He was outdoorsy. More outdoorsy than me. Don’t get me wrong. I love the outdoors just as much as the next guy. Sometimes, I spend all day watching movies that were filmed entirely outdoors. But he was different.

He smelled like the outdoors. That’s what I remember most about him. It was a leathery smell. Like soot, and foliage, and dirt.

He smelled like this because he worshipped his lawn. The man could waste entire weeks obsessing about one little brown spot in his yard. And he would work in the flower beds more than most peoples’ grandmothers ever did.

He was a blue collar man. It’s impossible for me to tell you much about him without highlighting that. His uniform was denim. He wore it every single day. Except Sundays. He was an ironworker. A union man. I never saw him sit in anything but a Ford.

On weekends, however, he was a certified nutcase.

Once, he had the bright idea to conduct a controlled burn on our land. Thirteen acres of

tall, dry grass. His friends told him it was a bad idea, but like I said, he was a nut.

On Saturday morning, he drove the truck around the property; his buddy rode on the tailgate, dumping gasoline onto the grass. They spent half the day saturating the land. Then he parked near the house and lit a match. One match.

Boom.

Thirteen acres exploded. The fire department was called. The police were called. I think he even made the paper.

It took a full day to put the fire out. And when it was all said and done, my father was covered in black soot, head to toe. He said, “Well, that was a bad idea.”

I remember those words exactly.

Another story I remember. He was driving and he saw this man on the highway whose car broke down on the side of the road.…

I receive a lot of emails, but I can’t answer them all. People have suggested I use auto-generated email responses designed to robotically thank people for messaging. But I don’t like this idea. Too impersonal.

When I was 7, I wrote the governor. Weeks later I received an impersonal form-letter with the governor’s signature, urging me to vote.

I read every email, letter and message I receive. Many of these messages are questions. So I’ve compiled the most common questions into a generic Q&A column. Let’s get started:

Q: Dear Sean, I am 1,380 years old and I have just gone through a very hard period in my life. Sometimes I read your work and I wonder what kind of advice you would have for me, specifically, during this difficult time.

A: I am the last guy who should give advice. If you knew me, you’d know I have made a shipwreck of my own life. I guarantee that my advice is not worth squat. I know some people sort of view me as

Dear Abby, but in truth I’m a fool. I am just some idiot who learned how to type.

Q: So you don't have ANY advice for me?

A: The best advice I ever received came from my mother. She told me there are three ways to achieve success in life: The first way is to be sweet. The second way is to be sweet. The third way is to be sweet.

Q: How do you find the stories you write about in your column?

A: Mostly, people send them to me. As I say, I receive emails from all over the world. Yesterday, I got an email from the prince of Nigeria. He was offering me a lucrative investment opportunity in exchange for my personal bank account number. Sadly, he never emailed back. I hope he’s okay.

Q: What kind of stories do you receive most?

TALLADEGA, Ala.— I hit town after lunchtime. I drive around the square. I pass the Ritz Theater marquee. The trading post. Tina’s Homecookin’ Restaurant.

I am looking for Court Street because I am taking a sewing class today. My appointment is at Miss April’s Fashion Girl Sewing Workshop.

I’ve always wanted to learn to sew. When I was a kid, my mother sewed everything. She made our clothes. She even added custom tags to my clothing. The tags read: “Property of Sean Dietrich.”

Mama even started sewing these tags into my underwear. Heaven knows why. I don’t want to meet the man desperate enough to steal another man’s underpants.

Miss April greeted me at the door. Her workshop was outfitted with Singer sewing machines and spools of colored thread. Fun music was playing. The whole place had an energetic, youthful vibe.

“This is a kid hangout,” Miss April says. “Girls come here after school, and I teach them to sew.”

Miss April has been teaching kids to sew for a long time. Sometimes locals buy their daughters

and granddaughters lessons for Christmas. Sometimes underprivileged girls just need something to do with their hands, and anonymous donors make it happen.

The reason Miss April teaches sewing is simple, she explains. “Because nobody knows how to sew anymore.”

Sewing is a disappearing craft in America. In fact, the skill is practically nonexistent.

Fifty years ago approximately 90 percent of U.S. women practiced the skill of sewing. Today it’s around 12 percent.

And the stats get even more dismal. One survey showed that 87 percent of U.S. households own irons, but only 9 percent use them. Another survey showed that one in three Americans can’t do basic household skills such as ironing, sewing buttons, reading laundry tag symbols, or boiling water.

Yes. Boiling water.

So why are these skills disappearing in America? Miss April knows why.

“Because a lot of schools don’t have…

On the 28th anniversary of your suicide I climbed a mountain. Not figuratively. Literally.

I hiked to the top of Mount Cheaha, the way you might have done.

I was in town for a writing gig. Traveling solo. My wife was back home, cleaning up dog poop, giving dog baths, and feeding our dogs so they could continue to make more poop.

I had an entire day to kill. So I checked into the Holiday Inn Express in Talladega. I drove into the undiluted wilderness. And I hiked a mountain.

It was beautiful. Quiet. Nobody around for miles. I arrived at the first overlook, walked to the edge and was overawed.

The world looked like a tiny train model set. Lots of trees. Tiny ribbon-like roadways, cutting through forests. Lakes that looked like puddles.

Cheaha Mountain stands at 2,413 feet above sea level. It is the highest natural point in Alabama. Which means that, at this exact moment, I was standing closer to heaven than anyone else in the Twenty-Second State. Not figuratively, literally.

And I thought of you. I thought about the day you left us. I thought of your red hair. Your freckled skin. And the way you smelled when you would hug me.

You smelled like Speed Stick Musk deodorant. After you died I started wearing your deodorant brand, just so I could smell you all day long.

Then one day, the supermarket quit selling your particular scent. They only sold Speed Stick “Regular,” or Speed Stick “Ocean Surf,” whatever that is. And you were gone forever.

Many years later, I was wandering through a Dollar General when, by chance, I found Speed Stick Musk on a shelf. I didn’t even know they still made it.

I bought it. When I got to the parking lot, I removed the lid and smelled it. I wept like a child.

Now it’s the only scent I wear.

Today on…

Mobile, Alabama. Morningtime. I was meeting someone important.

I pulled into the parking lot of Toomey’s Beads & Bulk Mardi Gras Supply on Macrae Avenue. Which is the kind of store you will not find in any city but Mobile.

Toomey’s is a 70,000 square-foot warehouse that represents one of the largest Mardi Gras supply inventories in the nation. Which is only fitting because Mobile is the official birthplace of American Mardi Gras.

Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise.

Mobile, Alabama’s Mardi Gras bash is the oldest official Carnival celebration in the United States, started in 1703, shortly after the birth of Dick Clark.

But I wasn’t at Toomey’s to buy supplies for Fat Tuesday. I was here to meet Oscar.

At 11:30 a.m. Oscar arrived. The SUV pulled in. Oscar was accompanied by his handler, Andi.

Andi stepped out of her vehicle and opened the back door. Oscar was on a leash. His tail wagged. His entire backside was gyrating.

The easygoing bluetick hound came stepping out of the backseat. All legs.

He was your quintessential bluetick. White,

with salt-and-pepper ticking. Velvet black ears long enough to qualify as safety hazards. A nose the size of a regulation tennis ball.

A collar around his neck was labeled, BLIND DOG.

“Oscar can’t see,” said his handler. “He has no eyes.”

Oscar’s face is beautiful. Classic hound. Except there are no twinkling brown eyes looking at you. They were surgically removed because of congenital glaucoma.

This is why he walks with a unique gait. He lifts his front paws carefully. Gingerly. Every move he makes is with extreme care. He uses his nose to guide himself.

I could see him taking in his surroundings, using only his sense of smell. Muzzle aimed upward in the air. Testing each scent in the wind.

“His nose is how he sees,” said Jenn Greene, his mother and rescuer. “He can see everything with his…

I wasn’t going to write this, but I have to. Not only for me, but for the good of our children, and our children’s children. No matter how hard it is to address, some things must be done. I’m talking, of course, about the highly controversial issue of homemade ice cream.

Ice cream wasn’t always under scrutiny like it is today. It used to be okay to eat ice cream. But then, suddenly it wasn’t okay, and lots of companies started coming out with healthy frozen yogurt.

A few years later, news reports claimed frozen yogurt was just as bad as ice cream. So they came out with “sugar-free” frozen yogurt, made with “aspartame.” And the world as we knew it fell apart.

Aspartame is actually a lot of fun to say. It sounds like a dirty word, but it isn't. You can use it in social settings and it’s acceptable.

EXAMPLE: “Have you seen traffic today? It’s a real pain in the aspartame.”

So Americans were eating sugar-free yogurt sludge by the gallon, hoping to

live to be one hundred, and doing step aerobics. Companies started going bonkers and making bizarre frozen yogurt flavors like Blackberry-Garbanzo Bean, and Coffee-Bubble Gum, and Toenail.

Then, reports came out with new information claiming aspartame was deadly.

One report stated: “Aspartame turns your bodily fluids into formaldehyde, side effects include: Numbness, tingling, and profound interest in Jazzercise.”

All of a sudden, journalists were telling mankind to stay away from anything that even remotely looked like sugar-free frozen yogurt, and for mankind to eat quinoa and kale instead.

Which is probably why a few months ago, I found two fifty-pound bags of red quinoa in our pantry. It wasn’t long before my wife was feeding me what looked like chicken feed for every meal until sometimes—especially if I sat in one place for too long—grade-A eggs would start appearing beneath my haunches.

But mankind…

Thank you for holding the door for an old woman at Cracker Barrel. You must’ve been fourteen, you were with friends. You were laughing and carrying on when you saw the old woman, pushing a walker. You jogged ahead. You beat her to the door. You held it open.

She thanked you. You yes-ma’amed her. And you made my day, kid.

My whole day.

And thanks for giving money to a homeless man in Birmingham, Alabama. You don’t know me, but I watched you. I was at a stoplight. You were outside UAB School of Medicine campus. You wore green scrubs, and carried a backpack. You gave money. Then, you gave a cup of coffee and a fast food to-go bag.

Thanks for sitting with that young girl after work. She was seated on the sidewalk outside the bar. She was waiting for her ride. It was two in the morning. She didn’t need to be alone at that hour. So you sat with her. You might not think you did much, but you did.

Thank

you for filling that backpack with food, then leaving it in a tenth-grader’s locker—anonymously. You know who you are.

Thank you for working at Children’s of Alabama Hospital. Each one of you.

Thank you for picking up a hitchhiker outside Anniston, Alabama. Even though modern wisdom warns against this, you followed your heart.

When the hitchhiker stepped into your car, you could tell he had mental illness. But you didn’t try to fix him, you didn’t try to be a hero, you didn’t try to do anything major. You were just nice to him. And he appreciated that.

Thanks for driving a kid named Peter to baseball practice. After his father died, his mother has been working double shifts. Peter has been babysitting and cooking supper for his sisters since his mother started working longer hours.

Peter had to drop out of baseball because…