GREENWOOD—It’s late. There is no moon out tonight. We are driving across the barren Mississippi Delta. And it’s creepy.

We are on the sixth day of the book tour. So far we have covered—this is only a rough estimate—800 bazillion miles. My wife is road weary, maybe even a little delirious. To entertain herself she has taken to teasing me. For instance, when I fell asleep in the passenger seat she shouted, “FLAT TIRE! HELP! A FLAT TIRE!”

I woke up screaming. She laughed until she almost wrecked the vehicle. Medical professionals had to restart my heart with a defibrillator.

The Delta can be lonesome and scary at night. Our vehicle shoots across four million acres of empty, flat, loose dirt and floodplain, and it feels like being on the moon. There are no lights around. No stars. No trees. Only dark Delta.

We see a shape on the horizon. Maybe it’s a tree. Please God let it be a tree. Nope. False alarm. It’s only a tractor. Or it could be Satan.

Earlier this evening

I did a book signing in the charming town of Greenwood. I played a few songs on my guitar, signed some books, hugged necks. Then we rushed out the door to the next town.

But before we left, I met Mary Carol, who is a mainstay in Greenwood. She’s a slight woman with a friendly smile and a gracious accent that reminds you of Greek Revival mansions. She offered to take me to visit Robert Johnson’s grave.

I got very excited. “THEE Robert Johnson?” I said.

“Who?” my wife asked. “The guy who owns the hotel chain?”

It’s amazing how many people don’t know who Robert Johnson is. But the truth is, everybody knows his music. Sort of. If you’ve ever sat in a beer joint and listened to a bar band play “Brown Sugar” loud enough to loosen your fillings, you’ve heard Robert…

MERIDIAN—It’s overcast and gloomy today. I’m walking the hometown streets of Jimmie Rodgers and I feel his memory here.

When you cross the bridge in Meridian, you see the muddy trainyards crowded with tired boxcars, flatcars, and exhaust rising from diesel locomotives. And you know this is the junction town where the Grandfather of Country Music was born at the turn of the century.

There is some debate on the subject of Jimmie’s home place. An old woman I once knew swore that Jimmie’s kinfolk were from Geiger, Alabama. Another friend of mine says Bristol, Tennessee.

I can’t shed any new light on the matter. All I can say is: When you visit Meridian, do not mention either of these theories or they will drag you behind the Methodist church and shoot you.

I like Rodgers’ music so much that I often play it at my shows, I even yodel a little and sound like a bloodhound with bronchitis. Afterward, young people usually ask, “Who wrote that weird yodeling song?”

“Jimmie Rodgers,” I’ll say.

“That’s nifty. Does he have

a YouTube channel?”

You have to worry about America’s youth.

My appreciation for Jimmie Rodgers began at a church rummage sale when I was eleven. There was an old man named Brother Gary who sat behind a card table, selling several old guitars.

He was smoking a cigarette, wearing a pocket T-shirt. Gary was a Baptist deacon who openly smoked unfiltered Camels on church property without shame. It was a different world back then.

I was browsing Gary’s guitar collection when one instrument in particular caught my eye. On the back of this guitar was the word “THANKS,” painted in giant letters.

I asked about it. Gary said, “My wife painted that, because I always liked Jimmie Rodgers, he had the same thing painted on his guitar.”

“Who’s Jimmie Rodgers?” I asked.

The old man looked insulted. He yanked the guitar…

DEAR SEAN:

I’m so scared of the coronavirus. I’m honestly so scared I really can’t think about other stuff when it’s got me like this, and even my teachers are scared about it.

TEN-IN-BRIDGEPORT-CONNECTICUT

DEAR CONNECTICUT:

I know exactly what you should do to feel better. This might sound crazy, but listen carefully because I will only say this once:

You should eat a live frog.

I am totally serious. This is no joke. I will explain myself, but before I do I want to tell you that you’re lucky to live in Connecticut. My favorite writer lived there. His house still stands in Hartford, they’ve turned it into a cool museum and I’d give almost anything to see it.

I fell in love with this particular writer in the fourth grade when I first read a story called “The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County.” And it made me laugh.

You probably wouldn’t care about this story, it’s about a frog-jumping contest. Also, it’s a little tough to read since it was written in 1865, and in those

days people used funky words like “betwixt,” “inasmuch,” and “whence.”

As it happens, 1865 was a crazy year in America. Women were wearing Victorian fashions. The West was still wild. The pioneers were traveling great distances with their families, enduring hardships, roaming in covered wagons through untamed wilderness in search of free WiFi.

You’re probably thinking: “Big deal. What’s your point?”

Patience, Grasshopper. I’m getting there.

First, I want you to get this historic setting: Abraham Lincoln has just been sworn in for a second term. Half the country wants the other half killed. The Civil War is in full swing. About 620,000 men are dead. The newspapers are reporting on nothing but bloodbaths.

‘65 is a dark year, and it only gets darker. Officially, the war is over in April, but battles keep raging. Then six days after the war’s…

Dear Thelma Lou,

Right now I am five hundred miles away from you in Mississippi, out of town for work. And right now you’re probably in the backyard, trying to dismember a squirrel carcass. Or maybe you’re howling at the neighbors. Perhaps you’re digging a hole to Beijing, chewing our porch, or eating cat poop. There are so many options.

I miss you. Please mind your aunt Michelle while we are away. I have given her complete authority to spank you.

You might not remember the day we brought you home, but I do. Your loose skin hung over your eyes. You were chubby, with oversized paws, and a cute hindsection that wobbled when you walked. Your ears hung to the floor so that you tripped over them. You were all bloodhound.

For your first year, whenever you’d fall asleep on me you would pee. Every single time. One moment, I’d be reading a book, and you’d be cradled on my chest. The next minute, warm liquid would be soaking my shirt. I would scream,

“THELMA LOU!” But you wouldn’t even bother waking up.

So I’d carry you out of the bedroom, careful not to disturb your sleep. Because even though I was covered in puppy urine, I liked to watch you sleep. I still love to watch you sleep, even though you aren’t a puppy anymore.

And believe me, you’re DEFINITELY not a puppy anymore. For crying out loud, the scale over at Pet We-Take-All-Your-Money Mart said that you weighed almost ninety pounds. Ninety. That’s heavy enough to be one of the Budweiser Clydesdales.

But you’ll always be a puppy to me. You came into our lives when we were a mess. We had just lost a thirteen-year-old dog named Ellie Mae. I wish you could have known her. You would have liked Ellie Mae. Everyone did.

When she left us, I was out of town for work, sort…

MOUNT JULIET—I am doing a book signing event tonight. Which is a fancy way of saying that I’m using a Sharpie to deface the property of innocent people.

Right now Tennessee is cold, biting, and everyone is wearing jackets. I shake hands, give hugs, sign books, and continuously run my mouth with everyone I meet. This is slowing down the line, but I can’t help it. I’m a big talker just like my mother.

And tonight I’m hugging necks from all over the Southeast.

One of the first necks I hug belongs to a guy from Sopchoppy, Florida. He is cheery and has a long beard. And we are discussing the finer points of underpants. Seriously.

He tells me he has recently discovered a new brand of cutting-edge undies that are built for comfort. We talk about these underpants in great detail. And before we say goodbye his exact parting words are: “You’re gonna love the underpants, man! They’re awesome underpants!”

So the literary event is off to an excellent start.

I hug the

necks of Stephani and Jacki, two sisters who grew up with a mother that forgot to put E’s on the ends of their names.

I meet Randy and LaTresa, a talented husband-and-wife musical duo who give me copies of their albums.

I run into my friend Matthew, who brought his sweet mother. If I am not mistaken, Matthew is wearing orange-and-blue Auburn University plaid. Which hurts my Crimson heart a little.

I see my pal Rob. Rob is a real author with a bona fide career. For some reason, call it misfortune, he has believed in me from the early days. One time he even drove all the way to Alabama just to see me perform. That was back when I had no idea what I was doing. Thankfully, after much practice and a few years of trial and error, I still have no freaking idea…

NASHVILLE—There must be a million people inside the Music City Convention Center, gathering for the Public Library Association’s annual conference. These are all librarians.

This conference is the Olympic Games of the library world. Dedicated library professionals from all over the nation attend to represent their communities with one goal in mind, namely, to locate free alcohol.

I’m kidding. But not totally. They also visit for the free books, the engaging speakers, and to learn about breakthroughs in the field of self-inking rubber stamps.

I love librarians. Though I’ll admit I’m also a little afraid of them. This fear dates back to when I was younger. I used to visit the library and check out lots of Louis L’Amour novels. I was terrible about returning them on time. I still have overdue books that have been accruing debt since the Coolidge administration.

Thus, I have become very good at spotting librarians in crowds so that I can hide from them. In fact, if you were to line up ten people and hide one

librarian among them, I could pick out the librarian. She would be easy to find. Just look for the sweet older woman wearing tennis shoes and scented bath powder.

Another dead giveaway would be that everyone would be calling her “ma’am” and promising to return their overdue books under threat of the death penalty.

As it happens, the subject of late fees is a big issue at today’s book convention.

“I hate late fees,” said one librarian from Alaska. “They ruin the whole experience for kids who forget books, the kids are always embarrassed when I tell them they owe me lots of money. I feel like a mafia boss, like I’m threatening to break their legs or something.”

“Hear, hear,” said another woman from Michigan. “Most kids are so scared of me they leave with their books and never come back. Which only makes MORE late…

FRANKLIN—It’s colder than a brass bra in Tennessee. This is the second day of my book tour and my cheeks are frozen solid. All four of them.

We left the hotel this morning and drove southward through Nashville. At each stoplight the morning road crews were spreading rock salt, slowing traffic to a crawl. Local traffic reports said that, due to frozen conditions, Nashville’s I-65 was gridlocked with nine miles of bumper-to-bumper bachelorette parties.

I was not prepared for cold weather. I am from Florida. I own exactly one winter jacket, which still has the pricetag on it. I usually wear this jacket on Christmas morning to walk the dogs—purely for a joke. This past Christmas, for instance, it was seventy-two degrees where we live.

But today, I’m wearing gloves, a scarf, long underwear, and the whole nine yards.

As part of this tour, I am a guest on some podcasts, which is a new experience for me. I am told that being on the air is sort of like taking

powerful hallucinogenic medication.

Basically, you get locked in a studio and talk to inanimate objects (microphones, padded walls, English majors, etc.) for several minutes until you either fall asleep or the producers start decomposing.

Chris is the host of this show. He’s courteous, kind, and he asks thoughtful interview questions about my life and my work. Chris also has a real talent for listening. Which comes in handy.

Because when I answer his questions I tend to ramble and speak in caffeinated run-on sentences that can go for nearly six or seven minutes without a single breath or pause so that everyone inside the studio has fallen into a deep sleep and is currently having hallucinatory experiences of their own, kind of like you are having right now, because I just won’t shut up, because I keep coming up with something else that I HAVE to say until Chris…

NASHVILLE—It is snowing on the first day of my book tour.

Sometimes when people hear the term “book tour” they immediately think fancy schmancy. Well, believe me, this tour is extremely fancy. Nothing but the best for us. The hotel we stayed at last night, for example, recently installed several brand new top-of-the-line mouse traps.

We’re calling this the “Snow Tour.” Which is a only joke because the snow here in Nashville only lasted for a whopping four seconds before Davidson County officials brought the snowfall to a halt, penalizing flurries for accumulating without a building permit.

Needless to say, I’ve never done an official book tour before. Though, I imagine it sort of works the same way the Tour de France works. You ride across the country, enduring sleep deprivation, stinking to high heaven, straddling a seat that’s about the size of a Snickers bar. Luckily, our van’s bucket seats are a little bigger, more like a Baby Ruth.

My wife and I will be living on the road for nearly a

month. This means that we will be wearing the same clothes day after day, doing our laundry in hotel sinks. So if you happen to see me while on tour, make sure you give me a big hug because I’ll be smelling great—provided you like the smell of Limburger cheese.

Speaking of Limburger, I should mention my book.

I started writing it a couple years ago during a vacation to Lake Martin because my wife had gotten a great internet deal on a lake cabin. Well, at least that’s what we thought. Come to find out, it wasn’t a deal.

For starters, the cabin wasn’t even on water. It was located on a remote part of the lake that hasn’t seen any actual water since the Paleolithic era. The lake had receded WAY back so that the porch was overlooking miles of fudge-colored mud and dead fish…

I am in traffic listening to an oldies AM radio station. Extreme oldies. The music coming through my speakers takes me to an antique world of hi-fis, beehive hairdos, and weird congealed salads.

The radio DJ says, “...And that was a song from Benny Goodman, now let’s hear one from the Les Baxter Orchestra...”

I remember my granny listening to Les Baxter albums. One such album was called “The Primitive and the Passionate,” ala 1962. On the cover was a photo of a woman who could’ve passed for Sophia Loren, dancing in a sultry way, beckoning to all who looked upon her. Even little Baptist boys.

I remember the record playing on a turntable. It was lush and tranquilizing. When you hear music like that, you are immediately transported to an earlier time, sitting on a plastic-covered sofa, watching someone’s dad—usually named Gary, Frank, or Dennis—use a cocktail shaker to make a Manhattan.

I remember another Les Baxter record. “Space Escapade” (1958). On the cover was Les Baxter dressed in a spaceman suit

with spacegirls falling all over him. Keep in mind, Les Baxter looked a lot like your grandfather’s dentist.

But the record was great. An hour’s worth of exotic orchestral music that sounds exactly like being trapped in a department store with your mother while she’s trying on dresses.

“Attention shoppers,” the department store intercom says. “Special on aisle twelve, make your own julienne fries with the new Fry-O-Matic! Fourteen ninety-nine with rebate. Also, ask your sales associate about our sale on boy’s athletic supporters.”

The radio station is now playing selections from the country music vein. Conway Twitty. Hank Snow. Followed by Buck Owens, singing “Together Again.” I turn it up.

If I close my eyes, I’m sitting in front of a Zenith console TV with my father. On the screen: Roy Clark and Buck Owens are surrounded by their “Hee Haw” gals in cutoff denim shorts.…

Mister Vernon died last night. He went easy. You never met him, but you knew him. He was every white-haired man you’ve ever seen.

He spoke with a drawl. He talked about the old days. He was opinionated. He was American. Lonely.

Miss Charyl, his caregiver, did CPR. She compressed his chest so hard his sternum cracked. She was sobbing when the EMTs took him.

Caregiving is Charyl’s second job. She’s been working nights at Mister Vernon’s for a while.

She arrived at his mobile-home one sunny day. Mister Vernon was fussy, cranky. A twenty-four carat heart.

She listened to his stories—since nobody else would. He had millions.

He talked about creeks, mudcats, frog gigging, bush hooks, and running barefoot through pinestraw and cahaba lilies.

And he talked about Marilyn. Marilyn was the center of his life once. His companion. But she was not long for this world.

He talked politics, too. Charyl and he disagreed. Mister Vernon would holler his opinions loud enough to make the walls bow.

He was a man of his time. An oil rig worker, a logger,

a breadwinner, a roughneck. He helped build a country. And a family.

Each day, he’d thumb through a collection of old photos. His favorite: The woman with the warm smile.

Marilyn. The woman who’d helped him make his family. Who’d turned his kids into adults. Adults who had successful lives and successful families. They live in successful cities, they do successful things.

“He sure missed his kids,” says Charyl. “They hardly came to see him. They were so busy.”

Busy.

Last night, Vernon asked Charyl for a country supper. She lit the stove and tore up the kitchen. She cooked chicken fried steak, creamed potatoes, string beans, milk gravy.

“Marilyn used to make milk gravy,” he remarked.

She served him peach cobbler. Handmade. The kind found at Baptist covered-dish suppers.

“Marilyn used to make peach cobbler,” he said.