It was my worst week ever. I had an apartment located smack-dab on the university campus. It smelled like moldy goat cheese. I felt like the oldest student God ever created. Maybe I was.

College kids would point and say things like, “Hey, Grandpa, the morgue's that way.”

Then skateboard off.

Anyway, I applied to a school program. The professor said my work stunk. So, I applied to another. I failed the interview. I called my wife.

“What am I doing here?” I said. “The professors treat me like a dumb redneck, students act like I belong in a nursing home.”

“You aren't dumb,” she said. “But you are kinda redneck."

I persevered—though I was about as uncomfortable as a cricket in a honey puddle. Then, one day, a campus official approached me.

“I don't know how to tell you this," she said. "A computer glitch deleted your name from our system. Sorry, but we have to drop you for several semesters.”

"You're kicking me out?" I asked.

"Well, yes."

In a few hours, I was driving

back home. I cried in the truck. I stopped at a gas station, ate three honey buns, and counted the pennies in my pocket to make myself feel worse. My cellphone vibrated. It was my wife.

“It's Daddy," she said, sobbing. “He's fallen. There's a lot of blood. He's in ICU.”

When I got home, I forgot all about school. While my wife held vigil at the hospital, I loped into rush-hour traffic for coffee. I considered my future career options, which were less-than plentiful. I was leaning toward taxidermy.

Just then, the vehicle ahead slammed its brakes. I rear-ended it hard. The airbag busted my cheekbone, I went unconscious.

When I awoke in an ambulance, the paramedic wore a grave face. He said, “Good thing you didn't pee your pants, lotta folks mess themselves during car wrecks."

Thank God for small blessings.

She drinks beer with me. That might seem like a little thing to you. It's not. During football season, it's everything. I need a beer-sipping partner when watching games. One who doesn't smell bad or put his feet on my coffee table.

She's smart. I once saw her worm her way out of a traffic violation. She turned on her charm, giggling for the deputy. I sat in the passenger seat, innocent as Helen Keller. The officer kept giving me sideways glances, as though he wanted to say, “C'mon honey, let's ditch the stiff.”

She's a Scorpio. Admittedly, I don't know much about zodiacs. But, we get scorpions in our house. And, from what I know about them: (a) you can't kill them, (b) not even with a twelve-gauge.

She's strong. I've seen my wife move a refrigerator by herself. After I had surgery, she muscled the new appliance inside. Then, she cracked open a beer with her teeth, and powdered her nose.

We've traveled the World's Longest Yard Sale

a few times—three thousand miles of Southern rust and garbage. I watched her whittle the price on a pair of red cowgirl boots using nothing but her sugary accent. The boots were twenty bucks; she paid a nickel. The man asked for her number. So, she winked and said, "On a scale of one to ten, I'm an eleven."

She can outfish me, outrun me, out-talk, out-argue, and outsmart me. She's slugged me with a baseball bat once—it was an accident. She landed me in the emergency room twice—also accidental. And she has beaten me so hard at Texas Hold'em that I still owe her nearly eight hundred thousand dollars.

She makes chicken soup when I'm sick. I'm talking the real stuff—fresh poultry, plucked clean. Like Mama's. And she can toss together food fit for company using nothing but hominy, butter, and cheese.

And when the doctors told us they…

I'm a survivor is what I am,” she says. “I want you to write that in your little article about me.”

She's in a chair by the window—a soft recliner. On the table beside her: porcelain figurines of Georgia bulldogs, a few Jesus statues.

“When I's a girl," she says. "I fell off a mule, my hair got caught in the stirrups, thing drug me for half a mile. My daddy said he ain't never seen a tougher girl. Finally ripped my hair clean out.”

She's too old to live on her own now, but she still has independence at her retirement facility. Athena comes to help straighten her room now and then. Athena is large, black, kindhearted, and I wish she would consider adopting me.

Athena says, “She don't like to say it, but we think she older than she knows. That's why I thought you'd like writing about her. Think she almost hundred years old, but ain't nobody really sure.”

Nobody's sure because she doesn't have a birth certificate.

“I's born

in a two-room cabin," the old woman says. "Daddy put me to work plowing the very next day.”

Athena laughs at this. She has a beautiful laugh. I wish Athena would let me sit in her lap for a little while.

“Daddy wanted all boys,” she goes on. “What he GOT was two girls and two boys. And we were all fine-looking, too.”

The girls worked as hard as their brothers, doing chores meant for kids with tough hands and testosterone. By her teenage years, she could plow straight lines and shell peas with her arms tied behind her back. She believes this grit is what helped her survive cancer.

“When I's in my forties,” she says. “Doctors found cancer in my breasts, back then all they knew was to cut'em off. They told me I'd probably die anyway.”

Athena shakes her head and whispers, “Jesus."

“So,…

Crestview, Florida—the class of 1966. The tiny group held their fiftieth reunion next door to the police station, at Warrior Hall.

On the front steps, men took swigs from red SOLO cups while smoking cigarettes. Deputies next door, watched and grinned.

I met a woman with white hair. “Know why my hair turned white?” she asked.

Because you love the Lord?

“During senior year,” she explained. “We painted, 'seniors of sixty-six' on every surface of this town. By accident, a can of paint spilled on my hair. My friends soaked me in gasoline to get it out. Been gas-blonde ever since.”

Looks nice.

That night, I met military vets, lumber salesmen, turkey hunters, tobacco spitters, and lots of other men who like boots better than sneakers. I met a funeral director, a New-York singer, a few drunks, a minister, and a used car salesman.

One man said, “I shouldn't have graduated in sixty-six."

I asked why.

"When I's in third grade, I got held back, 'cause of a yankee teacher. Couldn't understand nary a word she said. Otherwise, I'd'a graduated in sixty-five.”

Yankees.

The catering company rolled out food fit for royalty. Cocktail weenies, tuna salad sandwiches, and congealed salad. People seated themselves at tables and filled the auditorium with laughing.

One man spiked his drink with something from a jelly jar.

“Is that moonshine?” I asked.

“You damn right,” he said. “Want some?"

Just two fingers, please.

After supper, they passed around a microphone. Folks told stories. There was the story about when the cheerleaders snuck into the boy's hideout—replacing scandalous magazines with Bibles.

Or: how the seniors used old outhouses as kindling for class bonfires.

There was the time when Sister So-And-So whacked Brother What's-His-Name with a hammer as children—they'll be married fifty years in July.

One fella remembers sneaking out, stealing kisses from his sweetheart before shipping off for Vietnam.

A woman recalls how school buses used…

He was tough. And poor. I suppose the two go hand in hand sometimes. He grew up fast, without any choice in the matter. Not having money can do that to a child.

We worked together. I didn't know him well—he was too hardened to have any friends. Each morning, he'd show up to my house on a bicycle, I'd give him a ride to the job-site.

When his little brother needed eyeglasses, he took a second job stocking UPS trucks at night. Because of this, he'd show up most days with baggy eyes, sipping a two-liter bottle of Mountain-Dew. During lunch, he'd sleep in someone's car until they woke him.

Sometimes, we'd just let him sleep.

He rarely smiled. I don't think anyone ever heard him laugh. And I can't say I blamed him. His mother was a custodian, his sister was a middle-schooler, his father was an inmate, his brothers called him, Daddy.

On his twenty-first birthday, several of us forced him into a Mexican restaurant. It was a miracle he even

agreed to come.

But it was a good night. At first, he was uncomfortable. After a few drinks, he loosened up. We laughed, got loud. The waiters put a sombrero on him, they sang happy birthday in broken English. He blushed.

We howled until we went into oxygen debt.

After supper, all the boys stood out front, filling the night air with blue smoke. Nobody said a word to each other, we just exchanged sappy grins—like we were up to no good.

He didn't like our looks. “What's going on, guys?” he finally said.

Nobody moved a muscle.

Then, a dinged up truck came rolling from behind the building, honking its horn. It was junk, but it had a fresh Kelly Green paint-job—the kind done with roller brushes. The front bumper was a bolted-on four-by-four. No tailgate. Broken taillights. The tires were brand new.

He didn't…

I watched the presidential debates in a Pensacola, Florida bar. The man next to me kept shouting at the television, saying, "Oh, for the love of Jeezus!"

Jesus.

The first time I remember hearing that name was when Mrs. Gelding swatted my five-year-old hindparts for telling a certain joke—with a less-than-reputable punchline.

While she beat the whiteness out of my hindcheeks, she hollered, “A little more Jesus never hurt anybody!”

I didn't know who Jesus was. But later, I would learn how fondly Mrs. Gelding felt for him. Rumors claimed she cross-stitched his face onto her cotton britches.

She called him Savior. And this was a revelation. Because until then, I'd understood Roy Rogers held this title.

Over time, I grew to admire Jesus—even though he didn't ride a well-trained horse. You couldn't help but like him, he's famous. Here in the South, you hear about him everywhere. In Tom Thumbs, beauty pageants, billboards, bingo-houses, and beer-joints.

A few nights ago, I drove past a billboard reading: “Jesus will scare the hell out of you.”

Then, I turned on the radio and caught the tail end of a preacher's prayer, which closed with, "...in Jesus' name, amen."

I've even known a man named Jesus. He was Mexican. We worked construction together. On the job-site, we nicknamed him, Lordy. He was a good sport about it. Sometimes, he'd pretend he could change water into beer.

We'd roll on the floor when he did that.

Jesus once said that his mother gave him the most holy name she could think of. She wanted him to have every chance he could get, since he was born into base poverty. Jesus didn't own shoes until thirteen. At fifteen, he hopped a train for the U.S.

During his time here, he was not treated kindly. If you've ever wanted to know what real hate is, ask Jesus.

Jesus said, “When I was little, my father…

“I love this country,” he said. “Seen every inch of it. Been driving a truck forty-three years.”

He's old. Lines all over his face. Tall. He's wearing a turquoise belt buckle, faded Wranglers, and steel-toed boots. He's making a delivery in North Carolina tomorrow. He's hoping to see the mountains before the sun goes down.

“I's raised a ways outside Shreveport," he went on. "Town so small, we went to kindergarten barefoot, sometimes. Seems like forever ago. I signed up for the Marines soon as I could, wanted to see the world.”

His was a short-lived military career. A patrol vehicle ran over his back during a mission. It broke his spine. He retired.

“You know,” he said. “In the Marines, we got to see how poor other countries were. Some of'em folks is so homeless, they ain't even got a toilet where they can go take a—”

Use your imagination.

He started driving an eighteen-wheeler. The thing cost as much as two houses. He and his wife borrowed the money from a

bank to buy the rig.

They saw the entire country.

“Best decision we ever made,” he said. “As a driver, I've racked up seven million log-miles. Maybe seven and a quarter.”

If it's out there, he's seen it.

Portland in the fall, Wyoming in the winter, and L.A. at rush hour. He's seen the shadows in the Grand Canyon, driven through the Rockies during storms, and slept on the shoulder in Oklahoma City. He's ridden the highlands of Virginia, and seen every last bit of the Carolinas.

“Took my wife on the road with me," he said. "We was just two Southern hillbillies, but we saw it all. We'd pull over for the night, she'd cook supper, we'd play cards, or just watch the sun go down in the mountains. God, she loved mountains."

She's been gone ten years now. It breaks him up to talk about…

If you ever park in a South Alabama field at night, you'll see things that take your breath away. The big waves of grass make it seem as though you're in the middle of creation.

And God, these stars.

If you happen to know a place like this, don't tell anyone where it is, or else they'll build a shopping mall on it.

Of course, at this hour, it's not about the field, really. It's about the moon.

I'm writing this while sitting in my truck. I've just spent the last three hours watching the moon. Ellie Mae, my coonhound is with me. We split a hamburger for supper on the tailgate—though not equally. She ate the beef, I ate the bread.

Rotten dog.

When she was done, she stared upward at the sky. She held her eyes on the moon like she could see Neil Armstrong. She stayed like that twenty minutes.

I've never seen a dog do that before.

You know, I'm lucky. Admittedly, I haven't seen much in my life, and I

haven't visited anywhere of merit. But I'm lucky just the same. And I'd be hard pressed to get any more satisfied than I am right now.

Yeah, I know, life is hard. And they say being happy is even harder. It's true. I've known heartache. So have you.

The world can be mean. Some days you wake up and someone busts you in the teeth before it's even lunchtime. It's easy to get sad.

But don't stay that way. You can take my word for it: it will ruin you.

Besides, look at this field. Look at this moon. This world isn't all thorns. It's a nice place. We have hamburgers, Ford trucks, coonhounds, number-one pencils, Saturday-morning cartoons, and teenage romances.

I love to watch teenage lovebirds hold hands, something about it makes me believe in love.

I once saw a boy and girl in…

I'm in a pecan orchard. The trees are blocking out the sun, and I'm in some kind of heaven. Pecan trees do that to me. I could spend an entire day here.

The year before my father died, we planted nearly one-acre's-worth of baby pecans.

I'll bet they're huge now.

It was late October, chilly weather. We dug holes all day. I wore a coonskin cap made from real raccoon. My father hand-made the thing when he was a young man. Folks from our pedigree often hunt coons with spotlights and longneck bottles on the weekends.

While planting each tree-row, he blasted music from his truck cab. I can't remember which songs were playing, all I remember was a twang.

While we worked, Don followed us around.

Don was a duck. He was pure white, and behaved cantankerously toward anyone but Daddy. The old bird hung around wherever Daddy went. Sometimes, you'd see them walking the fence posts, side by side.

“Don," he'd sometimes say. "Why don't you make yourself useful, dammit?”

Don would

just stand there, blinking.

“You freeloader,” he'd go on, "I'm gonna eat you if you don't start pulling your weight.”

But Daddy would've never done such a thing. He didn't want to admit that he loved that stupid bird. He did. Later that year, we found Don's white feathers scattered all over the yard, I saw Daddy cry.

After we'd finished planting the trees, we looked at the mini-orchard in the low sun. Daddy let me sip his beer. Don wandered back and forth, grunting.

The pecans sat in long rows, straight and neat. Like a little army.

"One day," said Daddy. "Maybe these things'll make a little money."

I was too tired to care whether they ever would. We'd worked so hard, I was half-delirious.

Daddy finally looked at me and said, “These trees'll outlive me. One day, they'll be huge. Hell, maybe I'll…