BIRMINGHAM—Early morning. The sun is low. Fog rests on the trees. And I have a persistent case of writer’s block.

I leave my hotel on foot because I love morning walks. They help in more ways than one. When I walk, I’m able to think in straight lines, clear my head, and most importantly, pull a hamstring.

I see a pest guy spraying outside my hotel. He wears a COVID mask, and carries a spray canister of noxious chemicals.

“How’re you doing this morning?” he asks.

“I have writer’s block,” I say.

“Oh, no. I used to get writer’s block, but I don’t get it anymore.”

“Really? What’s your secret?”

“I had four kids.”

I make my hike across a nearby parking lot, aiming toward a shopping complex. Outdoor malls are great places to walk.

This is when I hear tires squeal behind me.

I turn to look. It is a bad dream happening in slow motion. A white Mitsubishi swerves through the parking lot like a runaway diesel, roaring straight for me.

The vehicle fires forward and misses me by an eyelash. I don’t

even have time to shout any religious language at the driver.

I am left standing on the pavement. Adrenaline has made me cold. I am doubled over.

The guy with the sprayer calls out, “You okay?”

All I can do is nod. “Just dandy,” I say.

It takes a few minutes to gather myself. I am still sick to my stomach. But I keep walking.

I walk across culverts, ditches, decorative shrubbery, thorny bushes, and steep embankments until I reach the mall. My nerves are shaken, but I’m alive, and that’s the important thing.

The shopping complex is empty this morning except for a few older women out power-walking.

I pass a slew of employees in shopfronts. They’re unlocking display windows, doing inventory, drinking coffee from paper cups. And I am finally starting to calm…

Lorie was watching when the supermarket cashier told the young mother that her card was declined. She knew she wanted to help the woman. She couldn’t explain why. It was something she wanted to do.

Just because.

Maybe it was the way the girl was holding a baby on her hip and a toddler by the hand. Or it could have been the girl’s frazzled facial expression.

Maybe it was the single-file line of impatient shoppers, rolling eyes, glancing at watches, adjusting their surgical masks.

Lorie stepped forward. She spoke to the cashier. “I wanna buy her groceries,” she said, presenting her card.

The girl looked embarrassed. There’s a feeling that comes with being the recipient of charity. It’s not a pleasant one. You feel a mixture of colossal idiocy and gratefulness, combined into one giant, foul-tasting pepperoni.

“No,” said the girl. “I’ll just put all this stuff back.”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” said Lorie.

“Please, ma’am, I don’t need no charity. My boss just hasn’t direct-deposited my check, that's all.”

There is none prouder than a mother with a light wallet.

“I’m buying

your groceries,” said Lorie. “You can either take them home, or let them spoil in the parking lot. But I’m buying them.”

The young woman seemed genuinely confused. “Why are you doing this?”

Lorie thought about it for several moments. It was a very good question. What had come over her? Why was she doing this?

“Just because,” Lorie said.

As it turns out, it wasn’t just a few scant groceries. The girl had practically shoved the whole grocery store into her buggy.

She was buying the confectionary things growing children need to stay healthy and strong. Chocolate bars, chocolate milk, chocolate popsicles, chocolate chips, chocolate fudge brownies, chocolate syrup, chocolate pretzels, Swiss chocolate swizzle sticks, triple chocolate dark fudge ice cream, and a new pancreas.

The girl agreed to let Lorie buy her items. But before…

Dear Young Person

I am an imaginary old man. I am every World War II veteran you never knew. I am each faceless GI Joe from a bygone European War.

I am hundreds of thousands of infantrymen, airmen, sailors, marines, mess sergeants, seabees, officers, engineers, doctors, buck privates, and rear-echelon potato-peelers.

We hopped islands in the Pacific. We served in the African war theater. We beat the Devil. Then we came home and became the old man next door. We are in our 90s and 100s now.

Today was our holiday. It was on this day, September 2, 1945, that the war officially ended.

Wartime was a wild era to be young. When we went overseas we were teenagers, scared spitless, with government haircuts, wearing new wedding rings.

We hadn’t seen action yet. We were so jittery we smoked through our week’s rations of Luckies in one day.

Then it happened. It was different for everyone. But it happened. Shells landed everywhere. People screamed. And in a moment our fear melted away.

Suddenly, we had war jobs

to do. And it didn’t matter who we were, or which posts were ours. Everyone worked in the grand assembly line of battle.

When the smoke cleared and the action was over, we had new confidence in ourselves. And we were no longer children.

No two experiences were alike. Each man had his own story. And we weren’t only men, either. There were 350,000 women serving in the U.S. Armed Forces. People forget that.

Speaking of women. We guys were always talking about our sweethearts, wives, and mothers. If you even mentioned someone’s girl, a man would talk for hours about her. Then he’d show you wallet-sized pictures.

And even if you’d already seen his photos, you never interrupted a man who talked about his sweetheart. Because eventually, you’d be telling him about yours.

Everyone wanted to go home. Though, don’t get me…

It’s a great day for a drive in the Azalea City. The afternoon sun is on the bay. The grass flats are stretching toward the horizon like furry islands.

I ride through the tunnel, which shoots me beneath the Mobile River and spits me into a mild-mannered, picturesque French colonial city. I love it here.

I had a friend from Mobile once say that if you want to make locals angry, tell them Mardi Gras originated in New Orleans.

“These are fighting words,” said my pal.

If you say such a thing to a Mobile-person, their face will contort, their nostrils will flare, they will speak in strange tongues, and their head will rotate 360 degrees.

Then they will spit out facts about how Mobile has the oldest organized Mardi Gras celebration in the U.S. They will also explain that Mobile’s Mardi Gras fun was happening in 1703, long before New Orleans was even wearing a training diaper.

Then they will fling beads at you.

When I was a young man, I played music in

a crummy bar band. We were always getting gigs in Mobile. The guys in the band would carpool together, and I was usually the driver.

This was before GPSs, back when early man was still using Rand McNally products. The truck would be loaded with musical junk, amplifiers, and instruments. And five of us idiots would be riding through town looking like the cast members from “Hee Haw.”

To us, Mobile was the biggest city around. Three times the size of Pensacola or Dothan. It wasn’t like other mega-cities, either. People were friendly in Mobile.

As long as you didn’t ask stupid questions about Mardi Gras.

The first thing I’m always struck with here is that this is a baseball town. Hank Aaron was born Down the Bay. And so was Leroy Robert “Satchel” Paige. And Satchel Paige is one of my all-time heroes.

They…

DEAR SEAN:

My mom doesn’t want anything to do with me, I haven't seen her in like six years, and she doesn’t even wanna meet her granddaughter, my daughter. I feel so alone and just, like, I don't know. I don’t have any family who cares. Why are families so [bleeped] up?

Sorry I cussed,
FAMILY-LESS-IN-CHICAGO

DEAR FAMILY-LESS:

When I was growing up, there was an embroidered proverb hanging in my aunt’s laundry room. Framed in glass. The text read: “You can’t choose your family.”

I remember this because when I was supposed to be folding clothes I would be looking at it, thinking about what it meant. This is one of the first things I learned how to read, ironically.

I always wondered why anyone would go to the trouble of embroidering such an obvious statement.

I mean, hello? People can’t choose their family? This is no newsflash. So why embroider it? This would be like embroidering: “Yes, you can eat pickles.” Or “Your mother’s brother is also your uncle.”

It’s funny what you think

about when you’re folding towels. And my aunt was big on folding towels. Her towels had to be just so.

In my life I have since learned that every woman has her own way of folding laundry. My mother, for instance, folded clothes one way. My aunt folded things a different way. And when I got married, I was taught that males should not fold anything because we have the domestic intelligence of lukewarm pizza.

Every time I fold a towel in my house, a random woman appears out of the shadows to unfold my towel and refold it the correct way.

This is also true when it comes to loading the dishwasher.

Dishwasher loading is a sacred art only known by the chosen sages who walk among us. Once, at my in-laws’ house, I literally saw the same dishwasher reloaded five or…

A brilliant sunset. I’m on the porch. My neighbors are on their porch. We can’t see each other. I am eavesdropping because I am a semi-professional eavesdropper.

The people are talking and sipping. I hear the sound of ice clinking in glasses, and I overhear average people making conversation.

And there is a baby cooing.

An older man’s voice says to the baby, “Wook at Gwanddaddy’s wittle gull. Hey! You’ve got Granddaddy’s nose!”

The voice that belongs to his wife answers, “Give back Granddaddy’s nose, pwecious wittle gull.”

“Who’s Granddaddy’s wittle baby gull?”

“Jenna! Come outside, quick! She’s got Granddaddy’s nose!”

Yes. There’s a lot to be excited about at the neighbor’s house tonight.

For me, one of the hardest things about the quarantine was the lack of conversation. I miss it. I think I could endure anything if I had enough chit-chat. But without it my mind starts to worry and I work myself into a frenzy.

In the past I’ve interviewed old men who spent their youth in World War II foxholes. Men who didn’t speak about the war until they were in their eighties.

Something they said was that during lulls between fighting, it was the gentle art of conversation that kept them sane.

One man told me that infantrymen would have conversations lasting six or seven hours sometimes. Maybe longer. Until their voices gave out. Until they couldn’t speak the next day.

They would talk about how they missed their hometowns, about their best girls, their kid brothers, their favorite dogs, their childhood sweethearts, their mother’s cooking.

They talked to keep from losing it. They laughed to keep from being afraid.

My neighbor’s voice: “Who’s Granddaddy’s wittle gull? Are you Paw Paw’s wittle baby gull?

I hear them laugh.

I lean my head backward and close my eyes. I could listen to their happy cadence all night. Nobody is talking about a virus, national death tolls,…

“Buy you a beer?” said the elderly man at the restaurant bar beside me.

I was waiting on takeout food, and he was enjoying a frosty mug. We both wore surgical masks. He sat five feet away. One side of his face was scarred from some kind of serious burn. His skin was marbled and smooth, the color of a pink crayon.

Me? You wanna buy ME a beer?

“Yeah, you. I’ve read a few of your columns. Let me buy you a beer. That way we can talk.”

Okay, sure. Thank you.

“Don’t mention it. What’ll you have?”

Anything cold.

The bartender served me a tall glass and we touched our rims. The man’s hands were scarred, and underneath his burns was a face that looked happy.

“I got a bone to pick with you,” he said.

With me? Okay, why not? It’s your paycheck in my glass.

“You wrote once in your column that you loved everybody. Well, I wanna know if it’s B.S. You can’t love everyone, can you? Do you remember writing that?”

Yes, I recall writing that.

“So

you mean to tell me you love crooked businessmen who destroy the earth and strip this world of everything good? You mean to say that you love history’s evil armies who invaded countries and killed others for no reason but lust for power?”

Well, uh, I guess I never...

“How about racists? People who, even though they have no reason to hate or degrade others, hate and degrade others? You love them? Or were you just writing words?”

I, uh…

“And what about ruthless dictators who murdered millions of men, women, and children simply because of their nationality or creed? Or how about murderers who kill families during home invasions? What about wife beaters? Politicians? People who hum obsessively?”

Well, you see, sir, I was just…

“How about the guy who breaks into your car and steals…

“I am not an artist,” says Ginni Bonell. “I can barely draw a straight line.”

Ginni lives in Virginia. She is mid-60s, with long silvery hair, and you get the feeling that this woman listens to Carole King or James Taylor. She has that vibe.

In fact, I would bet good money that this woman owns at least one 1970s album containing the song “Shower the People.”

She throws open a huge garage door for a camera crew and says, “This is where the magic happens.”

Inside is a makeshift studio filled with nothing but scrap wood and paint fumes. There are hundreds—no. There are billions of little pine blocks covered in wet paint.

These aren’t fancy works of art, they are white squares with acrylic pink hearts and simple writing. Two words.

Be kind.

In today’s world, kindness is a pretty rare concept. I just saw a man in traffic, for instance, throw a full Coke bottle at another car on the interstate.

The other car returned fire by throwing a fast food bag. French fries scattered

all over the highway. A Big Mac nearly hit my windshield.

These drivers were definitely not listening to James Taylor music.

Ginni’s idea for the handmade signs happened one day after watching the local news. The headlines were depressing, and a person can only take so much televised tragedy, environmental destruction, and senseless acts of politics.

When Ginni was out for a walk to blow off some steam and clear her head, she saw a garbage heap that caught her eye.

In the trash was a big whiteboard. Like the kind you’d find in an office or classroom. She took the thing home and placed it in her yard the way you would a real estate sign. She wrote messages on the board. Like this one:

“In a world where you can be anything, be kind.”

It was just for the neighborhood,…

Miss Hilda always sat in the front row of our church. The snow-haired woman was early to arrive, last to leave, and first to hug your neck.

Sometimes her daughter would be with her, clutching her arm, escorting her down the aisle.

During service, Hilda would sit through the standing parts. She always sang along with “At the Cross,” “Rock of Ages,” or “Amazing Grace.” And sometimes I would sit beside Hilda for the singing. Our eyes would be level with everyone’s belts. She would hold my arm. I enjoyed that.

My granny died when I was a child. And I never knew my father’s mother. I didn’t grow up with a maternal old woman. Instead I grew up with aunts and mothers who used hairbrushes as weapons.

What I always wanted was a grandma to love me. To make me fried chicken. And I know this sounds ridiculous, but sometimes I just needed an old lady to pat my cheek and tell me I was a sweet boy.

I remember one time our congregation

was singing “Amazing Grace.” Hilda leaned toward me and whispered, “I love this song, but there’s one lyric I would change.”

I asked which one.

“Oh,” she said, “where the song says, ‘saved a wretch like me.’ God’s creations are not wretches. So I always sing, ‘saved a SOUL like me.’”

In many churches her opinion would have been high treason. I have Baptist friends who were beheaded for less.

But Hilda was her own woman, she was intelligent, and old enough to disagree with whatever she wanted.

I would visit her house on rare occasions. Once I did some fix-it work for her. The whole time she was telling me stories. Mainly, tales about meeting her husband during World War II.

Her first words to him were: “Do you jitterbug?”

In her day, every young person danced the jitterbug. And she was, by dog,…

I saw pictures of you today on my cellphone. You are so tiny. You were sleeping in a clear plastic bubble, in a hospital room with other premature babies. Trying to breathe.

I want you to know that I’m praying for you to pull through. I haven’t skipped a day. I even pray for you before we eat dinner. Every evening.

Last night we had meatloaf. I love meatloaf. But we didn’t feel right eating until we said a few words for you.

You will pull through, of course. You have to. And when you do I want you to grow up to laugh a lot. I really mean this. I want you to laugh at the drop of a dime, like a nutty person.

I wish someone would have told me to do this, I could have saved myself a few years. When you get older it’s harder to chuckle.

Soon, you’ll be healthier, and off your breathing tube, and you’ll be able to laugh. And that’s what we all want to see. Believe me.

People will be visiting your hospital room and cuddling you with the sole purposes of seeing you smile or laugh.

We adults LOVE to see babies laugh. We will tickle your fat little legs, talk in high-pitched voices, jingle our keys in your face, and blatantly put our fingers into your armpits just to see you grin. And if you don’t laugh, it will hurt our feelings.

So laugh. Laugh too much. Laugh at inappropriate times. Laugh at yourself. And don’t ever stop doing this.

Because for some reason, when you grow up, everything changes. I don’t know why, but it does. In school, you’ll learn how to “sit still,” “be quiet,” “pay attention,” “raise your hand,” “chew your food,” “don’t interrupt,” “drink your milk.”

And if you’re a boy who plans on living past his thirteenth birthday, you will “put the toilet seat…