I arrive at the Grand Ole Opry with my guitar case in hand. Sound check is in an hour. I am parked beside a tour bus in the parking lot that is approximately the size of a rural school district.

The bus is rumbling. I have no idea which famous person is inside. The windows are tinted with roofing tar. A bodyguard stands before the bus. This man wears a stern look on his face which suggests he either suffers from life-threatening constipation, or he enjoys it.

A guard leads me past metal detectors before entering the building. In the backstage lobby, a ginormous portrait of Minnie Pearl hangs. And that’s when it starts to sink in.

You are at the Opry.

You are remembering when your mother told you, a long time ago, that God had a great sense of humor. In fact, he was the one who invented comedy. And he invented it so life, even when it was full of sorrow and soreness, would still be interesting.

I think I’m starting to understand this.

My

backstage liaison is an older woman named Lemonade. She wears a headset microphone, and leads me through a labyrinth of halls.

“Here is your dressing room, Mister Dietrich,” says Lemonade.

“Mister Dietrich has been dead for 30 years,” I say. “My name is Sean.”

“Is there anything else you need? Sean?”

“No, thank you.”

“Really? Usually performers have a long list of specific needs. You don’t need anything?”

“Well, there is one thing.”

“Certainly.”

“Can I get my picture made with you?”

Soundcheck is surreal. You walk out there, on stage, into an empty arena and it starts to settle in your brain. You’re at the Grand Ole Opry. You.

A circular section of wood lies centerstage, a WSM microphone perched before it. The wooden circle consists of chewed up floorboards, scuffed by one century of boots and high heels. Roy Rogers.…

The radio was on. WSM 650 AM. It was a summer night. The crickets were out. The garage door was open.

Daddy was changing the oil. He was lying beneath the Ford. I was sitting there, watching him work. Because that’s what kids did before TikTok.

The garage was peppered with posters of fighter jets, and model airplanes. My father was obsessed with planes. All kinds. He wanted to be a fighter pilot as a boy. But he was deaf in his left ear. So he became an ironworker.

His voice came from beneath the car. “Be a pal and get me another one from the fridge?”

He wasn’t talking about Coca-Cola. He wanted another bottle of Weekend Lubricant. I didn’t have far to walk. The fridge was beside his workbench. Our family’s beer fridge was always kept in the garage because we were Baptist.

I fetched another bottle. I handed it to my old man, who slid from beneath the car on one of those slider things with the wheels.

He

was still wearing work clothes. Denim. Boots. He was still covered in soot from a day of welding column splices. It was Saturday. He had worked overtime, but still somehow had energy enough to cut the grass, paint the shed, and change the oil after work. Just how he was.

“Turn up the radio, Opie,” he said.

He called me that because I had red hair. Although the truth was, I was pretty chubby and looked nothing like Ron Howard. In fact, I looked more like I had eaten Opie Taylor.

The radio was playing the Grand Ole Opry. The garage swelled with the sounds of steel guitars and twin fiddles.

My father discovered that I was a musical child from a young age. I was 4 when he marched me into the music minister’s office and said, “My boy can sing. I want you to learn him…

“Hi, Sean…” the letter began—people are always calling me that. “...I just read your article in the newspaper about angels!

“No offense, but I laughed the whole way through. I wasn’t laughing with you, I was laughing AT you! I cannot believe in the 21st Century, humans still believe in angels. It’s stupid. I’ll take my answer off the air.”

I love it when people say “no offense.” It’s a lot like when the doctor tells you to drop your trousers, then he flicks his syringe and says, “You won’t feel a thing.”

The truth is, friend, I used to doubt the existence of angels, too. But then I realized I was in the minority.

Did you know that nearly eight out of every 10 Americans believe in angels? For the math challenged, that’s a whole dang lot of people. When it comes to global figures, seven out of 10 humans believe in angels.

This is remarkable when you figure that only 33 percent of humans classify themselves as Christian; 10 percent

are Protestant, and only 3 percent call themselves SEC fans.

What I’m getting at is that more humans agree on the existence of angels than they do on any other topic, with the exception of their mutual hatred of Miracle Whip.

I know this is true from first hand experience. When I started writing this column, about a decade ago, I was much more handsome, and my metabolism was like a hummingbird’s.

But also, back then I was on the fence about angels. This all changed when I wrote my first column about the supernatural, based on stories sent in by readers.

After the column ran in our local paper, my inbox was flooded with angel stories. The stories have kept coming in from all over the U.S. Just this week, I have received nearly 40 stories on angels. They have come from people all over. Including Canada.…

Late afternoon. The grocery store was busy. It was a big weekend, hurried customers played demolition derby with shopping carts.

I saw two young men shopping together. Their basket was overflowing with bachelor food. Microwave dinners, hotdogs, potato chips, Mick Ultra, spray cheese.

The youngest man was wearing cargo shorts. His right leg was disfigured. Below the knee, his leg was mostly shinbone without any visible muscle, covered in scars.

I followed the men around the supermarket because I am a writer, and writers are intrusive people.

When they reached the self-checkout lane, I was a few customers behind them in line.

An old man approached the men. They had a brief conversation. I tried to listen to their words but their voices were too quiet.

The only thing I heard the elderly man say was: “Where were you stationed?”

“Afghanistan,” the young man answered. Also, I heard the words, “ambush,” “explosion,” and “physical therapy.”

When the young men finished scanning items, the old man removed his wallet and swiped his credit card.

The young men tried

to stop him, but they were too slow. The man replaced his wallet, then winked at them and said, “You snooze, you lose, fellas.”

I can still see that old man when I close my eyes. Some things stick with you, I guess.

Just like the time I saw an elderly woman in Franklin, Tennessee. Her car wouldn’t start. Three men from inside the gas station rushed to help her.

They were large men with long beards, dirty clothes, and work boots. They crawled over her car until they figured out the problem beneath the hood.

“It’s her serpentine belt!” one man finally shouted.

That was all it took. They leapt into their truck and left. After a few minutes, they returned with a new belt from the auto parts store.

The woman tried to pay them, but they refused. I heard one…

It was a good day. Becca was riding in my car. She sat in the back seat, wearing a beautiful yellow Sunday dress. Brand new. I was driving. Becca is 11. She is blind. I was in charge of her today.

God help us all.

The stereo was blasting. We were listening to “Electric Avenue” by Eddy Grant. A song so loud it affects the migratory patterns of certain varieties of geese. Our music was so loud, people were looking at us when we pulled up to stoplights.

Meantime, Becca was dancing in the backseat. Clapping her hands.

The next song was “Footloose.” She howled with delight. Then came “Who Let the Dogs Out,” by the Baha Men. She screamed along with the lyrics.

It was a sunny day. Our windows were rolled down. A cop car pulled alongside us.

The cop took one look at the child in the backseat, gyrating and flinging her hair around like Janis Joplin on a bender, and he smiled.

We pulled into a Chick-Fil-A parking lot. We got out.

We walked across the parking lot. I noticed people staring at us.

This was my first time chaperoning a blind child in public solo, I wasn’t used to the reactions.

Becca used her white cane to navigate the busy area, I held her hand tightly and flagged back traffic.

Amazingly, some motorists were not courteous. Some were downright upset. Some honked horns. A few drivers were upset that we were moving so slowly.

One man threw his hands up behind his steering wheel and told us to hurry the cussword up. Everything inside me wanted to introduce this man to the Alabama State Bird.

When we got inside, Becca ordered chicken nuggets. Macaroni and cheese. Chick-Fil-A sauce. A complimentary toy.

The cashier smiled warmly. “That’s a very beautiful dress, honey.”

“Thank you,” said Becca. “It’s new. What kind of toy comes with the kids…

I am mid-20s. I am a cub journalist for a tiny local newspaper with a circulation of about six. My biggest dream is to write for the Tallahassee newspaper someday. But it’s not working out. They’ve turned down all my work.

But I’m still trying, God love me. Namely, because I am an idiot.

Today, I am at a small-town nursing home near Tally, doing an interview with someone exceptional. My hope is that the said Tallahassee publication will recognize my immutable genius and publish me.

It’s a pipe dream, yes. But hey, if a writer doesn’t dream then he is a CPA.

My interviewee today is an elderly woman who doesn’t even know I’m here because she has Alzheimer’s.

She used to be a tenth-grade teacher. She has changed many students’ lives. She is nothing short of inspirational.

The woman sits in a wheelchair, watching “Jeopardy!” and blurting out answers along with gameshow contestants.

Which makes it a little hard to concentrate.

I ask my lead-off question.

But I am answered with: “Who the [deleted] are you? And where’s my blueberry yogurt?”

“This man

is a writer,” the dayshift nurse explains. “Remember, I told you? He’s trying to get published with the ‘Tallahassee Democrat’? He wants to interview you?”

“I don’t care who he is,” she says. “Where’s my yogurt, you [deleted deleteds]?”

So we are off to a great start.

I ask another interview question. She answers without breaking eye contact with the TV.

“What is the Treaty of Tordesillas!”

After several minutes, I am about to give up on my interview effort altogether. Mostly, because I’m too distracted by Alex Trebek’s episode du jour.

Truthfully, I’ve never been a fan of “Jeopardy!” It moves too fast. By the time I’ve figured out the first question, the show is finished and the 18-year-old from Sheboygan who designs nanotubular probes for NASA has won 12 thousand dollars. Roll the…

I am in South Alabama, covering Hank Williams’s 100th birthday in his home state and mine.

My first stop is a nursing home. I have an interview with Earl. Earl is not an authority on Hank’s music. Earl is a retired sheet metal worker.

He sits in his wheelchair beside the window, listening to music at such a high volume that the windows are cracking. He is slouched. A stroke has impaired his speech and his thinking.

“He used to be sharp, before his stroke,” his granddaughter explains. “He used to have great expressions, sometimes I kick myself for not writing them all down before his stroke.

“One thing I remember he used to say: Things don’t always work right, but they always works out.’”

Earl listens to music coming from a smart TV. The song is Hank Williams’s “Lovesick Blues.” He bobs his head. You can see the toe of his Velcro shoe moving.

“I-I-I used to p-p-play this song!” he shouts. “Turn it up!”

Earl used to play upright bass with a band called

the Wildcats. They played all over South Alabama. He played every Hank song in the book. His wife died. He never remarried. He raised six children on his own. No help.

You want to talk about strong.

So I don’t get far with Earl. The stroke has done too much damage. So we part ways. Soon I’m on my way to the next interview.

Hank is on my truck stereo. The tune is “Dear John.” A song which reminds me of my father. Also named John. In some ways, he and Hank were similar. Both were skinny. Both were singers. And both ended their lives by their own hands.

My next interview is Karah, who is no expert on Hank Williams, either. But she grows delicious tomatoes and that’s practically the same thing.

I find her working in her garden with her 10-year-old daughter,…

Atlanta. A baseball game. The Braves were playing the Pittsburgh Pirates. It was muggy. Truist Park smelled like armpits, onion rings, and little-kid sweat. Which is exactly how you want a ballpark to smell. All that was missing was the cigar smoke.

One of the great disappointments of my life is when they banned smoking in ballparks. To this day, whenever I smell a cigar, I think of Fulton County Stadium in the summer. My uncle was present when Hank Aaron hit his 715th home run. Hank hit the home run on my uncle’s fourth cigar. He had a six-day hangover thereafter.

My uncle, not Hank.

So anyway, there I was. Sitting in the cheap seats. Namely, because I come from cheap people. We did not believe in extravagance when I was a boy. My mother was so cheap her pancakes only had one side.

It was a crummy game. The Braves were getting their hindparts handed to them on a paper plate.

Losing is not an unfamiliar feeling for I am

a longtime Braves fan. I remember the lean years. My uncle used to say that the Braves and Michael Jackson had a lot in common; they both wore one glove and didn’t use it.

So anyway, it was the ninth inning. The Braves were down five or six runs. It was hopeless. There wasn’t much that could be done to stop the bleeding. Some people were already leaving the stadium.

Our team was looking tired. You could see our guys in the dugout, spitting, slumped in their seats, nodding at whatever the manager said. There was no hope for us.

But…

Then something happened. A little boy stood up in the nosebleeds. One section over from me. He was maybe 7. He was small, wearing an oversized ballcap. Messy red hair poking out from beneath it. His glove was the size of a municipal monument.

The boy screamed…

I love you. Maybe you need to hear that. If so, allow me to be the one to say it. I love you.

You don’t have to believe me. You don’t have to trust me. You don’t even have to keep reading this; I’m not going to. Just know that someone loves you. Namely, this guy.

You don’t have to do anything to deserve love. There are no criteria to meet. You don’t have to say magic words to receive love that is rightfully yours. You don’t have to chant “I’m special” three times, hug yourself, then affirmatively pat your own backside.

Maybe you mistakenly think love is something you have to work for. Something you have to earn. Maybe you’re a people pleaser, continually trying to win people over so they’ll love you.

But it’s not like that. You don’t have to work to receive love. It’s free. Love is a basic human right. Like water. Or air. Or SEC football broadcasts.

So I don’t know what you’re going through. But I know you’re a human. Just like me. Therefore, I know you need

loved to function.

It’s biological. They’ve done studies on it. Love is what makes your cells grow. What makes blood move. What makes a heart beat. This is legit, you can trust me. I’m on the internet.

Moreover—and you know who you are—I know you don’t FEEL any love right now. Which is probably why you’re still reading this poorly written article from some guy you’ve never met in Alabama.

You’re reading because deep down, you want love. But you just can’t seem to find it. Well, you’ve found it here.

So if that’s you, allow me to reiterate. I love you.

I love you if you are a total jerk, and you push away everyone who has ever tried to get close to you. I love you even though you try to destroy yourself…

Call me timid, but I was nervous to have my prostate examined.

For starters, I don’t like doctors. In my experience, any person who visits the doctor’s office, even to deliver U.S. parcel, receives a tetanus shot. And I hate shots.

When I was a kid, for example, we had a doctor come to the school and administer vaccinations. They told me—swore to me—that the injection wouldn’t hurt. Then, a doctor pulled out a needle about the size of milkshake straw and shoved it into my thigh. My screams could be heard in the next county.

But this was worse than an injection.

Today, I underwent a brief medieval exam conducted by a certified sadist. I won’t go into details. All I’ll say is that when the doctor removed his rubber glove, he said, “I give your prostate two thumbs up.”

Afterward, there was a nurse in my exam room, filling out paperwork. She was mid-40s. We started talking.

She was sweet. The young woman was missing teeth. She had a quiltwork of tattoos on her arms,

and on her neck. Her hair was worn in a ponytail, the sides of her head were shaved, and there was more ink on her temples.

“I never thought I’d become a nurse,” she said. “Nobody in my family thought I’d make it this far.”

Her life was a troubled one. She used to be addicted to methamphetamines. She had a kid when she was 18, which she put up for adoption. After her parents kicked her out, for a brief time, she lived in alleyways and homeless missions in West Virginia.

“I was mountain trash,” she told me. “That’s what I’ve always thought. I believed I was less than other human beings.”

One night, on a whim, she started attending Alcoholics Anonymous meetings. She got clean. Then, she got a job at a gas station, as a night clerk, with one of…