I attended a potluck in the sticks. It was for a funeral. The man who'd passed was a deacon. An elderly man I once knew who used to call me Critter.

I never figured out why.

The covered dish supper took place in an ancient fellowship hall. Linoleum floors. Cheap Christmas decor. Upright piano.

I can't think of a happier place than this ratty Baptist hall with water spots on the ceiling. This is as close to Heaven as you can get without sleeping in a pinewood box.

I grew up in a place like this.

Consequently, I realize not everyone knows what I'm talking about here. For example: my pal Dan, from New York. His family never darkened the doors of a church. For socialization, his father joined a bowling league.

Dan once asked, "What're covered dish suppers?"

Allow me to walk you through one, Dan.

For starters: imagine you're a chubby redhead with a proclivity toward barbecued ribs. Your mama makes you wear a necktie, then she wets your hair with spit.

Now imagine card-tables weighed down

with all the artery-clogging poultry permissible by county law.

A few greatest hits on the buffet:

Chicken and dumplings, fried chicken, fried backstrap, potato salad, Jell-O salad, ham salad, chicken salad, creamed corn, ambrosia, and some unidentifiable mayonnaisey deal with raisins.

While you fix a plate, elderly women with beehive hair-dos observe you. Their job is to keep the line moving with horsewhips.

“How 'bout some tea?” one says, filling your plastic cup.

Or, she might say, “How 'bout leaving some damn chicken livers for the rest of God's children you greedy little cuss?”

At the tables, you'll find white-haired men in button-downs and steel-toed boots. Good men, who cheerfully give up their seats to anyone wearing makeup.

And every potluck has a prayer.

Take, for instance, the one I attended. The pastor—an eighty-three-year-old—asked the blessing. He used old words folks…

She is old. And she tells a story of the old days. Back when the world was a different place. Electricity was a luxury. Suppers were cooked on iron stoves. Men tipped hats to ladies.

Things have changed.

She was a nice-looking child. I saw the photo that proves it. Big smile. Blonde curls. And like three quarters of Alabama at the time, she lived on the rural route.

As a young girl, her morning routine was feeding chickens, then helping her mother fix breakfast. She'd run outside, climb over the chicken fence, and gather eggs. Her mother warned her not to scale the tall fence, but nine-year-olds do not listen.

One morning, she fell from the top. Her fingers got caught in the chicken wire. It was serious and bloody. She lost two fingers and severed a tendon in her thumb.

Throughout childhood, she became good at hiding her mangled hand. Often, she kept a fist to conceal her missing parts. When she got old enough to like boys, they did not return

the favor.

One year, her high school threw a Sadie Hawkins dance—where girls invite fellas. She cooked up enough courage to ask a boy. He turned her down. So she tried another. Same response. No takers.

That hurt.

Life went on. When she was in her twenties, she accompanied her father to the hardware store—a place men lingered to talk gossip. It was a pleasant porch, covered in brown spit.

That's where she met him. He was sitting with the others. He rose to his feet when he saw her. He was eleven years her senior. A war veteran. Tall. Skinny. Sandy hair.

She kept her hands in her dress pockets.

He smiled at her. She smiled back. That weekend, he called on her—and in those days that meant calling her father.

He picked her up. They took in a movie. He gave her royal treatment.…

Early December, our dog had puppies in the barn. For the life of me, I couldn't figure out why the litter came out white—our dog was black. The puppies looked like cotton piglets.

All except one.

One was black and white spotted—like a Holstein cow. After much deliberation, I named him Milkbone. Daddy thought the name lacked punch. But he agreed to let me keep Milk as my one and only Christmas gift.

Before Milk was old enough to open his eyes, I'd watch him nurse beneath the heat lamp. He'd crawl around on his belly like a slug, nosing for his mother.

When he finally pulled his eyes open, I'd like to think I was one of the first things he saw.

Sappy. I know.

For Christmas, Milk spent the holiday on my lap. He wore a small bandanna around his neck, sitting at attention while everyone opened gifts. Then Daddy handed me a box.

"What's this?” I asked.

“Santa felt sorry for you,” said Daddy.

It was a dog collar. Orange, with a gold tag. The

tag was the shape of a bone, with "Milkbone" etched on it.

Daddy beamed. “That silly name is official now.”

In the following months, Milk got bigger. He was a healthy specimen. His paws were ten-sizes too big for his lanky frame.

His was a good life. All he ever did was pee and make apple butter.

Together, Milk and I wandered all over God's creation. He slept on my bed. I fed him scraps from my plate. He was the kind of dog who kept a few paces behind me at all times. And you can't train dogs to do that. They either do or they don't.

A few years went by. One day, while riding the school bus home, the worst. Somebody pointed out the window and screamed.

“LOOK!” the boy hollered.

It was lying in the dirt road. Something…

Daddy came home with a dozen trees strapped and loaded on his truck. He had a bagful of gifts in the passenger seat.

He rolled his window down.

“Better hurry,” he yelled to me, spitting sunflower seeds. “Got a lot to do tonight.”

I sat in the front seat with my hands on the heater. The radio played Nat King Cole. No matter how old I get, I'm hard pressed to recall fonder memories.

We rounded the corner into a mobile-home park. It was dark. People had decorated homes with Christmas lights of every color.

We pulled into a driveway with no lights. Daddy brought out two Santa hats. Mine was too big. So was his.

He read from a clipboard. “First delivery is Billy Adams," he said.

So, I dug through the bag for boxes addressed to Billy.

We walked to the porch and beat on the door, Daddy carried the balsam fir in a bear hug. A man answered.

Daddy asked, “You Mister Billy Adams?”

The man looked uneasy, so Daddy explained the whole thing. About how our

church donated trees and gifts to people who signed up to receive help during the holidays. He used plenty of charm to get his point across.

The man looked offended. “My name isn't Billy," he said. "I didn't sign up for help, and I don't need no damn tree."

Then he slammed the door.

Daddy put his boot in the door jamb. “But Mister Adams, maybe your wife signed you up.”

“Impossible. She's dead."

“Well,” Daddy said, peeking inside. “Looks like you ain't got a tree, seems to me you could use one."

"Don't want a tree."

"And we got presents, too. Nothing fancy, just a bunch'a fruitcakes.”

A blatant lie. The boxes contained no fruitcakes, only heavenly confections that our church ladies baked. Brownies, cookies, and God's gift to mankind: fudge.

“I don't want presents," the man said, pushing…

Christmas morning. We served food at a mission.

Well, not me, exactly. My wife and in-laws dished out green beans and turkey while I washed dishes in back with the other indentured servants.

I'll be truthful, I'd never done anything even remotely charitable on Christmas morning—unless you count marching in the holiday parade with the Boy Scouts, tossing out coozies.

The woman washing dishes beside me was in her fifties. She was quiet, small, country. She didn't have much to say except for, “This plate goes over there,” or an occasional, “You call that skillet clean, dummy?”

Dishwashing is not my strongest skill.

A boy came into the kitchen. He was young. Black. Gigantic. They hugged. She removed her yellow gloves and kissed him on the forehead.

“This is my son,” she introduced me.

He almost broke my hand. He must've been fifteen. But he was the size of a fifty-year-old pecan tree.

She sent him back to the front-lines where he shoveled mashed potatoes to people with long beards and ratty jackets.

“Cute kid,”

said I, scrubbing a fifty-gallon soup pot.

“Can you believe someone threw him away?” she said. "He was a dumpster baby.”

And in case I didn't know what that was, she explained. As an infant, someone found him in the dumpster of a Mexican restaurant. Nobody knew how long he'd been there.

The day she met him, she happened to be volunteering at the mission thrift store when they brought him in. She'd never done any volunteer work before. She'd signed up as a way to meet people and cure her empty-nest syndrome. She was divorced. Her kids were grown.

“It was an accident that I was even there, I was supposed to be out of town, visiting family, but my car broke down."

Some ladies were giving the baby a bath in the break-room sink. He had tomato sauce all over him. She said…

I believe humble people will take over the world. Maybe that seems like a strange thing to say. Just hear me out.

Eventually, I think modest people will own every football stadium, steel factory, brewery, peanut farm, fishing hole, longleaf forest, Tennessee mountain, elementary school, and low-level supervisor job at Walmart.

It will take some time. Maybe hundreds of years. But these folks are cropping up everywhere. They're biding their time.

I'm talking about people like my cousin. At family gatherings, he doesn't even fix a plate for himself. He fills yours instead, and when you're finished, he'll take it to the sink.

At the end of the night, you'll find him and his wife doing dishes.

People like Danny. Who started a company with his friend. After fifteen years, his friend elected himself president and started buying new cars every few weeks.

They gave Danny a pay cut.

Danny told me, “When they fired me, it was kind of a blessing. I'm just not smart enough to run a big business.”

He's blessed to

be a janitor now.

People like Lisa. Who has spent most of her life living in a two-bedroom trailer. She has five kids. Five. No husband. She jokingly calls herself a failure.

Well, joke all you want, Lisa. But your daughter is no failure. She graduated from the University of Alabama on a full scholarship. Your oldest son did the same thing. Your youngest boy is a missionary in Chile.

Some failure.

Then there's Billy, who stutters. His father beat him for it. Also, Amanda, who towers over her eighth-grade class, who thinks she's fat, who speaks in a whisper.

Caroline, who's wanted to be an artist her whole life, but is too busy caring for her disabled husband to have time.

Melissa, too unselfish to take the last biscuit at breakfast this morning. Ricky, a richly talented human being, and too good-hearted to believe…

I'm driving. I see old barns outside my window. I counted three in the time it took me to write that.

Also: I see cattle. Pastures—brown from fall weather. A bright sky. An old billboard that reads: "Sinners go to hell."

Another billboard: "I buy junk, but sell antiques."

I pulled over to visit this junk shop, which was once an old service station. Because shopping for garbage is my favorite pastime.

The old woman behind the counter has silver hair that hangs down to her hips.

“Anything in 'ticular you huntin', hon?”

“You got any old pocket knives?”

“'Course we got'em. 'Ere's a passel of'em rye chonder.”

I'll bet they don't have passels up north.

This two-lane highway is more or less empty today. It's a weekend, and people are spending time at family homesteads. That's how things go in this part of the world. Family first. Family second. Family last.

We pass several houses with herds of cars parked out front. These are old, single-story homes you don't usually notice when you ride by. They have plank-siding,

tin roofs, screen doors, live oaks in the front, tire swings.

I haven't seen a good tire swing in ages.

My father hung tire swings often. Once, he scaled to the top of an oak to hang one from high branches. He climbed better than any of my pals.

“How'd you learn to climb like that?” one kid asked.

“I'm an iron-worker, son,” said Daddy. “We can climb anything.”

The boys were impressed.

Well, I'll bet he couldn't have climbed these trees I'm driving past now. These things are covered in kudzu. You can't climb anything covered in that. I have tried.

My aunt's backyard was a kudzu jungle. I decided to conquer one of these trees. And, since I was the son of an iron-worker, I believed genetics were on my side. They weren't.

Just now, a semi-truck shot by…

I'm not a physician, but I'm about as close as you can get. And as a highly trained liberal arts major, I'd like to give you a prescription.

Don't worry.

Don't make me say it twice.

Of course, I shouldn't suggest such a thing. Trying to quit worrying is like trying to keep a pet squirrel.

I once had a pet squirrel—I'm not making this up—named Hank Williams Aaron. One day, I opened the cage to feed him. All I saw was a brown blur. Hank was halfway to Galveston before I could say his name.

My point: you can't stop worrying. Because your mind is like a squirrel, the moment you open the door, it goes nuts, so to speak.

I don't even know what I'm saying here.

The truth is, I was going to write about something else. But today, I saw a young girl crying outside the doctor's office. It got to me.

She sat on a bench, head hung low. A puddle in her lap. People walked by, uninterested.

An old woman finally stopped and hugged

the girl.

They exchanged no words. Only painful smiles.

Look, I know life isn't fair. In fact it's downright criminal. Flat tires, red bank accounts, relationship disasters, a bad diagnosis, busted bones. Death. I don't know what fate dumped in your lap, but I know it stinks.

You have a right to worry, you're a person. This world kicks you in the teeth, then steals your wallet. What kind of idiot would tell you not to worry?

Me.

Yesterday, I pulled out old photos. I thumbed through and saw images of my ancestors. They were poor. I'm talking lucky-to-make-it-past-forty poor.

Then, I found a few pictures of myself, awkward boy that I used to be. Chubby faced, freckled. That kid had a lot to learn—just like his poor ancestors did before him.

And it wasn't all hopscotch and ping pong, either.…

Girls like flowers, so buy her flowers. It's that simple. You're fifteen, she's fifteen. Not enough fifteen-year-olds give flowers anymore.

When I was fifteen, my uncle once sent my aunt flowers. It was like the Second Coming took place on the porch.

My aunt told me, “Lotta problems could be solved if boys bought flowers now and then.”

I'm inclined to agree. I know bouquets get a bad reputation among fellas your age,—which is a shame—but these boys are missing out.

There's nothing more exhilarating than standing on a doorstep, wondering if she'll like zinnias, if she'll like you, or whether her father has violent tendencies.

Also, I feel obliged to tell you, this new girlfriend isn't just a girl. This is a human.

The problem, of course, is that each underwear ad, swimsuit magazine, and perfume commercial is trying to make her into something else.

This world has done women wrong. It's ruined their confidence. It expects them to be scholars, nannies, interior decorators, chefs, maids, and ER nurses. It tells them to be

leaner, tanner, taller, slimmer, faster, trendier, sleeker, and blonder.

And if that doesn't break your heart, let me tell you about the sixteen-year-old whose boyfriend told her she was fat.

He made fun of her. She went on a diet. Dyed her hair. She eventually lost a few sizes, then she had a few bouts with anorexia. It was bad. She's in therapy now.

I'm no expert, but she didn't need carb-counting. She needed flowers.

I guess what I'm trying to say is: I know you're only a kid, but I'm counting on you to save the world.

Long ago, our ancestors gave us a society with country dances, fiddle bands, and walks home after dark. We ruined it. We traded the whole thing in for rock music that sounds like angry chainsaws, and mass shootings.

Listen, this is about more than proms, holding hands,…