There is a photo on my dresser. It’s an old photograph. My wife sits at a table. Her arms are crossed. There’s a birthday cake in front of her.

The cake is seven-layer. Caramel. I drove all the way to Dean’s Cake House in Andalusia to buy that thing. Candles poke from the top. My wife wears a warm smile.

That was quite a day.

As a rule, photographs don't do my wife justice. Her personality is too colorful for rolls of film.

Snapping a shot of her is a lot like trying to capture the Sistine Chapel on a cocktail napkin with a Bic pen.

Even so, that night I held a disposable camera while we sang “Happy Birthday,” using voices loud enough to affect weather conditions.

My wife's mother placed the seven-layer cake before her. Her father and I kept singing like a duet of Labradors with chest colds.

My wife’s cheeks turned red. She showed a smile. I pointed the camera.

Click.

And for a

hundred years, that photo has made me feel less alone.

Maybe it’s her smile. After all, people like us aren't supposed to smile. At least not like she smiles.

We haven't had exceptional careers—she worked food service, I stood on ladders.

Our bank account was decidedly shallow. Money wasn’t exactly growing on rose bushes. For suppers, we’d visit Kentucky Fried Chicken to lick other people's fingers.

But we smiled a lot. She taught me to do that.

We bought cones of ice cream, using quarters from dashboard ashtrays. We sat in parking lots, listening to car radios. We talked until the wee hours. We chatted about life. About kids.

“How about Rose?” she said. “We ever have a daughter, I…

I’m supposed to be eating complimentary hotel-breakfast, but I’m in line behind a girl’s softball team.

The dining room is nothing but long-hair, red ribbons, glitter makeup, and striped softball socks.

“They're here for softball camp,” says one mother. “And they're having TOO much fun.”

They are breathtaking, these girls.

One girl is nearly six-two. Her mother is braiding her hair while she eats eggs and plays with her phone.

“Hold still,” her mother says.

“Gah, Mom,” the girl points out.

I had a friend who played softball. I won’t use her real name—she knows who she is.

Most of her life, boys poked fun at her because she was taller than they were.

She was one hell of an athlete. A catcher. To watch her handle a second-base steal attempt was poetry.

Her right arm was a shotgun. Her bat was the Eighth Wonder of the World.

The boys called her Fat Ass. She cried for two decades.

I wish she wouldn’t have. Because she is one

of the prettiest girls I ever met.

Today, she's married to a high-school football coach. Sometimes she helps him on the field. She and her husband have three daughters.

They are the all-American family. They go to Disney World twice per year.

They are happy.

Well, I don’t mind telling you that I like women. Real women. Every single one.

I like the shy, the outspoken, the well-behaved. I like the kind who can cuss the hair off your neck.

I like those who admire what they see in a mirror. And I have a softspot for the sort who don’t think much of themselves.

I like those who make poundcakes by…

A crawfish boil. A big party. This is the kind of deal where you stand in an hour-long line for a box of mudbugs and corncobs spicy enough to require an EpiPen.

The band is loud. They have a washboard, an accordion. They holler in French.

The Rotary Club is putting this on. The tents, the boilers, propane burners, the whole nine-yards.

Rotarians wander through the crowd with yellow wagon-wheels on their shirts. They’re collecting plates, emptying trash, conversing.

The money Rotary Club raises goes toward real charities. Not CEO salaries. Not televangelists with Malibu mansions and saltwater swimming pools. Ninety-one percent of Rotary money goes out the door into the world.

Ninety-one.

This, I learn this from an old man, standing in the crawfish line. He has a tube running from an oxygen tank to his nostrils.

He was a Rotary member in North Alabama once. He claims that Rotary Club is more than a tin plaque on the welcome-to-our-small-town sign. He says Rotary is changing the world.

It's a bold statement.

“We’re teaching illiterate folks," he says. "Donating to

small-town farmers, giving clean water to third-world countries.”

He’s as passionate as any Holiness preacher.

“Joined when my wife died,” he goes on. “Was lonely as hell, I needed friends, and they ALWAYS have food at meetings.”

When he first joined, he attended a few gatherings, then missed three weekly meetings.

Depression claims many a man.

One Saturday, three Rotary men came to his house unannounced with six-packs and fried chicken.

“Wouldn’t get off my doorstep,” he says. “We watched a game, had a few laughs. They were really concerned about me. I'm telling you, this ain't just a club.”

He and I find a seat beneath a white tent and listen to the band play, “Jambalaya.”

The crawfish makes my nose run.

He is chatty. He talks about life. About his daughter. He says he has stage-four cancer.

Miss Tia’s first-grade class is visiting the nursing home. It’s a big day. Some of the residents here are wearing their Sunday best.

Andy Griffith is on TV. The woman sitting in front of the screen is elderly. Slumped. She's wearing a red blouse, gold shoes, and too much makeup. She’s not moving.

Behind her: a man eats from a plastic tray. His cap reads: “Kubota” on front. He’s stabbing meatloaf.

Two first-graders are the first to introduce themselves. They are happy kids. They talk loud.

The old man turns an ear toward them. He has to adjust his hearing aid. By the time he does, they've already found a new victim.

This makes him laugh.

A nurse pushes a wheelchair. Sitting in the seat: a white-headed woman with coal-black skin. They say she sang in a choir as a young woman.

She warms up with “What a Friend We Have in Jesus” to prove it.

“No,” says her nurse. “YOU aren’t the one singing today, it’s the KIDS who’re singing.”

And

the kids certainly do.

They line up before a piano. A fourteen-year-old girl, named Briana, provides keyboard accompaniment. Miss Tia’s children sing their lungs out.

There isn’t a person in the white-headed audience who isn’t smiling.

A woman interrupts the song. She is gray, wearing a nightgown. She’s yelling. She calls for Benjamin. She's frantic.

She asks anyone within earshot if they’ve seen Benjamin.

One of the nurses tries to calm her by taking her to the other room. The old woman doesn't want to go, she gets fussy. She begins sobbing.

The other residents don't notice her.

When the music's over, kids visit with their audience—just like Miss Tia told them to.

It was going to be quite a year. Mama bought me new shoes and new jeans. After one week of school, I was a beloved comedian.

I’d sit in the corner of the lunchroom, telling well-prepared jokes with devastating punchlines. I got invited to a pool party. The girl who invited me called me adorable. Adorable.

It was a decidedly good year.

Until he died.

When they broke the news of Daddy’s death, I wanted to run so hard my legs might fracture. I tried. But they wouldn’t let me out the door.

The funeral home called a few days later. I answered the phone and eavesdropped while Mama talked to the man.

“Courtesy call,” the voice said. “He’s been cremated. Come and get him when you’re ready.”

Come and get him.

The strongest human I’d ever known; the man who taught me to walk upright, to throw baseballs, to tackle low, was ready for curbside pickup.

I didn’t eat supper for weeks. I laid in bed and looked at the

ceiling. I held one of Daddy’s dirty shirts against my face.

For the first few nights, I cried myself to sleep until my eyes went numb. After that, all I did was sleep. In fact, once I slept sixteen hours.

What a year.

I’m an adult now. I have mediocre insurance, and a dog who eats better than I do. I don’t sleep nearly as well as I used to. But I’m happy—more or less.

Then, I met him.

He’s young. He shook my hand like a kid twice his age. A sixth-grader with dark hair, long legs, and hunting boots. And even though he didn’t say it, I’ll bet he likes fishing.

His father died last…

I watched the sunrise over Brewton, Alabama. I was the only vehicle on the road when the sun started to peek above the the trees.

The sunlight hit Brewton just right. It looked golden. It was quite a sight.

Sometimes I get to feeling low. Brewton makes me high. Always has. I have good thoughts here. This is where I got a second crack at life.

Right after I was married, I visited Catawba Springs Baptist church with my wife’s family. I had much younger skin then, and a supple lower back.

The preacher mentioned us from his pulpit. Folks I’d never met clapped for us. Strangers hugged my neck. Old women kissed my cheeks. Three different men invited me hunting.

If I've ever felt more loved, I don't remember it.

We ate a big Sunday meal. My wife's father roasted a Boston Butt. He made squash casserole, butter beans, and creamed corn with too much black pepper.

I love creamed corn with too much black pepper.

“Tell me

about your daddy,” said my father-in-law. “Tell me all about your family.”

My family. There wasn’t much to tell. We were sad and poor. And I had no daddy—he ended his life with a hunting rifle. It wasn’t exactly uplifting dinner conversation.

Her father’s blue eyes turned pink when I finished talking.

“That does it,” he said. “I’m adopting you, right here and now. Understand me? This means WE are your kin. And THIS is your home.”

It was ridiculous. And it seemed like an idle promise.

I’d heard people say things like that before. They were only words. Lots of folks enjoy saying charitable things, even when they don’t mean them.

Not him. This man was different. And so was…

Enterprise, Alabama—they’re laying Addy Kate to rest today. It’s a small service. Her father will say a few words before folks give final goodbyes.

Only a year ago, Enterprise High School's math teacher and JV volleyball coach, Callie White, bought a pregnancy test on her way to school.

“I texted my husband the news,” says Callie. “We were so excited.”

Callie White’s pregnancy was your all-American birth. Baby showers, swollen feet, strange food cravings. She delivered a magnificent seven-pound-eleven-ounce Addy Kate.

Life couldn’t get any better. The young family was all smiles.

But smiles didn't last. Doctors found a tumor in Addy’s brain. The disease was moving fast.

The young family traded in its baby toys for oncologists. The diagnosis was worse than bad. It was terminal.

The tumor had already spread through her brain. Doctors said there was nothing they could do.

“Last thing any mother wants to hear,” says Callie. “Is that there’s NOTHING she can do.”

Nothing.

The Whites did their best to keep living,

but it was nearly impossible. Addy’s condition was behind every thought, word, and sentence.

On Easter Sunday, the Whites organized a family supper. There were Easter baskets, colored eggs. It was supposed to be a good day, but something was wrong with Addy.

They rushed her to the emergency room. Doctors did tests and found her tumor was growing. They said it wouldn’t be long before she passed.

What an Easter.

One of the first things the Whites did was hire a photographer.

“We wanted photos,” says Callie. “We didn’t have pictures of the three of us yet.”

A photographer snapped the first and only family photos the Whites have together. And while they posed, the family enjoyed…

For a funeral, it was a nice one. And it had all the food that goes with it.

Before lunchtime, church ladies warmed the fellowship hall with casserole dishes on card tables. I counted twenty-seven thousand devilled eggs. And there was, of course, fried chicken.

“He was my brother,” said one man with red eyes. “Still remember watching Saturday cartoons with him, seems like yesterday.”

The man didn’t even fill his plate.

The white-haired woman across from me wore a houndstooth skirt suit. She spoke with an accent so thick, I could hardly understand her.

“I know where MY son is,” she said. “And I’m looking forward to joining him one day, ‘cause I know where I’m goin’ when I die.”

She smiled at her own remark.

Would that I were as fearless as my elders.

The widow of the deceased is middle-aged. She is pretty. Stone-faced. She has not shed a single tear.

“We think Mom’s still in shock,” whispered the daughter. “When the hospital called and gave

her the news, Mom never even cried.”

Different strokes.

The fellowship hall was alive with small-town people. Children were noisy from too much sweet tea, running in circles.

The memorial service ran long. The preacher went over by fifteen minutes.

People filed out doors and crawled into cars. A string of vehicles rolled along a two-lane highway with headlights on.

Oncoming cars pulled over for the procession. One driver hopped out of his truck and bowed his head.

I hope this tradition never dies.

There was graveside scripture. The Twenty-Third Psalm. No matter how old I get, when I hear those verses I'm twelve, listening to Daddy's eulogy.

“...I will fear no evil,” said the…

The live oaks on Highway 90 are covered in moss. When heading east, you’ll see them. They are enough to make you dizzy.

This is the Panhandle.

In my short life, I’ve seen Trustee’s Garden in Savannah, I’ve eaten fifty-dollar shrimp in Charleston, I've touched the Cadillac Hank Williams died in.

But Highway 90 is as Old South as it comes.

These mossy trees carry chiggers that will eat a man alive. But they are magnificent—the trees, not the chiggers.

Off 90, there’s an uneven road that leads to a dirt arena. The Circle D Rodeo Arena sits in the middle of the sticks.

Once, I saw a rodeo here. The place was crawling with Wranglers, Ariats, and Skoal rings.

I watched a kid take a fall that should’ve broken his legs. He shook it off and pranced away like Mary Lou Retton.

Later that night, I saw him limping so bad he could hardly walk. Two men held him upright.

Downtown Marianna is a treat. They have stores,

old churches, a stunning post office. A Winn Dixie.

There are mansions with columns. The historic houses aren't flashy—just inviting. Folks on porches watch traffic.

One little girl is walking a Labrador on the sidewalk. She doesn’t have an adult with her.

You don't see that in big cities.

A century ago, a Civil War battle was fought on these streets she walks on.

“Battle of Marianna lasted thirty minutes,” an old man tells me. “An attack on our hometown, Yankees killed and wounded a quarter of our men.”

Confederate Park has a white monument that stands tall. It’s not here to honor war. It’s here to remember farmers, shopkeepers, and anyone who died defending their home.

[READ MORE...]

Jim is wearing a cowboy hat, suspenders. Sometimes he sells tomatoes on the side of an old two-lane highway.

He’s sitting in a folding chair. His brim is pushed upward. Jim is smoker-skinny, and his belt looks too big.

He is my friend’s uncle, and his tomatoes look suspicious.

“Are these HOME-grown?” I ask.

“Yessir.”

The tomatoes are pink and blemish-free. They look like industrial candle wax.

“Did YOU grow them?” I ask.

He winks. “Friend of mine.”

But of course.

We talk. He’s been wanting to talk. He heard I'm a writer. He tells me he is a writer.

Since the third grade, he’s written over seven hundred poems. Maybe more.

His poems are mostly for his own reflection. Though he’s written poetry for local papers—a few funerals and birthdays.

He recites one. It’s about rows of peanuts, blue skies, and a dying mother. My kind of poetry.

But he never got a chance to pursue a career in writing. When the Vietnam draft enacted, he

joined. Instead of poetry, he learned how to jump out of airplanes.

“Killing changes you,” he says, “You’re trained to think of your enemy as nothing but a target, not human. Just how it is.”

All I can do is nod.

“But then,” he goes on. “You’re back home, you get to thinking about their mothers and such. And it messes with you.”

When he arrived stateside, he wasn’t the same. The guilt was crippling. Not for killing, but for surviving. His best friends met their ends before his eyes.

His first week home, he slept outdoors. Sleeping inside made him nervous.

And he had no interest in writing—it was hard enough just…