sunrise on the mountain is nothing short of heaven-like. There is a hiker pooping just off the trail. I can see the perpetual whiteness of this hiker’s cheeks.

“This is for C.C.”

7:33 a.m.—I’m talking with a hiker who knows a kid who…

I don’t know how I got into this. No, wait. I remember.

My wife, that’s how I got into this. That’s how every crazy, halfcocked idea in my life starts. With her. Bungee jumping in Mexico is only one example.

Right now I am at a Birmingham hotel, with a lot of other insane people who are filtering into the lobby, carrying heavy duffle bags of hiking gear and expensive all-weather clothes. These people are all in very good shape and have no adipose tissue.

We are all here because tomorrow we will be hiking 26.3 miles up a mountain.

It’s important to note, we are not in the military. Nobody is holding a bayonet to our backs and forcing us to march onward. In fact, we paid good money to be here. Take my wife. Her hiking boots alone cost more than a three-bedroom beach condo.

“Are you ready to hike?” says a trim, super peppy fitness-looking guy, clapping my shoulders violently, and smiling like he’s having a febrile seizure.

This man is a complete

stranger.

“I’m ready,” I say.

“I can’t hear you!” he shouts.

“Then get hearing aids.”

Tomorrow morning, hours before sunup, 268 clinically deranged Alabamians will be awoken by an alarm, whereupon we will all be taken to the Pinhoti Trail, riding in Soviet style buses, and dropped off naked, in the remote darkness of the mountains, just outside Talladega, whereupon we will hike until we are either dead or sincerely wish we were.

We are doing this hike for the Make-A-Wish Foundation of Alabama. This organization grants the wishes of children with critical illnesses.

This Alabamian hike raises more money than all the other Make-A-Wish organizational hikes in the nation. By far. These people are doing some real good stuff.

When the Alabama Trailblaze Challenge hike started in 2017, there were less than 75 hikers, and they raised about $200,000.

The hike has since…

Cracker Barrel is quiet this time of night. There are few cars in the parking lot. My wife is with me. We’ve been traveling all day.

On the way into the restaurant, I see a few kids sitting on rockers outside. They’re playing checkers.

“HEY!” shouts a little girl. “YOU CAN’T JUMP BACKWARDS!”

“YUH HUH!” shouts a little boy.

“NO YOU CAN’T!”

I don’t like to butt in, but this situation calls for some well-tempered adult advice. And since there aren’t any well-tempered adults around, my advice will have to do.

“She’s right,” I tell the boy. “You can’t jump backwards unless you’ve been kinged.”

“I can’t?” he says.

“Nope. Besides, even if you COULD, it wouldn’t matter, because your girlfriend says you can’t, and girls are ALWAYS right.”

“GROSS!” he shouts. “SHE’S NOT MY GIRLFRIEND, SHE’S MY SISTER!”

His sister laughs until the vein in her forehead shows.

We get a table.

Our waitress has long hair and tired eyes. We still have miles to drive, I order coffee. Black.

The waitress tells me about her son. He’s about to start first grade when summer is over. She hasn’t seen much of him

this summer. This isn’t her only job. She has two more.

She shows me photos of her son. He’s skinny. Thick eyeglasses. Freckles.

“He’s doing Vacation Bible School this summer,” she says. “He loves it.”

As it happens, I have passed many years in Vacation Bible School—both as an inmate, and as a warden. I consider the hours spent judging heated three-legged races to be golden.

I order my usual. Three eggs, bacon, biscuits.

There’s a couple in the corner. They’re elderly. He’s eating, she’s beside him—not eating. Halfway through the meal, he sets his fork down and places his arm around her.

She leans into him. She’s crying. I can see she’s wearing an oxygen facemask and a hospital bracelet. There’s a story here, I…

I found my way through the hospital corridors. I was running a little late, so I was jogging through the medical center.

The young man was waiting for me in his hospital bed. He was wearing a cowboy hat with a hospital gown.

“Thanks for visiting me,” he said.

He smiled.

The boy is 13, he has gone through multiple surgeries. The muscles in his face have been affected by the surgeries, so his smile is uniquely beautiful.

He is a nice-looking boy. He’s been through a lot. You can tell it by his attitude.

“I appreciate you visiting me.”

“Are you kidding?” I replied. “I’m a writer. Which means if I didn’t have a wife, I’d be living underneath an overpass. I appreciate you WANTING to meet a writer like me.”

“I like your writing.”

“I’m sorry to hear that.”

“I am a writer too.”

“Yes. That’s what your father told me. What do you like to write?”

“I write stories about cowboys.”

Verily I say unto thee, this is a boy after my own heart. I fear that in our era of high-tech

movie graphics, Chat GPT, and AI we are going to lose a love of pure Westerns. But this child gives me hope.

He is even a John Wayne fan. My holster runneth over.

“Can I read one of my stories to you?” he says.

“I’d be honored.”

“Maybe you can tell me what you think about it; as one writer to another.”

The boy clears his throat. He removes a sheet of paper from a folder and assumes a recitation voice.

I’m paraphrasing here, but he tells a story about a young cowboy named Chet.

Chet was diagnosed with terminal cancer. Chet, the young hero, was told he would never recover. Oh, how his parents cried. And, oh, how the boy nearly lost hope.

“It was very hard on the young Chet,” said the kid.…

“What’s it like to fly on a plane?” 11-year-old Becca texted me.

Becca is blind, and she is my friend. She lives in north Alabama, and her parents are canonized saints. She has had quite a childhood.

Quite a childhood indeed.

“You wanna know what it’s like to fly?” I texted back.

“Yes.”

At the time I was sitting in the plane, flying livestock class, the cheapest way to fly, unless you strap yourself to the landing gears. Sometimes livestock-class passengers have to ride with chickens or various Billy goats on their laps.

Right now, seated on my lap is a laying hen named Gertrude. Gertrude is fussy and, apparently, suffering lower intestinal problems.

“Tell me what it’s like to fly,” texts Becca.

Becca is a grade-schooler who has become my good friend. I’m not sure how our friendship happened. But it did.

Among other things, we have music in common. Becca has a voice like a cherub, a mind like a razor, and she is cuter than a duck in a hat.

Becca and I have performed together onstage before. It

was a success.

Last month, at one of my recent shows, she accompanied me and sang “O What A Beautiful Morning,” then “Amazing Grace.”

Then Becca told the whole audience how she lost her vision, and how the first face she expects to see someday is God’s face.

She brought the house down. People wept so hard I heard audience members blowing snot into their shirttails. People were not just crying. These were sobs, complete with wailing and moaning.

Becca received so many standing ovations that evening that many audience members reported that they were in need of emergency meniscus surgery.

It was a night I’ll cherish for the rest of my life.

“I’ve never been on a boat or a plane,” Becca texted as my plane lifted off. “Tell me what it’s like...”

“It’s like riding a…

Hannibal, Missouri, is a little off the beaten path. Actually, Hannibal is a LOT off the beaten path. I can’t even find the beaten path anymore.

On the way into town, my GPS kept getting confused in rural Missouri, and at one point I ended up in—this is true—Illinois.

It’s a river town. The gray Mississippi eases along Hannibal at 5.8 miles per hour, moving ever southward. The floodgates are up today. There is a flood warning in effect right now, wind gusts are clocking in at 33 mph.

I’m at a bar called “Rumor Has It.” Beside me is a riverboat captain.

“This is a beautiful river that can kill you,” says the captain who has been a commercial pilot on the Mississippi since the early ‘70s. “My wife calls her my mistress, because I spend more time with this river than with her.”

I am beneath the mistress’s spell this afternoon as I hang out on Hannibal’s sidestreets.

In the distance, a barge drifts along the Muddy Mississippi, moving at a tortoise pace. There is a riverboat

docked at the landing. A train passes and lays on the whistle.

Riverboats. Barges. Trains. It’s the 19th century in Hannibal.

“This is a town so small both city-limit signs are nailed to the same post,” says one merchant. “It’s great because it’s charming, and it’s actually affordable. And you meet tourists from all over the globe. Just yesterday I met people from Norway, Australia, and Japan.”

Downtown is quaint and touristy. It feels like the aftermath of a gift shop explosion. But everything is done tastefully. You won’t find any deep-fried Oreos or CBD shops here.

It’s Monday, for example, and all the shops are closed. Which is unheard of in a tourist economy.

And that’s the beauty of Hannibal. It’s a real small town. Even though it’s a tourist destination, these merchants have real families, and real lives. Shops…