It’s beautiful in Gulf County. And I’m lost in a rural place. Another era.

This is small-town living.

A brick courthouse that would make Barney Fife jealous. A small Presbyterian church. No traffic lights in town, not even a caution light. At least, I didn’t see one.

And even if there were any, I don’t see the po po anywhere.

“Oh we got deputies alright,” one local remarks. “Ain’t like when we’s growing up. Back then, we had ONE city cop. His name was Preacher. And he was mean.”

Here, there are three main places to eat: Hungry Howie’s, Subway, and the Corner Cafe. I don’t do Howie’s.

The Corner Cafe is your quintessential local joint. Good breakfast. Burgers fit for self-respecting Southern Baptists. This place doesn't keep regular hours.

“You never know when he’s open,” someone says. “He only opens when he feels like it.”

I love it here.

There’s an ACE Hardware. It’s small. The sign reads: “Ammo, hay, huntin’ stuff, tupelo honey.”

This is the tupelo honey capital of the world. The

honey here is not just a big deal. It’s a denomination. This town has more bees than Birmingham has Polo shirts.

Today, I bought six jars. In fact, I’m chewing honeycomb right now.

They also have the Dead Lakes—the Eighth Wonder of the Southern World, ranking somewhere between the Everglades and Talladega Speedway. A magnificent lake with two billion swollen cypresses.

Downtown has the sheriff’s sub-station. It’s a two-room deal. Years ago, the building was a donut shop.

You might want to read that last sentence again.

There’s the Dixie Dandy—a grocery-store-slash-gas-station which sells anything from hot food to WD-40.

An old woman tells a story.

“Once, there was this gentleman, a’comin’ through town,” she explains. “He was just a’driving to court. His fuel light started a’blinking, had to stop for…

The Christmas season. A desolate road. Georgia. It was late. Cold.

He was driving home from work. Windows cracked, smoking a cigarette. He was a lonely old man. No kids. No family.

He was a rough man. He lived in a lonely house. His lonely lawn was overgrown. He’d been married once, long ago. It didn’t work out. In his younger days, he had his share of problems with a bottle.

He heard hollering through his window.

He pulled over. He walked into a dead field, following the sound.

It was a girl, brown-skinned, holding a baby. She was delirious. She moaned. She was burning hot with a fever. The baby was screaming.

He carried them to his vehicle. He drove them home. He laid her in his bed. He held a cold rag to her forehead. He gave her red Gatorade.

She mumbled in a language he didn’t understand.

He phoned his neighbor, who spoke Spanish. The neighbor translated: “Her husband left her. She says

she’s been living in the woods...”

“Husband?” the old man remarked. “She doesn’t even look eighteen.”

More Spanish.

“She’s sixteen.”

Her husband had been fired from a factory job. Times got hard. He left. She was homeless overnight.

She’d moved into a tent made from a blue tarp. She was living in the woods, eating food from garbage cans—which had made her sick.

For nine days, the old man stayed beside her bed. Mornings, afternoons, nights. He made chicken soup. He spoon-fed her. He bottle-fed the baby.

He prayed aloud. And when he was done talking to God, he would tell her stories—though she was half-delirious, and unable to understand him.

She was weak. He helped her use the restroom. He cleaned her accidents. He changed the sheets. He kept fluids running through her.

And one afternoon, while…

The downtown is decorated for Christmas. There are red ribbons, wreaths on doors, there’s a big tree on the square.

This is a small town. If you were to get a running start, you could toss a football from one side to the other.

Meet Christy.

She’s a phlebotomist at the doctor’s office. She handles needles, blood, patients. She’s your quintessential small-town girl. Pretty. Smart. Never met a stranger.

She has three teenagers. She loves sports. She is a Florida Gators fan—bless her heart.

Not long ago, Christy met a woman, walking on the side of the road.

She stopped the car. She gave her a ride.

The woman was down on her luck. She told Christy about herself. It was the same sad story you’ve probably heard before.

Imagine: you’re a hard working couple who can’t seem to make ends meet. Times get hard. Money runs out. So does good fortune.

The lights get shut off. And just when things can’t get worse, they do. Your car breaks

down and becomes a steaming pile of horse fertilizer.

Your two-year-old and newborn are hungry. Food gets expensive. You’re doing everything you can to keep your family from losing weight.

It was almost too much for Christy to hear.

The woman said her husband had been walking to work ever since the car broke down.

The woman had been scraping pennies together to buy dried goods from the Dollar General store.

Christy had heard enough.

She called her friend, Brandi. Together they decided to do something. Christy posted a plea for help online. Her request was straightforward:

"If anyone has any suggestions, contact me...”

Did they ever.

The offers started flooding in after a few minutes. Her phone nearly exploded. People offered rides, groceries, gifts, diapers, toys, baskets, clothes.

And, even though I can’t…

To the man I saw, pushing a stroller in the Piggly Wiggly. The girl in the stroller must’ve been twelve. She was well-behaved.

She greeted everyone she saw with happy moans and labored waving.

I stopped to say hello.

Her father quit pushing the stroller. He touched the girl’s face and whispered, “Can you say, ‘hello’ to the man?”

It took a lot of energy for the girl to say it. Her voice was magnificent. “H-H-H-iii,” she said.

“Hi, darling.”

To the young man on the bench outside the gas station. He held his cellphone to his ear. He kept saying into the phone: “Is she gonna be okay?”

He had a puffy red face. Nose sniffing.

“Please tell me she's gonna be okay,” he said.

The gas-station clerk sat beside him. She lit a cigarette and placed her arm around his shoulder.

To the old woman, out for a walk in her neighborhood. Her therapist was beside her. Her gait was labored.

She winced with each step.

The therapist said, “You can do it, Helen.”

Helen did it.

To the woman who wrote me. The same woman who buried her husband and son two years ago. Who feels guilty because she’s fallen in love with another man and his ten-year-old daughter.

To the old fella playing guitar in downtown Pensacola, on the street. His guitar had burn marks on it. He was grinning at passerbyers, plucking holiday music.

To the teenagers in small towns who can’t wait to get out of Dodge, and spread their wings. To adults trapped in big cities, who are sorry they ever felt that way.

To anyone homesick at Christmastime. To those missing old friends, old stomping grounds, old fishing buddies, family tables. To grandparents.

To children grieving fathers. To mothers grieving babies. To people who’ve ever grieved…

This story isn’t about how I got four hundred dollars—even though I did. Four hundred big ones. Unexpected.

Anyway, I want to say this beforehand:

I once swore that I would never write something like what you’re about to read. In fact, I can’t stand those who talk about what they do with their money.

But then, it WASN’T my money. So, why not.

I gave a hundred bucks to the cable guy. He was as country as fiddlesticks. He showed up with his wife. I saw them working in my yard, burying cable together.

“She works with me,” he explained. “She’s a good worker. We can take twice the jobs as a team, make twice the money. I love her so much.”

I shook his hand. He could feel the folded paper bill in my palm. I wished him a Merry Christmas.

The workman across the street got a hundred, too. He was repairing my neighbor’s sewage line. The brown, foul-smelling water puddled around him, saturating his jeans with stink.

I recognized him. We used to work together in a past life.

We shook hands.

I asked how he’s been.

“Got four kids, man,” he said. “A good wife, good job, great benefits. And after awhile, you get used to coming home, smelling like $#!* water.”

How about that.

I left a hundred in his toolbox.

And the old man in Pensacola, standing on Cervantes. Cardboard sign. Long beard. He smelled like whiskey and cigarettes.

I rolled down my window at the stoplight. I handed him a folded, green paper-football. I started to drive away.

“Hey, sir!” he yelled. “Think you accidentally gave me a hundred.”

“No,” I said. “Someone accidentally gave it to me.”

He shouted a God-bless-you while I drove away.

And the waitress. I ordered eggs, bacon, toast. What I got was a patty melt. I ate it, no complaints.

She realized her mistake later. She…

I am in the auditorium of my old school. The community-college band is playing Christmas music.

This is where I became the me I am today.

It's your typical community college. The brick campus used to be only a couple of buildings, a few trailers, and a tennis court. It’s bigger now, but not much.

Students hail from Crestview, Freeport, DeFuniak Springs, Red Bay, Mossy Head. Some even live in Fort Walton—God help them.

When I was a student, it was Okaloosa-Walton Community College—and people were still listening to cassette tapes. Today it’s Northwest Florida State College.

Everything is different now. Tonight, I am seated among college-age kids, and I feel like an old man. A few of the students called me “sir.”

That hurt.

The band played “Mister Grinch,” “A Child is Born,” and even sang “Jingle Bells.” They wore Santa hats and made the season bright.

I couldn’t concentrate on the music because I was swatting memories like gnats.

This place is my alma mater—sort of.

About me: I didn’t go to high school. It’s a long story. But after my father died, my mother and I worked menial jobs.

While friends attended pep rallies and football games, I didn’t.

Anyway. Big deal. The point is, I DID eventually attend school—as an adult. Right here.

And this place—humble as it may be—was the biggest thing I’d ever done in my little life. The microscopic junior college became part of me. In fact, for many years this was my second home.

Here’s how my days went:

Leave the construction site at 2 P.M. Get lunch.

2:15 P.M.—eat sandwich while steering with my knees toward class

2:30 P.M.—social studies.

4:00 P.M.—music class.

5:15 P.M.—college algebra; somebody please stab me in the throat with a slide-protractor.

6:45 P.M.—English.

8:00 P.M.—supper from the gas station. A cold, plastic-wrapped burrito, pork rinds, and a tall, ice-cold, infinitely thirst-quenching, Budweiser.

Saturday-mornings—creative writing classes. The…

She's in her car. Vehicles are parking outside the chapel. People are dressed in dark colors. Greeters stand at church doors nodding to those walking inside.

She crosses the street and makes her way in.

She is nervous. Her hands tremble. She shakes hands with the grieving family. She offers condolences. She looks at his body. She cries.

They are not tears for him.

He was no saint. In fact, he was what some folks would’ve called "no good."

He treated his first and second wife terribly. He was abusive. Unfaithful. Bad to drink. His kids were estranged. His friends were few.

He was her uncle.

As a girl, he lived with her family. She was fifteen; he forced himself upon her.

It altered her life.

After the hateful thing happened, her mother sent her to stay with cousins in Tennessee. It was only days before Christmas. It the worst period of her entire life.

It got worse when she started waking to morning sickness.

It wasn’t long before she had a daughter. The baby was magnificent, but her mother made her

put the child up for adoption.

The folks in white uniforms escorted the baby away from her. And, since good teenagers did what they were told, she let them.

But she doesn’t want your sympathy. In fact, she wants people to know that she doesn’t need it.

Years later, she met a man. He was kind. Funny. Young. He was studying to become a teacher. He encouraged her to finish her GED, go to college, to be proud of herself. He told her she was smart.

And she believed him.

She studied nursing. She studied late hours, worked clinicals. And when she earned her certificate, he was there.

They were married. It was a simple ceremony.

But on their first night as man and wife, she had a panic attack. It was a bad episode.

“Please don’t touch…

Spanish Fort, Alabama—there is frost outside this morning. It's thirty degrees. Even my bones are cold.

I’m in a hotel elevator with two big, black men. Very big. I'm talking six-nine, maybe. They must be four-feet wide, wearing size-fifteen boots. They’re carrying luggage.

It’s not every day you ride the elevator with two NFL defensive-tackle lookalikes.

I ask if they're famous.

They laugh.

They aren't famous. But, they ARE biological brothers who had never met one another until a few months ago.

“I’m from Cali,” says one man.

“I’m from Birmingham,” says the other.

Their mother gave them up for adoption thirty-eight years ago. They found each other on the internet. Then, they tracked down their birth parents.

Their biological mother lives in Atlanta. Their father is deceased. They visited his grave yesterday.

“It was emotional, man,” one brother says. “You don’t think a dude you never met will mean that much to you, but… He was my dad.”

“Yeah,” the other adds.

Yeah.

Today, they’re going on an old-fashioned road trip together. They’re heading to Georgia to meet their birth mother before Christmas. She has no idea they're coming.

One

brother says, “I’m ready to facilitate healing to my family.”

I ask if he'd be gracious enough to spell “facilitate” for me.

We say goodbye, they waltz through the lobby. Every eye is on them because they are giants.

In the breakfast room of the hotel: a family. The back of the mother’s T-shirt reads: “Autism is not a disease.”

They are eating. The oldest boy screams at his younger brother. He is pitching a fit, making a scene. Hands flail.

The room gets tense.

She snaps into action.

She says, “Oh my! Would you look at this? It’s past nine, and you haven’t fed your toy frog.”

The kid furrows his brow.

“I did too,” he says. “Fed him this morning.”

“Interesting,” she goes on. “Then WHY did…

Loxley, Alabama—it’s dark. I’ve been driving all night, listening to Nat King Cole sing about chestnuts. I pull over to use the little columnist’s room.

It’s cold. It snowed in Mobile last night—I could hardly believe it.

I’m jogging inside the gas station and I see her. She’s sitting on the curb, outside the truck stop. She’s fourteen, fifteen maybe. Woven hair, no coat.

I ask if everything’s okay. Her eyes get big. I know fear when I see it.

“I’m good,” she says.

Not buying it.

I hurry inside to Tinkle Tinkle Little Star. Then, I buy a hot cocoa and a coffee to the tune of four bucks. On my way out the door, she's still there.

“You want this hot cocoa?” I ask.

No answer.

She’s terrified of me. I can tell. And I don’t blame her, this world is full of dangerous people carrying cocoa.

She takes the cup, but she's not drinking it. She tells me what happened:

She shopped all day in Pensacola, with friends. Her seventeen-year-old pal left her here. She was only supposed to be here five minutes, waiting for her mother

to arrive.

It's been two hours. Her phone battery is dead.

I offer her mine.

“Won’t do no good,” she explains. “Don’t know any phone numbers by memory.”

I ask if she needs a ride. Bad move. More terror in her eyes. So I sit on the curb—several feet away. She’s not touching her hot chocolate.

I keep talking.

Talking is a trait inherited from my mother. She can talk the paint off a fire hydrant.

"Did you see the snow last night?" I begin.

"Yeah," she says. "It was really cool."

My mother has always been the only soul who can make me feel less afraid by talking.

Once as a boy, in a North Carolina emergency room, with a five-inch gash in my leg, I was so scared…

Brantley, Alabama—it’s the Christmas season and Main Street is decorated. Red ribbons on posts, strings of pinery, wreaths.

A few days ago, it was almost seventy outside. Today it's going to snow in Alabama.

Welcome to the South.

Muddy trucks ride through the center of town. Livestock trailers carry horses. A truck with seven thousand chicken crates on back.

I’m eating at Michael’s Southern Foods—the only eatery in town.

“Some weather,” says an old timer, sipping iced tea.

“Damn sure is,” says another.

“Yessir, saw all’em cattle was layin’ down.”

“Damn sure was.”

Things move slow in Brantley.

This restaurant is no bigger than a living room. Old floors. Old tables. Old people.

I can smell smoked pork chops and cornbread.

There is a round table filled with loud-talking, white-haired men. Fellas wearing boots, camouflage, and handlebar mustaches. They are men who pronounce the word “tire” as “tar.”

Old Timer points to the table. “We call that “The Liars Table.”

“Damn sure, do.”

This place is so charming it hurts. And it’s among the last of its kind.

A place that still serves butterbeans with more bacon than bean. Collards that

sing. Hand-patted burgers. Onion rings big enough to use as halos in a nativity scene at the Baptist church.

Through the window, I see a woman crossing the street. She’s heading for the restaurant.

Old Timer beats her to the door. He holds it open, then tips his cap to her.

You don’t see hat-tipping anymore.

But then, this place is the old world. That's because this cafe has been going since the early forties—serving almost the same menu.

“Don’t see a need to change,” says Michael, the owner. “Just want people to eat and be happy.”

And that's what he does. It’s mostly locals who eat here. Some warm a chair every day of the week.

Even during the threat of Alabamian snow.

“All I've ever done is…