The letter came via email. And in the interest of keeping the identity of the writer anonymous, I have decided not to tell you that his name is David Eriksson, of Omaha, Nebraska, zip code 68104.

“Dear Sean,” the email began, “I recently read that you love Milo’s tea and drink it all day. Well, I have been to Alabama and eaten at a Milo’s. And I just wanted to say that Milo’s, like Alabama, is terrible. Milo’s tea is too sweet. I prefer iced tea from McDonald’s and I’ll take my response off the air.”

Dear Anonymous Person Named David, I appreciate you taking time out of your busy schedule to send me your opinion on iced tea. I must, however, respectfully disagree.

For starters, one thing you learn as an op-ed columnist is that all opinions are subjective. After all, who among us is qualified to say that one thing is better than another?

The answer is me. I am qualified. And McDonald’s tea is awful. I wouldn’t use McDonald’s tea to scrub oil stains

off my driveway.

In all fairness, you are from Nebraska. So you are probably not an iced tea aficionado. I have traveled through Nebraska. I have tasted the tea, which tastes much like sulfuric acid only with less sugar content.

“Ma’am,” I said to the waitress, “there is something wrong with my tea.”

“What’s wrong with it?”

“I don’t need an insulin injection.”

And one time, I spent the night in Nebraska after I made a speech in Osceola, Iowa. And let me tell you, it wasn’t easy finding a place to stay in rural Nebraska. Nobody could understand my accent.

Plus, it took us hours to find a hotel because, apparently, the power was out, and Eastern Nebraska’s computers were down. It was a region-wide outage that was tragic. Reportedly, 43 University of Nebraska-Omaha students were stuck on an escalator for six…

Dear Myra, on your first day of seventh grade, I wanted to sit down and write you a letter. Namely, I wanted to remind you not to be anxious about starting a new school.

So do not be nervous.

But then, of course, whenever someone tells you NOT to do something, your brain ends up doing it even worse. It’s human nature.

An example of this would be if I were to tell you NOT to envision your little brother, Jason, going poop. Immediately, you would envision little Jason, sitting on the toilet, waiting for the spirit to move, shouting at you, and saying, “THERE’S SOMEONE IN HERE!”

Which is what all people shout in bathroom stalls when people try to barge in on them. We use these words verbatim. I don’t know why we all shout these exact words in public bathrooms. Whenever a bathroom stall is locked, there is obviously someone in there. There is no need to shout about it.

This is why, whenever someone tries to barge in on me

in a public restroom, I start singing. Usually, I sing something from the catalog of James Brown. Such as, “I Feel Good,” or “Let a Man Come in and Do the Popcorn.” Because that is the kind of world I want to live in.

But what I am getting at is that you shouldn’t be nervous today, Myra, because you have nothing to be nervous about.

I know your parents are both recently deceased from a car accident. I also know you and your brother are living in foster care with Miss Pamela, whom you barely know.

Your life is upside down. And now it’s time to start a new school. You have anxiety. You have panic attacks. You’re nervous. But the truth is, you don’t need to be worried. And I’m going to tell you why.

Because today is no ordinary day, Myra. Oh, it…

There is a lot of talk in the writing community about how artificial intelligence chatbots are going to replace authors someday. The fear is that AI will take real writing jobs and we writers will eventually be forced to live in refrigerator cartons beneath an overpass.

This does not scare me because, as an English major, I know from experience that if you choose the right overpass, it’s not so bad.

To further investigate the matter of AI, I signed up for ChatGPT, which is a robot developed by OpenAI. This language-based bot can, without doing any legwork or actual research, piece together fragments of quasi-true information gleaned from the internet and write incredibly crappy essays. Exactly like us writers.

What frightens us writers, however, is that you can ask ChatGPT to write in the style of ANY author, and the computer will mimic an author’s unique prose and voice.

I decided to test this. I logged in and asked the chatbot a few questions. First I asked the chatbot if it

had feelings.

“No, I am not sentient. I am a machine learning model called GPT-3.5, designed to generate human-like text based on the input I receive. I lack consciousness, self-awareness, and true understanding. My responses are generated based on patterns and information from data I was trained on.”

Next, I asked ChatGPT to write 50 words in the style of Sean Dietrich. Which is me. This is where things got scary. Here is what the chatbot wrote:

“Let me tell y’all a little somethin’ ‘bout a Southern breeze on a lazy afternoon. It's like Grandma's sweet tea, cool and a’comfortin’. Makes you forget your worries and sets your soul a’dancin’. So sit for a spell, listen close, and let that breeze a’carry you to simpler times.”

I had to laugh. Because, for starters, we did not call my grandmother “Grandma,” she was always “Granny.” And Granny’s sweet tea…

“WAHOO! WELCOME TO THE WAHOOS STADIUM!” That’s what he’d always say.

Josh Parr’s wheelchair sat parked at the top of the stairs where he greeted all ticket holders with a high-five and a corny joke. He was the first person you saw when you entered Blue Wahoo ballpark.

“He was our front gate guy,” said his employer, Donna Kirby. “He was the guy who always shouted “WAHOO! WELCOME TO THE WAHOOS!”

“Josh was a people magnet,” said another friend. “He was made for this job.”

For the unbaptized, the Pensacola Blue Wahoos are a Minor League team. They’re a good ball club, consistently at the top of the Southern League.

This year, for example, the Wahoos outrank the Biloxi Shuckers, the Montgomery Biscuits, and the poor Mississippi Braves who are—God love them—sucking pond water.

Josh was an ardent Blue Wahoos fan. When he got a job at Blue Wahoos Stadium, it was like winning the lottery for him.

And he was good at his job.

“Not just anyone can be a greeter,” said Josh’s supervisor, Mike Fitzpatrick. “It

takes real personality to do what he did. He was a master.”

“Everyone wanted their selfie with him,” said another coworker. “The fans all stood in line to talk to him.”

On game nights, there he’d be. Sitting at the gate. Rolling his chair to and fro. Dolling out belly laughs and hugs and corny jokes.

One coworker remembers: “The first time I heard him say, ‘WAHOO! WELCOME TO THE WAHOOS!’ I just smiled all over. Because he made this job really fun.”

Josh Aidan Parr. Twenty-one years young. He was born with cerebral palsy. His mother had addictions while he was in the womb, which interrupted his brain development and led to lifelong muscular difficulties.

His youth was not easy. Throughout boyhood, his mother was unstable. Times were hard. Money did not grow on trees. His mother died by suicide when…

DEAR SEAN: I tried a tomato sandwich yesterday for the first time. My mom bought tomatoes at the grocery store and we made them with Hellmann’s and wheat bread. The sandwiches were okay, but not life-changing like you said they would be.

DEAR READER: You did it wrong. You do not make a tomato sandwich with store-bought tomatoes unless you are from Detroit. You must use homegrown tomatoes for such pleasantries.

Moreover, using Hellmann’s on a tomato sandwich is like dipping your French fries in Vaseline. It must be Duke’s, Blue Plate, or Bama brand mayo.

Lastly, wheat bread is not fit for tomato sandwiches, it must be white bread. Wheat bread is only for communists and people who don’t love the Lord.

DEAR SEAN: How do I stop my brother from stealing my beer? We are ages 24 and 26 and roommates. We split all the household expenses, but we buy our own beer because it’s pricey. He always runs out of money first and steals my beer and then I have nothing.

Please help me.

DEAR READER: The following story is true. My grandfather once pulled this prank on his coworker when they were on a work trip. First my grandfather purchased a manual bottle-capper. Then he secretly opened their beers and dumped red food-coloring into each beer. Then he recapped the bottles.

When his friend drank the beer he didn’t notice the coloring because of the brown bottles.

The next morning when his friend visited the commode, there were shrieks of terror coming from the restroom. “I’m dying!” the coworker shouted.

This is my wisdom. I offer it to you freely.

DEAR SEAN: My dog died from pancreatitis last week. My heart hurts so badly and I wish I knew how to function. Do you have any advice for me?

DEAR READER: When my bloodhound, Ellie Mae, died I thought I’d never recover. I cried all day.…

When I was a kid, my mother believed in angels, but I didn’t. I was on the fence about angels. I didn’t believe in hocus pocus. My thought was, if angels were real, then why were they always the worst team in the Major Leagues? My mother used to say, “When you get older, you will believe.”

“How can you be so sure?” I asked.

“Because, when you’re older there will be moments in your life when you cannot logically explain what just happened, without believing.”

Mothers.

But then I started writing. And almost immediately, I started receiving stories from people.

Like this one: The young woman was in her car. It was midnight. The two-lane highway was desolate.

Her Impala struck a deer. It wasn't just a deer. It was an animal about the size of a subtropical continent. Her car spun. The automobile went into the opposite lane.

An oncoming vehicle struck her. She blacked out.

The next thing she remembers is a man helping her from the car. He lifted her out. He placed

her against the guardrail. “You’re going to be okay,” he said.

When the paramedics found her, she was asking where the man went. “Ma’am,” the EMTs explained, “Nobody travels this highway at this time of night.”

That’s when she looked at what used to be her car. It was a pile of soot. If she would have been inside, she would have been permanently checked into the Horizontal Hilton.

And here’s another. The man worked at a commercial factory. He was overseeing huge production machines. And when one of the machines started acting up, one of his workers, a young woman, tried to fix the mechanical problem herself.

The employee had her arm inside the machine when one of the hydraulic levers pinned her arm inside the machine and was about to sever her limb.

The foreman was trying to help, so were…

The following reader-submitted letters have been edited to be family friendly.

READER FROM PENNSYLVANIA: You seem like a nice person, but I keep trying to figure out whether you are a true follower of Jesus or not. Can you tell me if you are, please? At this stage of my life, I ONLY want to surround myself with strong Christians.

ME: What about drunkards and tax collectors? I’m probably not your kind of guy.

READER FROM MICHIGAN: Sean, I can’t stand your writing. You are a clueless mother trucker. You think this world is a great place, but you’re wrong. The truth is we are all in serious trouble. I was in law enforcement for 29 years and I’ve seen the worst of the worst. Watch the news once in a while. Quit turning a blind eye and grow up.

ME: What is a mother trucker?

READER FROM ALABAMA: Dear Sean, I can’t figure out if you’re religious or not. I wish I knew where you stand on Jesus because I’m afraid you’ve rejected Him as your

personal Lord and savior. If you have indeed turned your back on our savior, I want you to know that I’m praying for you.

ME: “Savior” should be capitalized.

READER FROM WEST VIRGINIA: Your haircut is outdated, Sean. You look pretty unkempt with all that hair. No offense, I just wanted you to know.

ME: Thank you for not calling me fat.

READER FROM MONTANA: Why do you consistently use fragment sentences? I was an English teacher for 37 years. I always penalized students for using fragments when they should have been using commas.

ME: I offer my. Sincerest. Apologies. Ma’am.

READER FROM NEW JERSEY: Dear Sean, you have taken several pot shots at New Jersey over the years and it makes me so mad I’ve quit reading you. I grew up in New Jersey, so has my entire family. I’ve raised an…

Dallas. The mid-1980s. There were three Mexican boys in the supermarket. The meat department. They were covered in sawdust and drywall mud. They were eyeing the beef, looking for the cheapest cuts. Counting their nickels and dimes.

But they came up short. They were about to walk away when the butcher came from behind the counter and handed them 25 pounds of ground beef.

That’s a lot of meat.

“The expiration dates are technically past due,” said the butcher, “but this is still perfectly good meat if you freeze it. And it’s just going to go to waste if you don’t take it.”

“How much do we owe you?” asked one of the boys.

“Nothing,” said the butcher. “On the house.”

The three young men looked at each other. No words were said. One of the boys started crying.

“God bless joo,” was their response.

“God bless j’all too,” said the Texan butcher.

Rural Kansas. The man was walking his dog in the neighborhood when it happened. A car wreck took place in front of him. On the street. The

Ford Contour plowed into a telephone pole. Nose first. Game over.

Soon, the vehicle was on fire. Someone inside the automobile was screaming.

“They were horrible screams,” the dog-walker remembers.

He didn’t know what to do, so he plunged into the burning car and dragged the driver from the inferno. There was a baby was in the back seat. He saved the infant, too.

Today, the baby is a grown woman who drives a truck for a living. A few months ago, that truck driver visited a nursing home.

“You don’t know me,” she said, as she sidled up to the elderly man’s bedside. “But you saved my life when I was a baby in a burning car. I just wanted to thank you.”

The old man died last week. The truck driver told this same story at that man’s…

There was a lot of excitement in the admissions department a few weeks ago. It was a big day. All the angels were getting their wings ruffled over a big-time celebrity who was checking in.

“Did you hear?” said one angel to another. “Today’s the day! She’s coming!”

“Who’s coming?”

So the angel pulled out the logbook and pointed to the photograph of a small 7-year-old girl. The girl who spent her last days on hospice. The girl whose family prayed until the bitter end. The girl who never, not even once, lost heart. Not even in the face of illness.

The angels were pulling out all the stops for the big party. The beautification committee was hanging streamers and a large banner over the abalone gates that read “Welcome Home!”

The snack committee brought so much food they ran out of paper plates. The fireworks crew prepared for a huge display.

The first spectators started arriving early. Among them were people like Elvis, George Washington Carver, William Franklin Graham, Lewis and Clark, Vincent van

Gough, Samuel Langhorne Clemens, Leonardo da Vinci, and Babe Ruth. And there were many others who you’ve never heard of.

There is no rank of importance in this place. Everyone is the same. It’s hard to explain this concept to Earth people. One of the most popular saints up here, for instance, is an elderly man who used to be a janitor in a Soviet orphanage. You’ve never heard of him, but he’s a big deal.

So everyone gathered at the gates. Not just people, but animals, too. Zebras, lions, sheep, antelope, penguins, and squirrels.

And the all-star band was warming up. Vivaldi played fiddle, Chopin was on keyboard, Miles Davis played flugelhorn, Lawrence Welk was conducting.

You could hear the rustle of wings when the angels crowded the gates. They sounded like a bunch of excited chickens. Angels love new arrivals.

The reception was…

What is a Fifth Sunday Sing? Well, don’t feel bad if you don’t know. This probably means you grew up someplace like Sacramento. Or worse, Queens.

For the unbaptized, Fifth Sunday Sings were started in the pioneer days. Back then, rural Americans couldn’t make it to church every Sunday. Back then, America had 32 million farmers. So churches had “all-day sings,” usually every fifth Sunday.

After four Sundays, homesteaders traveled travel miles into town, camped out on the church grounds, brought food, and spent the Sunday hanging out. Singing. Eating.

They’d shake each other’s hands and say, “I haven’t seen you in a month of Sundays, Carl.” Some called them “camp meetings.” Or “dinner on the grounds.”

No matter what you call them, they still happen. Although they are rare.

Food has always been central to these quintessential small-church gatherings. Every woman brings her ace dish. She places her dish on a long table, alongside the others, and everyone eats until their feet swell and their ears ring.

I was a chubby child, and this is

exactly the reason why. We did fifth Sunday sings. And I was always first in line for any potluck. Although my fundamentalist brethren did not call them “potlucks.” We called it a “pot providences.” We did not believe in luck. Luck was for heathens, reprobates, and Presbyterians.

Right now, I am at a fifth-Sunday-sing potluck at Pleasant Hill Baptist in Slocomb, Alabama. And I’m experiencing all the old feelings from childhood.

Today, Sister Annette has made chicken and dumplings. The old way. With hardboiled eggs. Miss Annette insists there is nothing special about her dumplings. She says it’s “Just homemade chicken broth, rolled dumplings, and hard boiled eggs.” No big deal, she says.

But here’s the thing. Miss Annette has no idea that, today, young women don’t hand-roll dumplings. In fact, people don’t prepare anything homemade anymore.

I read a recent study that said…