It was late. I had just finished performing my one-man spasm in Tupelo, Mississippi. We were tired. My wife and I had a long drive ahead.

But there was one stop I had to make.

The GPS was confused. Siri led us on a raccoon chase. We were going in circles. At one point, we realized we had passed the same Dollar Tree four times.

But eventually, we pulled into 306 Elvis Presley Drive.

The narrow house, the place of Elvis Aaron Presley’s birth, was as big as a minute. About the same size as the junk house my daddy grew up in. A shotgun house. White clapboards. Gray porch. Porch swing. Screen door.

I had my guitar in the van. So I sat on the porch swing and tuned it. The balmy Mississippi air will detune a guitar in only seconds.

I sang “Peace in the Valley.” Same tune we sang at my old man’s funeral. I still remember watching my daddy’s ironworker friends cover their weathered faces and sniff their noses.

My father was

an Elvis fanatic. There were only three performers he nearly idolized. Hank Senior, Ray Charles, and Elvis. One of those three was always playing in his garage workshop, over the tweed speakers of a Philco radio.

“If you were a kid in the fifties,” Daddy once said, “you loved Elvis. He was in our drinking water.”

And love Elvis he did. He could sing all the hits. Every lyric. Every inflection.

I have vague memories of driving in Daddy’s F-100, with my bare feet on his dashboard, with Elvis playing. Only, I could hardly hear Elvis over Daddy’s singing.

I don’t have many memories of making Daddy proud. Save, for one.

It was a Fourth of July picnic. I was 9. There was a plywood stage. There was a gospel quartet. There was a band.

The event planners asked me to sing an Elvis…

These aren’t my stories, but I’m going to tell them.

Let’s call her Dana. Dana was going for a walk near her home. It was a dirt road. Her high-school reunion was coming up, she was getting into shape.

A truck pulled beside her. He slowed down. He rolled his window open, he asked if she needed a ride.

Something was wrong. It was the way he looked at her.

Before she knew it, he’d jumped out of the vehicle. She tried to get away. He overpowered her and threw her into a ditch.

She landed a few good hits to his face, but he outweighed her.

He used a pocketknife. He pressed it against her. She screamed something. She doesn’t remember which words she used, but she aimed them toward heaven.

Something happened.

His body froze. Completely. He was like a statue, only meaner. She wanted to run, but she was too scared.

That’s when she saw another man standing above her attacker. He was tall, with a calm face.

“It’s gonna be okay, Dana,” the tall man said. “Go on home, sweetie, everything’s gonna be

okay.”

Here’s another:

Jim was dying. A seventy-something Vietnam veteran with high morals, pancreatic cancer, and a two-packs-a-day habit.

Doctors said his cancer would kill him.

Treatments were hell. Jim met a man in the VA hospital. A homeless man with a duffle bag. A fellow vet.

They shared a few cigarettes. They swapped stories. They understood each other. Jim invited the man home.

The man stayed in Jim’s guest room. He stayed for several months.

He became Jim’s caregiver. He wiped Jim’s mouth after episodes of vomiting, he stayed up late during sleepless nights, he helped Jim bathe. He’d pat Jim’s back when nausea got bad, saying, “It’s gonna be alright.”

And he was there on Jim’s final day, too. He waited in the den while Jim’s family gathered around his bed.…

The preacher got there early. He was wearing his Sunday clothes. Necktie.

His truck came roaring into the driveway of an ugly old house.

The preacher slid out of the cab. He was old and bent. Hair the color of a retired dandelion. He brought to mind Walter Mathau after a long night.

The elderly cleric grabbed his Bible. He knocked on the front door, straightening his collar.

A young mother answered. Little girl on her hip.

“Thank you for doing this,” the mama said.

He followed her through the dingy house. They were poor, but the house was in perfect order. A lot of people think the poor don’t keep clean houses. This is a Hollywood myth. “You don’t have to be rich to own a dustrag,” the author’s grandmother used to say.

The poor are often proud.

The preacher passed through the den. Tonka trucks littered the floor. A few GI Joes, fallen in the line of duty.

He arrived in the backyard, where he met the Tonka truck owner. A little boy, with a shovel in his

hands. The boy smelled like little-kid sweat. His cheeks, flushed from manual labor.

There was a newly dug hole in the earth beside the boy. There was an object beside the hole, wrapped in a bedsheet. A canine tail poking from beneath the sheet.

The preacher removed his jacket. “You lift her from one side, son, I’ll get the other.”

The boy was strong for his size. And there were holes in his little shoes. It took some doing, but together they placed the heavy remains of Boy’s Best Friend into the ground.

“What do we do now?” asked the boy.

“Now it’s my turn.”

The old man put on his jacket.

The pulpiteer opened his leatherbound book. He read some. He read the one about the Lord being a shepherd, and about the Valley of the Shadow of Death,…

My interview was scheduled for noon. It’s not every day you are a keynote speaker for Miss Bernice’s fourth-grade class career day, via video call. I wore a necktie.

Miss Bernice’s class has been interviewing a lot of people lately about their careers by using video calls. She has been introducing the kids to people with different occupations from all over the U.S.

So far, her class has welcomed guests from all fields. The class has interviewed PhDs, celebrated journalists, famous musicians, chefs, well-known songwriters, people who work in finance, pro fishermen, doctors, and anyone else who drives a Range Rover.

I was scheduled to go on after the decorated navy pilot.

While the fighter pilot gave his presentation, I started to feel like a an idiot. I looked at the little camera image of myself on my laptop screen and cringed. My red hair was disheveled, my face looked tired. The bags beneath my eyes could have been used for a Samsonite ad.

Captain America wowed his audience, and I was trying to remember when

and why I became a writer in the first place.

Truthfully, I don’t know when exactly I first wanted to be a writer. I can’t remember ever NOT wanting to be one.

Still, I think it must have happened officially for me in the fourth grade. That was the year our teacher read “Where the Red Fern Grows.”

She would read aloud to us after lunch period, every weekday for an hour. And she did all the voices.

It takes real talent to do the character voices right.

That beautiful woman with the cat-eye glasses and the coiffed hair possessed such talent. I can never forget that period of my life.

We would file into the classroom after gorging ourselves in the cafeteria. She would turn off the lights, sit by the window, and read to us.

Students would gather around her like disciples…

So here’s something. February 29th is the rarest birthday on the calendar. Did you know that?

There is only a one in a 1,461 chance of being born on February 29th. This means that a leap year baby is more rare than an albino peacock, or purple carrots, or a totoaba fish.

February 29th babies are earthly rarities. And rare things are, by default, noteworthy. I know this to be true because February 29th is Superman’s birthday.

Superman’s real name isn’t Superman, of course. It’s Clark Kent. And, actually, if you’re getting technical, his true name isn’t Clark Kent, either. It’s Kal-El.

Kal-El was born on Planet Krypton. When he was a baby his birth parents sent him to Earth on an infant-sized spaceship shortly before the planet’s natural cataclysm. He was found by a farmer who named him Clark.

I know this because I am a huge Superman fan. And we Superman fans do not call him Superman, if you must know. We call him “Supes.” It is our way.

I am still a

big fan. Currently, Superman comics litter my office. I have Superman statues everywhere. I collect Superman lunchboxes. I grew up wearing Superman underpants.

When I was a kid, every February 29th, I’d sit before our Zenith console TV and watch reruns of the “Adventures of Superman” starring George Reeves, who looked like a regular person, not like a professional wrestler. George Reeves looked like a guy who had put in some time around the queso dip.

The local station broadcasted Superman marathons all day on the 29th. I celebrated his birthday by watching each episode, clutching my figurines, dressed in my little Superman undies.

I had a crummy childhood. My homelife wasn’t the stuff of dreams. Mine was an abusive home. My youth was painted with suicide and gun violence. I failed a grade. I was not a smart child. I had bad teeth. We…

I have here a letter from Randy. “Sean,” the note begins—people are always calling me that. “Do you have any words of wisdom I can give to my son?

“My son, Jason, is getting married on Friday, and I am responsible for his wedding toast. I’d like some wisdom to pass on, the only problem is, I don’t have any.”

Well, Randy, I asked a handful of friends for words of wisdom from elders in their lives.

The rules were simple, the wisdom giver had to (a) be over 75, and (b) they had to be—technically—still alive. The deadline for submission was yesterday. The maxims and folk expressions came in from all over the US.

Here are some:

LINDA, 91—Being frugal doesn’t mean you have to be cheap. Being cheap doesn’t help anyone, and it takes the fun out of life. My late husband was so cheap he wouldn’t have paid a nickel to see Jesus riding a bicycle.

SIMON, 82—A lot of people are into fitness, and that’s great, I guess. But you can’t live longer, you can only

live deeper.

BEVA, 89—Happiness is a town halfway between Too Little and Too Much.

RITA, 83—American girls need to eat real food. Eat until you have to unbutton your pants now and then. Heavensake, there are girls on TV so skinny you can’t even see their shadow.

JERRY, 80—Being rich isn’t the same as being comfortable. My uncle was so rich, he bought a new boat every time the other one got wet. And he was miserable.

ROBYN, 78—Even if someone is ugly to you, don’t be ugly back.

DANNY, 91—This is a generation of workaholics. On the farm, we stopped work every day at three to enjoy our life. But young people today are busier than a cat covering crap on a marble floor. Slow down.

SAM, 88—Being humble don’t mean you ain’t got your pride. But a Rolls-Royce…

Somewhere in Georgia. An old cafe. Vinyl booth seats. Duct tape on the cushions. Country music overhead. Reba is singing about Fancy.

The waitress is young. Maybe sixteen. She is wearing dental braces. She’s dressed in the local high-school colors. She is pregnant.

Far as I can tell, she’s the only waitress on duty.

She takes my order, and apologizes in advance for slow service.

“Ain’t got no other waitresses today,” she explains. “And I’m pregnant.”

“How far along?”

“Seven months.”

“Is the baby kicking a lot?”

“Hardly even moves. I asked my doctor when my baby would finally move. Doctor said, ‘With any luck, after he graduates college.’”

The waitress is in the weeds today. Her dining room is full. She tells all customers there is going to be a wait. But people don’t seem to mind. They don’t get worked up in small towns.

While I wait, I look around. The dining room features all types. Men in camo. Workers in neon vests. Muddy boots galore.

Young marrieds, nestled in booths, speaking animatedly with one another.

Old married couples, hardly speaking. You can always tell a couple who

has been married a while. They barely speak.

Last week, for example, my cousin and I were on a golf course. We overheard an elderly couple having a sparse conversation. The old man said, “Honey, if I died, would you remarry again?”

“No sweetie,” she said.

“I’m sure you would.”

“Well,” she said. “Maybe I would.”

He said, “Would you let him sleep in our bed?”

“I guess so.”

“Would you let him drive my truck?”

“I suppose.”

“Would you let him use my clubs?”

She replied, “No, he’s left handed.”

Also in the dining room today are a bunch of high-schoolers. I don’t know why they aren’t in school. They seem to be friends with the waitress.

They’re laughing with her. Being loud. Playfully giving her a hard time.…

NEW YORK—LaGuardia Airport is located in the Queens borough of New York, smack dab in the Fifth Circle of Hell.

The airport is big, rundown, covered in bubblegum wads, and full of angry people who are waiting for delayed flights. I am told that LaGuardia always has thousands of delayed flights.

In fact, three quarters of New York’s population is comprised of airline passengers, most from the Midwest, who have been waiting for a flight home since 1940. They are sleeping atop their luggage, huddled in various corners, living on breath mints.

I am sitting with hundreds of them. Most of these are people whose mothers never taught them to speak with inside voices. Like the two women behind me.

One woman says loudly, “Have you ever seen that one movie with, oh… What’s his name?”

“What movie?” says the other.

“It has that movie star… Oh, what’s that movie? He was real funny.”

“Chevy Chase?”

“No, not Chevy Chase.”

“I love Chevy Chase.”

“I don’t remember the name of the movie.”

“Look it up on your phone.”

“My phone’s dead.”

“Why don’t you charge it?”

“I forgot my charger.”

“Are you sure it wasn’t Chevy Chase?”

“No. It wasn’t Chevy Chase.”

“Chevy Chase was in a lot of movies.”

“I’d remember if it was Chevy Chase.”

“I like Chevy Chase.”

“I wonder what ever happened to him?”

“Who? Chevy Chase? He’s still going at it.”

“Chevy Chase is?”

“Chevy Chase won’t quit.”

Silence.

“Did I ever tell you about my hysterectomy?”

Sweet Jesus.

Beside me are boys playing games on smartphones. They barely speak. They are not even in this world. Their heads are craned forward. They are staring at bright screens.

Every few minutes one shouts something like, “HAHA! I JUST DECAPITATED YOU!”

“I‘M LIQUIFYING YOUR BRAIN!”

“NUH UH!”

“YUH HUH!”

“NUH UH!”

“YUH HUH!”

“MOM!”

Maybe I should be concerned about America’s youth. But of course these…

Somewhere in South Carolina. A rundown seafood joint. The kind of place that serves oysters on the half shell.

I’m sitting at the bar, eating Captain’s Wafers, waiting for my food.

The view is astounding. The salt marshes go on for miles, only interrupted by the sabal palms.

The beer is cheap, and cold enough to crack your fillings. The cocktail sauce is free.

The woman behind the bar looks happy tonight. She is late-middle-aged, and silver haired. She missing more than a few teeth. But it doesn’t affect her beauty. She bounces behind the bar with springy feet.

I finally ask, “Why are you so happy?”

She leans onto the bar. “Guess,” she says.

“You won the powerball?”

She shakes her head. “Guess again.”

“You’re pregnant?”

She laughs. “Honey, that ship sailed a long dadgum time ago.”

Only she doesn’t say “dadgum.”

“I’m happy,” she says, “‘cause I’m gonna graduate.”

“Graduate from what?”

“High school. My daughter and I just took the GED test. And we passed it. Passed it clean.”

The woman looks at me and smiles a her tooth at me. And I’m smiling my less-than-optimal dental

work at her, too.

Because, you see, sitting before her is a guy who was a dropout, just like her.

“I got pregnant when I was in ninth grade,” she goes on. “Parents kicked me out, I had to start working. But I ain’t sorry. I got a good daughter out of the deal, I married a dadgum good man.

“When you’re a kid, it’s easy to drop out. Your little teenage brain only thinks about the here and now. If only I had listened to the adults in my life.”

I nod. Because I’m picking up what she’s laying down.

“But, hey, I don’t regret my life choices,” she adds. “They made me who I am today.”

Another nod from the choir.

She uses a church key to pop…

The letter came via snail mail. It was postmarked Richmond, Virginia. It was penned in a childish hand.

“My teacher reads your stories to our class sometimes and I wanted to know, can you write about me? If it’s not too much trouble for you to do?

“I am 8 years old. I don’t really have anything cool about me. I have red hair. But you can probably come up with something cool. My dad died this year the same way yours did, so my teacher said you are the same as me. It’s okay if you can’t write back.”

To the little boy in Richmond: Red is the most prestigious hair color in the world. That is not an opinion.

Fifty years ago, experts estimated that redheads made up approximately 8 percent of the earth’s population. But the percentage of redheads sharply decreases each year.

This year, the percentage is at an all-time low. About 1 percent of the world’s population have red hair. Ours is the rarest hair color in the solar

system. So welcome to the club, friend.

Our red hair is caused by a gene called the MC1R gene. Genes are microscopic very scientific things in the human body. They float around in your bloodstream, wearing little lab coats and carrying around tiny clipboards and pocket protectors.

A gene is something your parents carry around with them, all the time. Sort of like auto insurance, only more dependable.

So if both your parents had the MC1R gene, this means that you have a 25 percent chance of being born with red hair.

Congratulations, your parents both had the MC1R gene. You’re a ginger. May God have mercy on your soul.

I got my red hair, personally, from my dad. My dad had the MC1R gene. He was a redhead. He came from a long line of redheads. Although when he got older, his hair became more…