"My mind ain't what it used to be,” she said. "Wish you could'a seen me back then, I was smart."

She's ninety-four. Feisty as a pair of sandy underpants. Southern as ham hocks. Her hands look like prunes, she has a severely bad memory.

But she still remembers when we won the Great War. There aren't many like her left.

“My first son was born during a coastal blackout, in Mobile. Hospital was lit up by candlelight. That's war for you.”

She laughed.

“After the war, we felt like we'd triumphed over the Devil. That's when everyone started saying things like, 'I'm proud to be an American,' because we were the good guys.”

She may be forgetful, but she's a cheery little thing. More than anyone I've met in a while. And why wouldn't she be? She can vaguely remember the old world. A world which has disappeared—along with console radios, trumpet music, and hamsteaks.

In her fragmented memories, she still attends baking parties—when women sipped tea and cooked all day in farm kitchens.

"Sometimes," she said. "Four or

five of us still get together and bake bread and cookies... No. Wait. I don't do that anymore do I?"

She cursed herself.

"Sometimes I get confused."

Anyway, what she means is:

She misses those days. When her kids would play in the barn while she tended kitchen. When she and her husband wandered into town with pocketfuls of change, just to take in a double-feature.

Nowadays, it sounds more like an episode of The Andy Griffith Show. Back then, it was a Thursday.

“Everything was less complicated,” she explained. “That's why we were less ugly-acting. Today, folks are miserable. All our kids're sad. Did you know, my granddaughter doesn't even know how to bake. She's too busy."

She scoffed.

“Busy? When I's a girl, we were BUSY baking peach cobblers. Or was it strawberry? No, blackberry."

She's foggy, but she's…

I see a single mother loading four children into her dilapidated car in the Walmart parking lot. They're pitching a fit, screaming bloody murder.

I'm writing this to her, and to everyone like her.

Also, to the unrecognized, who think they're nothing. People you'll never hear about. The unpopular, unknown, and under-appreciated.

The woman who takes her kids to school early , then cleans motel rooms. The waiter I met at Waffle House—who's been sleeping in a recliner ever since his mother died.

To the man in Piggly Wiggly, helping his eighty-eight-year-old daddy shop.

The blind boy I saw on the beach, who said, “Mama! Listen to that water! It's hypnotizing!”

I closed my eyes and sat at the water's edge for thirty minutes. I'll be damned if that kid wasn't right.

To the lady who feeds animals at the no-kill shelter. She might not be famous, but to the dogs she's a Messiah.

I'm speaking to the man whose wife committed suicide. To Raquel, the rape victim who lives in a halfway house. To the immigrant

Mexican boys who pooled money together to buy a bicycle—then gave it to an old man.

To the girl who's pregnant illegitimately, who doesn't know what comes next.

To all underdogs.

To worriers; those who can't stop thinking about money. To the lonely, widows, widowers, orphans, and caregivers.

To the arthritic, the injured, and those who can't remember life without aches.

To addicts, who are clean. To addicts who aren't.

To people who quit believing in Santa. To people who're bad at math. To anyone who likes John Wayne.

To the child I met, who works after school so he can afford food for his little brother. To the girl I know, who decided to be a teacher. To my friend, Charise, who wonders where her dead little girl is.

To you.

You who aren't certain if anyone sees you. Who hopes…

Kids, before I say another word, you should know that I don't give advice—because I don't have any. In fact, I'm still trying to figure out what the hangy thing is in my throat.

But if I DID have advice—which I don't—I'd say this to you, my adolescent pals:

Be who you are.

You might think that's easy. You're wrong. Lots of folks ask you—beg you—to be someone other than you. They don't mean any harm. They've just got deadlines, goals, grand ideas. Or: perhaps they claim to know what's best for you. They don't. You'll have to trust me on that one.

You weren't made to please them.

You were created for everyone—meaning, all mankind. In fact, that's why you're alive. And you aren't any good to humanity if you're pretending to be what some narrow-minded bucket-brain thinks you should be.

How about I say it like this:

I believe everyone is their own sort of animal. Me? I've always been a red squirrel. Squirrels are meant to climb trees, sleep all day, avoid

residential dogs, and let all other woodland creatures feed them. It's how we're made.

Squirrels are NOT meant to tow wagons—like pack mules. They aren't meant to swim rivers, burrow in dirt, or fly south for winters. And we're certainly not meant to write. But some of us do.

Anyway, we're squirrels. We have fat cheeks, beady eyes, and poor timing when it comes to oncoming traffic. It would be a crime to pretend we were, say, Labradors. After all, dogs don't climb trees. Just like monkeys don't balance checkbooks. And raccoons can't operate my barbecue grill—even though those little hellions have tried.

Thus, be your own animal. Wear your bright-colored, funky clothes, scribble your name catty-wampus. Wear your silly hat, and don't take it off until Mama says it's time to shower. Love the people you love—also the ones you don't. Be kind. And…

“When you're a kid, you don't know you're white trash," he said. "You don't think about things like that. Hell, I didn't even know we's poor until high school.”

Well. Poorness is all relative. He might've had less than the folks living in Antebellum estates. But his family was wealthier than, say, most raccoons.

“It finally clicked in my brain,” he went on. "Got home from school one day, Daddy said he'd come into a lotta money.”

He laughed.

"Turns out, it was only a few-hundred bucks. He strutted like he was a millionaire. Told me he was gonna buy me a new bedroom, since I's sleeping with my little brothers in the same bed.”

The next thing his daddy did was drive to Montgomery to a family friend's mobile-home dealership. On the rear lot were rusted single-wides, ready for the dump.

“We walked through'em,” my friend said. "Looking for the nicest one, they were disgusting. Rat nests, mildew, just gross.”

After selecting a dilapidated single-wide. His daddy's friend let them have it free—only

charging a few hundred for towing it.

That same evening, when his daddy got home, he invited his work friends over.

He went on, “Daddy and his buddies got drunk and cut one whole side off our house, with chainsaws, while Mama's in the kitchen fixing supper.”

Two nights later, the new trailer arrived. They sandwiched both homes together, connecting them to make a double-wide.

"Having my own room felt like being rich,” he said. “I still had no idea it was so trashy until a kid made fun of me at baseball practice. Honestly, I didn't understand what white trash was. Still, it made me cry.”

Years went by. He grew up. Moved away. He went to college. He did well for himself. He bought nicer clothes, some dental work. Eventually, he was working a pretty good job, making a decent living.

As a grown…

The kid behind the bar asked what type of beer I wanted. It was a fancy place, so I asked what kinds they had. It was a mistake. There were nine hundred varieties—not a Budweiser in sight.

The kid handed me an iPad with a menu on the screen.

And before he filled my glass with fifteen-dollar suds, he said, “Sorry, we don't carry Budweiser. This world has changed on you, bucko.”

Bucko?

As a matter of fact, you're right, kid. You want to know how much it's changed? My school bus used to drop me two miles from my house after ball practice. Miss Lynn, the driver, refused to go down the hilly dirt roads for fear she'd get stuck. And I don't want to get cliche here, but what I'm saying is: I walked to school, uphill, both ways, on gravel and mud. A lot of us did.

Go ahead, laugh.

In the summers, the canopies of live oaks, and sugar maples covered our roads. I know this because Daddy

gave me The Pocket Tree-Encyclopedia. And for each new tree-find, I'd earn a pittance for my piggy bank.

Piggy banks. We had those. They were filled with coins. Anyone below twelve used silver pieces to buy salt peanuts, Coca-Cola, or taffy. Do I sound like a bumpkin yet? Good.

We got sunburned a lot. We sweat even more. Our shoes wore out, quick. We got poison ivy whenever the wind blew. We plucked so many deer ticks from our bodies we quit counting. Our dogs followed us off-leash, and we've been drinking coffee since before we had armpit hair.

Our girls could ride horses and shoot rifles. We spent weekends loping trails and open fields. There were no smartphones, only baseball, fishing, frog-gigging, and racy jokes. We didn't know about kidney-rotting narcotics, only strawberry moonshine. The worst sins were Red Man chew, unfiltered Camels, necking, and beer.

Beer.

I knew a man who lived in a tent with his twelve-year-old son. He was plumb crazy. The real kind of crazy. He camped in the woods and wouldn't accept money from anyone.

Sometimes, his son would wander into the church next door during potlucks.

The kid's daddy had a heart attack. The last day we saw the boy, a few of us gave him a Tupperware container full of cash—since we didn't know what else to do. The boy just looked at us. I've never felt so pathetic.

He finally said, “God bless you, guys.”

If he's still alive, that child is a man today.

Another fella I knew: he was a rodeo king. We'd drink beer together. I'd ask him about the old days. He'd tell me about the steel pins in his hip, plate in his skull, neck fusion, and spinal surgeries. God, could he rope.

When they diagnosed him with prostate cancer, he retired from the circuit and started working at a hardware store.

Once he told me, “The hardest part about

dying is wishing I could'a done a few things different.”

Hardly anyone came to his funeral. I sat beside his daughter. They put his ashes in a saddle bag.

His daughter said to me, “I thought more people would'a shown up. God bless you for coming.”

My friend Davey and I painted houses. But he wasn't a house-painter. Long ago, he taught music at Auburn University. Symphonic composition. The man had orchestras playing in his brain.

He was bad to drink.

Sometimes, I'd visit his one-room apartment and find him face-down in his vomit. He told me once, “It ain't me who drinks, it's my demons. I just can't kill them.”

He was purple when the paramedics found him.

His landlady and I stood watching the ambulance taillights disappear. “God bless poor old Davey," she said.

Look, I don't know what happens when people…

She has long pink hair and a ring in her nose. She's only been hairdressing a few years—the money is awful. But she's got a way with folks, and a healthy sense of humor.

“Turn your head to the left,” she'll say. “That's good. Now cough for me.”

Cute.

There's a photograph tacked to her mirror. In the picture: a heap of kids seated on the steps of an old home, grinning. There are so many in the photo, the picture is busting at the seams.

“That's my family,” she says, pointing. “We're a hot mess.”

As it happens, only one of the children in the picture is her own—another one came from her husband. The remaining five are adopted.

I ask why she adopted five.

“Fosters,” she says. “If you only knew how many kids need homes, breaks your heart.” She taps the photo. “See him? His daddy used to beat him with a mop stick before we got him.”

That's nothing.

The tallest child's mother overdosed in a public park—they found him sleeping in a

twisty-slide. The two black sisters: rescued from a crack house. The little fella with fat cheeks: he has cystic fibrosis and uses crutches.

She didn't mean to adopt them. It just happened.

“Most days,” she says. “All I'm doing is running from point A to point B. I want'em to play sports, have friends, but it keeps me busy.”

It's hard. Her husband works for the utility company, she cuts hair while the kids are at school. Afterward, she rushes home to make supper and ensure nobody sets the sofa on fire. They're poor as red clay dirt, but they get by.

“Can't remember what it's like to have money,” she tells me. “All we do is work. And we just found out I'm pregnant again.” She laughs. “I'm three months along.”

Congratulations.

When she finishes trimming my hair, she spins me around…

His era is gone. He knows that. His barefoot childhood is just a memory. The soles of his young feet were like maple. He could walk five miles on those dogs. Today, children wear shoes with lights in them.

Something else about him:

He made fishing rods out of cane stalks. They weren't like store-bought varieties—they were better. In the afternoons, he'd steal corn from nearby fields, eat it raw, then puff a pipeful of fresh-picked rabbit tobacco.

If you ask me, it sounds like a shoeless fairytale. But it's not. It's lower Alabama.

He spent enough time on the Conecuh to be part catfish. In fact, it's where he took his wife for their honeymoon. She loves him. They get along.

He took up chewing twist tobacco. Nowadays, he has to special order it. Nobody sells twist anymore. It's a bad habit. At first chewing was something he did infrequently. Then it turned into routine. Now, he couldn't tell a story without it.

And stories. He spins good ones.

You want

comedies? He'll tell you about when he let a raccoon loose during a revival meeting—eons before they wrote country songs about it. You want mysteries? He'll tell you about the harlot found dead in a wealthy man's living room. Dramas? The one about his cousin—who fell in love with his own sister.

Anyway, the old fella has a television. A big one. His kids bought it for his birthday. But it's still wrapped in a box on the guest bed. He doesn't want it.

“He used to watch some TV,” his wife said. “Sunday movies, or football, he don't no more. Sometimes he listens to football on the radio.”

Ask him what's going on in the world. He'll tell you about the weather, where So-And-So's boy goes to college, about the deer the McWhoevers shot last weekend. He doesn't know what the Zika virus is, doesn't care who…

I was going to write about something else, but then a stranger dropped homemade cookies onto my front porch. It was the same woman who said, “Don't trust a baker who looks good in a two-piece.”

It took me a few hours to understand that. By then, I'd finished the cookies.

There was a note attached. She wrote: “I make everything the right way."

Well, heaven bless the good woman who does not walk in the path of the unrighteous, nor practice the spiritual defamation of plastic-tubed biscuits and frozen breakfast burritos.

I'd like the record to show that I miss the days of real food . I miss country ham—the kind that comes from a hog in a nearby county. And real fried chicken—made with an iron skillet and slippery floor.

Last Christmas, a friend served ham from Walmart. It was an affront to decency. The meal tasted like undercooked linoleum. The package label on the ham read: China. I'd rather eat chicken feet than red ham.

Not only that.

I miss grits

that come from feed-sacks, that take more than two minutes to prepare. I miss French fries cut before frying. I miss popcorn made in a skillet, with enough butter to short circuit U.S. Congress.

A friend made microwave popcorn during a football game last weekend. When it finished popping, he opened a yellow packet of slime, labeled, “butter-flavored topping.” That gold-colored degradation ruined my favorite shirt.

And my mouth.

What happened to real butter? The kind that made your arm muscles sore. Or ice cream that turned into soup if you didn't eat it quick. Commercial ice cream wouldn't melt on my dashboard.

I'm just getting warmed up.

I miss how it was before people worried about deadly mosquito bites, dookie in our drinking water, whole milk, and deer ticks. As a boy, deer ticks were no cause for national alarm. Now they'll turn your brain…

She almost wouldn't let me write about her. She finally agreed, but only after I vowed to cut her lawn. That's no joke.

First, I had to promise I wouldn't give away much information about her identity. Then, I had to edge her sidewalk.

Her lawn-man had bronchitis.

“Well," she said. "As a little girl I wanted to be famous. I wanted see something big, to get out of a small town and see stuff. I used clip out pictures of exotic places and hang them in my room.”

She's silver-haired now, her left hip is a wreck, but she has terrific posture. And she looks stately in her pearls.

As it happened, fame wasn't so hard to accomplish. She studied hard, attended college, then found a job selling makeup on television. There, she married a man. He wanted notoriety too. To be a politician.

Which is like fame, only filthier.

Before she knew it, she was traveling back and forth, shaking the right hands, kissing babies, mumbling inspiring things.

“He started off a good man,”

she said. “Wanted to change things. In the sixties, he had ideas for water-treatment that would've changed everything. He was, 'green,' before there was such a word. Fought for equality, too.”

But ideals don't last in politics. They're like candlesticks in a hurricane.

“Everyone shot him down,” she went on. “Too many people offered him too much money to push bad ideas. So, one day, I think he just started playing their game.”

They went to parties, she wore white gloves. They ate at fancy restaurants, she used the right forks. They rode convertibles in parades, she waved to crowds. They slept in separate bedrooms—sometimes his secretaries spent nights in his.

She faded inside.

“I don't think people know what goes on in that world. It's a crooked way to make a living. It's worse now. I remember when he and his buddy..."

Let's…