Cracker Barrel is quiet this time of night. There are few cars in the parking lot. My wife is with me. We’ve been traveling all day.

On the way into the restaurant, I see a few kids sitting on rockers outside. They’re playing checkers.

“HEY!” shouts a little girl. “YOU CAN’T JUMP BACKWARDS!”

“YUH HUH!” shouts a little boy.

“NO YOU CAN’T!”

I don’t like to butt in, but this situation calls for some well-tempered adult advice. And since there aren’t any well-tempered adults around, my advice will have to do.

“She’s right,” I tell the boy. “You can’t jump backwards unless you’ve been kinged.”

“I can’t?” he says.

“Nope. Besides, even if you COULD, it wouldn’t matter, because your girlfriend says you can’t, and girls are ALWAYS right.”

“GROSS!” he shouts. “SHE’S NOT MY GIRLFRIEND, SHE’S MY SISTER!”

His sister laughs until the vein in her forehead shows.

We get a table.

Our waitress has long hair and tired eyes. We still have miles to drive, I order coffee. Black.

The waitress tells me about her son. He’s about to start first grade when summer is over. She hasn’t seen much of him

this summer. This isn’t her only job. She has two more.

She shows me photos of her son. He’s skinny. Thick eyeglasses. Freckles.

“He’s doing Vacation Bible School this summer,” she says. “He loves it.”

As it happens, I have passed many years in Vacation Bible School—both as an inmate, and as a warden. I consider the hours spent judging heated three-legged races to be golden.

I order my usual. Three eggs, bacon, biscuits.

There’s a couple in the corner. They’re elderly. He’s eating, she’s beside him—not eating. Halfway through the meal, he sets his fork down and places his arm around her.

She leans into him. She’s crying. I can see she’s wearing an oxygen facemask and a hospital bracelet. There’s a story here, I…

I found my way through the hospital corridors. I was running a little late, so I was jogging through the medical center.

The young man was waiting for me in his hospital bed. He was wearing a cowboy hat with a hospital gown.

“Thanks for visiting me,” he said.

He smiled.

The boy is 13, he has gone through multiple surgeries. The muscles in his face have been affected by the surgeries, so his smile is uniquely beautiful.

He is a nice-looking boy. He’s been through a lot. You can tell it by his attitude.

“I appreciate you visiting me.”

“Are you kidding?” I replied. “I’m a writer. Which means if I didn’t have a wife, I’d be living underneath an overpass. I appreciate you WANTING to meet a writer like me.”

“I like your writing.”

“I’m sorry to hear that.”

“I am a writer too.”

“Yes. That’s what your father told me. What do you like to write?”

“I write stories about cowboys.”

Verily I say unto thee, this is a boy after my own heart. I fear that in our era of high-tech

movie graphics, Chat GPT, and AI we are going to lose a love of pure Westerns. But this child gives me hope.

He is even a John Wayne fan. My holster runneth over.

“Can I read one of my stories to you?” he says.

“I’d be honored.”

“Maybe you can tell me what you think about it; as one writer to another.”

The boy clears his throat. He removes a sheet of paper from a folder and assumes a recitation voice.

I’m paraphrasing here, but he tells a story about a young cowboy named Chet.

Chet was diagnosed with terminal cancer. Chet, the young hero, was told he would never recover. Oh, how his parents cried. And, oh, how the boy nearly lost hope.

“It was very hard on the young Chet,” said the kid.…

“What’s it like to fly on a plane?” 11-year-old Becca texted me.

Becca is blind, and she is my friend. She lives in north Alabama, and her parents are canonized saints. She has had quite a childhood.

Quite a childhood indeed.

“You wanna know what it’s like to fly?” I texted back.

“Yes.”

At the time I was sitting in the plane, flying livestock class, the cheapest way to fly, unless you strap yourself to the landing gears. Sometimes livestock-class passengers have to ride with chickens or various Billy goats on their laps.

Right now, seated on my lap is a laying hen named Gertrude. Gertrude is fussy and, apparently, suffering lower intestinal problems.

“Tell me what it’s like to fly,” texts Becca.

Becca is a grade-schooler who has become my good friend. I’m not sure how our friendship happened. But it did.

Among other things, we have music in common. Becca has a voice like a cherub, a mind like a razor, and she is cuter than a duck in a hat.

Becca and I have performed together onstage before. It

was a success.

Last month, at one of my recent shows, she accompanied me and sang “O What A Beautiful Morning,” then “Amazing Grace.”

Then Becca told the whole audience how she lost her vision, and how the first face she expects to see someday is God’s face.

She brought the house down. People wept so hard I heard audience members blowing snot into their shirttails. People were not just crying. These were sobs, complete with wailing and moaning.

Becca received so many standing ovations that evening that many audience members reported that they were in need of emergency meniscus surgery.

It was a night I’ll cherish for the rest of my life.

“I’ve never been on a boat or a plane,” Becca texted as my plane lifted off. “Tell me what it’s like...”

“It’s like riding a…

Hannibal, Missouri, is a little off the beaten path. Actually, Hannibal is a LOT off the beaten path. I can’t even find the beaten path anymore.

On the way into town, my GPS kept getting confused in rural Missouri, and at one point I ended up in—this is true—Illinois.

It’s a river town. The gray Mississippi eases along Hannibal at 5.8 miles per hour, moving ever southward. The floodgates are up today. There is a flood warning in effect right now, wind gusts are clocking in at 33 mph.

I’m at a bar called “Rumor Has It.” Beside me is a riverboat captain.

“This is a beautiful river that can kill you,” says the captain who has been a commercial pilot on the Mississippi since the early ‘70s. “My wife calls her my mistress, because I spend more time with this river than with her.”

I am beneath the mistress’s spell this afternoon as I hang out on Hannibal’s sidestreets.

In the distance, a barge drifts along the Muddy Mississippi, moving at a tortoise pace. There is a riverboat

docked at the landing. A train passes and lays on the whistle.

Riverboats. Barges. Trains. It’s the 19th century in Hannibal.

“This is a town so small both city-limit signs are nailed to the same post,” says one merchant. “It’s great because it’s charming, and it’s actually affordable. And you meet tourists from all over the globe. Just yesterday I met people from Norway, Australia, and Japan.”

Downtown is quaint and touristy. It feels like the aftermath of a gift shop explosion. But everything is done tastefully. You won’t find any deep-fried Oreos or CBD shops here.

It’s Monday, for example, and all the shops are closed. Which is unheard of in a tourist economy.

And that’s the beauty of Hannibal. It’s a real small town. Even though it’s a tourist destination, these merchants have real families, and real lives. Shops…

Paola, Kansas, is a nano-town with 150 people and approximately 200 churches. This is the belly of the Bible Belt. Rumor has it that they handle snakes over in Parker. Although this is unconfirmed.

Sort of.

Right now I am in a building that was built in 1917. It was originally a convent school. Nuns once lived here. Today it’s a community center.

Currently I am standing on a stage performing my one-man trainwreck in the 34th State this evening. And I’m pretty emotional about it.

I’ve performed in 40 states, but this is the first time I’ve done my show in Kansas.

It’s weird being here. Namely, because my father was a Kansan. He was born in Iola. He grew up in Humboldt. He was “Kansas white trash” he always said. Kansas is where he began his life. And Kansas is where I started mine.

His funeral was held one county over.

My old man was an ironworker. They called guys like my father “boomers.” This meant he traveled wherever the work

was. We moved seven times in my first six years of life. We had no roots. No foundation.

For a time this was my home. I learned to play baseball in Kansas. I went to school here. I first couple-skated here. I first tried Red Man Chew on the back of daddy’s Ford, parked in Allen County, whereupon I puked for a solid hour.

My father lost his mind in Kansas. He was arrested in Leavenworth County, Kansas, for attempted murder of his wife and children.

The next morning, after being released on bail, he died by his own hand. The news of his self-inflicted death made the front page of the local papers.

We left Kansas when I was a child. I am not familiar with this land anymore. I don’t know it. My mother made me a Southerner. My aunts and uncles raised me. And…

It’s a mess, that’s what it is. When you land in Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta Third World International Airport, you’re walking into a battle zone.

It’s nonstop chaos. Airport professionals ride golf carts with loud beeps and flashing lights.

Hordes of business professionals below age 40, speed-walk past you, having loud conversations with their earbuds, dutifully working on their first nervous breakdowns.

Middle-aged Midwestern guys in New Balances, shoulder a tonnage of roller luggage, most of which—you can just tell—belongs to their wives.

Everyone is on their phones

I notice the elderly man across from me. He is wearing khakis and Merrells, the universal uniform of the Old Guy. He is breathing heavily. Hyperventilating, actually. His hands are trembling. He takes a sip of water and almost drops the bottle.

This man is having a diabetic episode or something, I’m thinking.

“Sir, are you okay?” I ask.

He looks at me. His eyes are rimmed pink. I can’t tell if he’s about to cry or not. “Have you ever flown before?” he asks.

“Yes.”

“Well, I haven’t.”

He returns to his trembling.

“I’m eighty-two years old,” he said, “and I’ve never flown. I’ve

never been anywhere or done anything.”

This is a man old enough to be my father, but at this moment, he seems very childlike to me. Fear has a way of reducing one’s age.

There is a little girl sitting on his other side. She notices what’s going on. She joins our conversation. She is maybe 10.

The kid says, “What do you mean you’ve never been ANYWHERE or done ANYTHING,’ sir?”

He looks at her. Her hair is in pigtails. She could pass for the Coppertone Girl.

“I’ve only left my hometown twice,” he says. He’s getting more nervous with each word. “I’ve never done anything of note. I’ve never been anywhere.”

“Do you have a family?” the girl says.

He nods. “Four kids.”

“How old?”

“My oldest…

Things I have learned from Marigold, my blind rescue dog, a black and tan coonhound.

—There is no higher pleasure than food.

—Except licking yourself. That’s a pretty great thing.

—But still, food is better.

—Especially cheese.

—If you are lucky enough in this life to find one person to love you, you are lucky enough.

—Smartphones are purely a distraction. They do little that is beneficial. All they do is take humans away from important tasks, such as petting their blind rescue dogs and rubbing their blind rescue dogs’ bellies.

—The vacuum is the invention of Satan.

—The most fabulous fragrance you can wear is poop. Try rolling around in it sometime.

—If you can’t find any poop, consider a dead squirrel carcass.

—Do not ever miss out on a chance for love.

—The joy of simply going on a walk cannot be measured.

—If you hear a crinkling plastic bag, follow it.

—Do not trust people who aren’t dog people.

—Kids are the best kind of humans.

—If someone is extra gentle when petting the fur between your eyes, they are an extra gentle person.

—If someone is not

good to animals, they are not good.

—Just because someone beat you so hard that you lost your vision doesn’t mean you can’t see.

—Dogs don’t have to try to believe in God. God already believes in them.

—If your owner leaves his beer unattended during a televised baseball game, it’s technically yours.

—Hey. Beer is pretty good.

—It only takes one Pabst Blue Ribbon to make a 60-pound blind rescue dog completely and totally inebriated.

—When you are an inebriated dog, you do not want to walk down a flight of stairs, this is a very bad decision.

—So is trying to use the doggy door.

—Life is too short to sleep alone.

—Humans should quit checking their phones so often. It’s not real life.

—Reading glasses taste…

She met him in college. They were instant friends. Lifelong friends, actually. Not casual friends. They were joined-at-the-hip friends.

He was always there. Always around. Always there when she got home. He would be sitting at the windowsill, watching her car pull into the driveway.

His name was O. Henry because she was studying English at the State-U and she was incapable of choosing normal names like Rex or Fido.

English majors.

She found him as a stray. He was wandering on a rural highway in the middle of the night. She was riding shotgun in the car with a friend. She had been drinking at the time, after a college party. Which was why she was riding with a designated driver.

That night she saw a small shape canine dart across the road.

“Pull over,” she hollered to her friend.

The friend pulled over. It was a dog. A puppy, actually. Shivering cold in the ditch. He was so skinny you could count his ribs.

She brought him home. She fed him human food because

that was all she had in the pantry. Hamburger Helper. Ramen noodle soup. Captain Crunch. Breakfast of champs.

The college girl received a crash course in dog ownership. She learned all the tricks of the trade.

She figured out how dogs think. She learned, for example, that dogs always want to go outside when they are inside; and always beg to come inside when outside. There is no happy medium. This is life with dogs.

She learned that dogs like to chew up reading glasses, shoes, trash, socks, inorganic material, cellphones, pianos, sheetrock, important bills, laptops, etc.

She took him for long walks. She went hiking with him. He slept in her bed. He ate meals with her.

O. Henry didn’t like bad weather. So during bad rainstorms, he nestled beside her in bed and quivered.

Simply put, he was her child.

For 19…

I had a dream about him last night. It has been nearly three decades since he died, but there he was. Alive. We met in some kind of diner. A breakfast joint. Maybe this was heaven?

He was running late, I was already sitting in a booth, sipping coffee. When he arrived, his first words were: “Did you miss me?”

“No,” I said.

He studied my face to see if I was joking. He could tell I wasn’t.

I couldn’t quit staring at him. My God, it really was my father. He looked good, too. Slender, red hair, tucked-in shirt, slacks. I’d gone so long without seeing him that I’d forgotten what he looked like.

But it only takes a moment to bring it all back. I could even smell his trademarked hair oil. The day after he died I confiscated his pillow and it was covered in this same scent. I slept on that pillow for five years.

“You really didn’t miss me?” he said. There was that easy smile of his. He wasn’t offended.

“No,

I really didn’t miss you.”

He ordered a Coke. And I suddenly remembered that he always drank Coca-Cola. He never was a coffee drinker. Hated the stuff. Just one of the many things I’d forgotten.

Then I started thinking about the differences between us. There were hundreds of them.

For example: he was always well-dressed, whereas I always looked like I crawled from beneath a Chevy. He was a hard worker; I sleep in on weekdays. Everyone called him “handsome”; nobody has ever ascribed that word to me. He was a planner; there is nothing I love more than cancelled plans.

When he was alive, he expected great things from me, but I failed to deliver. From a young age I knew within my kid brain that I would never accomplish the things he hoped for me.

I’m not saying I disappointed him,…