Obnoxious loud-talkers who sit at bars, rank right up there with dogs who lift their legs on your welcome mat.

Take, for instance, the fella at the bar beside me. He launched into a well-rehearsed speech about his world travels. First, the Alps. Then, Belgium, France, Italy, South Africa, Timbuktu.

By then, people at the bar had cleared out.

He asked me, “You done much traveling?”

I shook my head and said, "No, but I've woken up in a cattle pasture."

Loud-Talker rolled his eyes. “See?” he went on. “Now THAT'S your problem. You can't find your true-self unless you TRAVEL!”

So, I paid my tab and traveled my true-self

outside.

The truth is, I've never owned a passport, never stepped foot in Canada, and the closest I've come to self-discovery was South Texas in July, where I saw a real mirage.

I'm uninteresting on paper. I concede. But I regret nothing.

My life hasn't been bad. After all, I've known exceptional people. Like my friend who I'll call, Alan. Alan has no face. Nothing but eyes and pink flesh. This happened when he woke up in a burning mobile home. Pieces of the smoldering ceiling fell on his face…

I'm watching a boy drive a John Deere, in the distance. At least, I think it's a boy, he's too far away to tell.

I know this kid. I can't see him, but I know what kind of clothes he's wearing, I know how he talks—he uses words like, "ain't," too often. And he gets up early.

I once overheard some folks speculate on why the rural-minded start work so early. One person thought it was to avoid the heat. Another suggested that the Bible commands it.

But if you ask anyone I grew up with, they'd tell you it's because their fathers made them. And these early risers are the kind who say the word, "ain't," too often.

It might go like this:

Before the stars have disappeared, you're still half-asleep, wearing work boots, and you are not a happy customer. It's dark. And since you're too young for coffee, you get lukewarm Coca-Cola.

The barn stinks. The tractor is louder than the Second Coming. And even though you're not old enough

to have a learner's permit, you steer this Ford Model 2N, built during World War Two, until your hindparts go numb.

You watch the morning sky change from purple, to gray, to rose-colored. Then: full sunlight.

The engine makes you deaf. You couldn't hear your own ideas if you had any. You pay attention to the rows you're cutting. Whenever you veer off-line, you cuss yourself.

You look backward at your house. It never occurs to you that one day they'll sell this place. Or that the new owners will let the surrounding fields go to weed.

Then, you grow up, move away. You spend a lot of energy convincing people you aren't a dumb hick—cleaning up the way you talk. You quit saying, “ain't,” and stop slicing the cuffs of your jeans with pocketknives.

It works for a while. You convince yourself you've forgotten that life.…

“Hurry up!” Miss June said. “It's happening!”

I came running toward the porch as fast as my chubby seven-year-old legs would take me. “I'll protect you, miss!” I shouted, holding on to my cowboy hat, waving my pistol.

“You don't need to protect me,” she said. “Just hurry, we don't wanna be late!”

I sat in the front seat of Miss June's Cadillac—no seat-belts—staring out the window, my Smith and Wesson holstered around my waist. On my chest: a gold star.

These were the days before iPhone games and juice boxes. If I wasn't wearing a cowboy hat and packing a six-shooter, I was rescuing a maiden from peril, shouting, “I'll

protect you, miss!”

Which is what cowboys do.

Anyway, folks my age might not be as technologically brilliant as today's youth, but we did know how to play dead whenever someone shot us. Which must count for something.

The hospital was a sterile-smelling place. When I walked into the delivery room, I met the smallest thing I'd ever seen—except for frogs. Once, I'd shoved nearly four bullfrogs into my pockets. And then, while sprinting toward the house at top speed, I tripped and fell.

Only one frog survived.

After…

The last thing I remember before the wreck was Jamie singing along with Garth Brooks on the radio. She gave it all she had. I watched her belt out lyrics while I drove along the interstate. Her singing voice: a mixture between Gomer Pyle and a 1953 Buick Skylark.

It was sunny, it felt like the whole world was on fire. We'd just finished camping in Pelham, Alabama. And, after a small spider had found its way onto Jamie's bedroll, she swore off tents for good. And sleeping bags. And husbands.

So, there we were on the interstate. The truck hit us from behind. My wife choked on

the Garth lyrics and flung toward the windshield. I lost control.

He hit us again. On the side.

We spun.

The impact crushed my side of the cab. My windshield turned into shaved ice.

This sent our vehicle sliding into oncoming traffic. It took a quarter of a millisecond for my wife to glance out her window and see a semi-truck honking at us. We screamed, since that's all we could do.

Garth Brooks kept singing.

To tell you the truth, I don't remember much else except a baseball-bat-type sound, accompanied by…

We're at a gas-station-barbecue-joint, a wooden shack that's seen better days. We're the only ones in the place. The waitress serves me tea in a pickle jar which still has the Vlasic label on it.

You don't see that sort of thing anymore.

The truth is, I come from a long line of quart-jar aficionados. My grandaddy sipped a jar on weekends, holidays, fishing trips, and baby dedications. My father also had a collection for special occasions—stored in the shed rafters above the tractor. I wasn't supposed to know about those.

I did.

Once, my friend and I sampled the contents. We climbed into the rafters. He took a swig and

coughed.

“It burns,” he said.

A few seconds later, he fell off the beam onto the dirt. When I asked if he was alright, he laughed, saying, “I never felt gooder!”

That kid is a missionary now.

It doesn't end there. My environmentally-minded wife carries a quart-jar of water in her purse—instead of a plastic bottle. Once, to be funny, I drew three X's on the front.

During a church service, in Wetumpka, Alabama, a ravenous case of cottonmouth overcame her. She unscrewed the lid, then turned it upside…

The morning after my father passed, my aunt opened every window in the house. She said it was to let his spirit escape.

So, I peeked my head outside.

All I saw were my uncles' two beat-up motorhomes rolling into our driveway. They parked in the tall grass, strung power cords into the barn, extended awnings.

That night, they built a campfire, then sat looking at the stars. Now and then, one uncle would stab the fire, sending a spray of sparks into the night.

Instead of conversation, someone brought out a guitar. In his raspy voice—which sounded like a bloodhound with sinus issues—my uncle sang, “Amazing Grace,” and,

“When the Roll is Called Up Yonder.” When he sang, “Will The Circle Be Unbroken?” he was nearly overcome.

I didn't understand the song, or what kind of circle he meant. I'm not sure he did either, because when I asked about it, he lit a fresh cigarette and said, “It's the mystery of life, boy.”

Mysteries.

Like the way clouds keep reproducing out of thin air. Or: what makes a heart beat—and what makes it stop? How a fire works, and why politics feels like a poke to the eye…

I'm looking at the bay water right now. A storm is blowing in. It looks like heaven is fixing to open up.

Vacationers in the cabin to my right are doing the same thing I'm doing. The man is on his porch, wearing a bright red Georgia Bulldog T-shirt, smoking a cigarette.

Watching.

The family in the cabin to my left is from Auburn, Alabama. The back of their truck, smeared with pictures of tigers and eagles. He's on his porch, too. He's sipping a cup of something that's supposed to be coffee. But I'd bet good money it's hair-of-the-dog.

“Good morning,” says Georgia.

“Good morning,” I'm saying.

Auburn says nothing—his

morning isn't so good.

Well mine is. And I'm just going to come right out and say it: I feel grateful. I don't know why, to tell you the truth. I suppose a man can't control the way he feels, sometimes.

Neither good nor bad.

Anyway, it's not because my life is wonderful, or because I'm naturally happy. My life hasn't always been so wonderful. And I'm not exactly the giddiest little sailor God ever created.

But I'm grateful for things. Things like puppies, geckos, and stocked coolers. For…

Our air conditioner went out. And if I were to tell you that it's hot, I would be making a gross understatement. It's not hot. It's sweltering—that's what my mama calls it.

Our bedsheets feel like they're made of industrial wool. I smell like the raw side of a mule. My wife has sweat rings under her sweat rings. Our dog looks suicidal.

I don't know how the old-timers did it, before window-units. I remember my grandfather saying, as a boy, he'd sit beneath his house with his dogs. He'd practice guitar; they'd pant.

His mother would lower lunch through the loose floorboards—crumbled cornbread in a jar, doused with buttermilk.

“All food ought be cold during the dog days," he'd say. "Tea, tomatoes, cucumbers, potato salad, watermelon, slaw...”

Summer food.

And then there were summer Sundays. “Church was awful," my grandfather said. "Cramming a bunch of folks into one hot little chapel, everybody sweating. It's enough to make you believe in Hell."

Even so, Hell happened to be his favorite season of the year. I asked him how this could be, when only hours earlier, I'd seen two trees fighting over a dog.

He said, “We didn't notice the heat,…