“He was a dirt farmer, last of his kind,” she said. “Poor as a church mouse, we never had money.”

Back then, few Alabama farms did. After a Depression, a world war, and losing acres of cotton to the boll weevil, she says they were almost licked. Then he started growing tobacco.

“His daddy was a cripple,” she said. “Not only did we farm, we cared for my husband's daddy, fed him meals, bathed him."

When her husband wasn't doing that, he was supervising seven field workers. Or maybe it was ten. She can't remember.

"He was good to'em," she went on. "Remember once, this little old man came running and said, 'My wife's sick, boss. Think she's dying.' Right in the middle of a work day, they took her to the hospital. My husband paid for everything, even her funeral. It was sad."

But farming wasn't all sadness and poverty, there were high moments, too.

“Tobacco's gotten a bad name over the years, but we thanked God for the money. I used to string

leaves with the women all day, we sang work songs, you wanna hear one?”

Why not.

She hummed a somber melody, tapping her fingers to keep rhythm. Her voice was old, but if you listened close enough, you heard the entire South.

“When the crops got sold, we'd throw parties. Folks came from everywhere. Black, white, all kinds, didn't matter. We ate and drank until the sun came up.”

She laughed.

“Thing about farmers is, they work twice as hard for half as much. My kids're surprised when I tell'em how poor we were. 'Course everyone was poor then. But, we never got so down we lost our morals."

God forbid.

These were decent men, with good values. Men like her husband. Who paid workers before himself, who bought them new clothes and shoes. Who attended their baby dedications, hat in hand.

He was one…

The moment I first heard of my father's death, I wanted to run. I don't know why. It was a gut instinct. I wanted to dart out the door, past ponds, down dirt roads, into the creek-bed, and keep going until I hit Baton Rouge.

I flew toward the door, but didn't unbolt it fast enough. They caught me while I flailed like an idiot. A room of people watched while I cried.

It wasn't supposed to happen that way. I wasn't supposed to feel so naked, with so many gawkers. But that's the way it happens.

The following days were black. I cried myself to sleep. I couldn't eat. I looked in our kitchen and saw more casserole dishes than I'd seen in my cotton-picking life. I tried to eat chicken and dumplings, but couldn't keep them down. I ended up vomiting in the sink.

There was a live oak, at the edge of our pasture, behind the cattle fence. I went there to be alone, my Labrador followed me.

She and I passed entire days there, until I'd fall asleep with her on my lap. Sometimes I didn't get back until well after dark.

Once, I even fell asleep in the shower. The water turned ice-cold and I realized I'd been out for nearly thirty minutes.

Nobody tells you grief feels a lot like exhaustion. It's demoralizing, and reshapes your mind. During the nighttime, you feel afraid. In the days, you wonder why the sun seems so dim. You still want to run, but you don't know where to go, or why.

Food tastes bad. Conversations feel shallow. Your friends seem selfish and disinterested. And whenever you remember your loved one, you hope it will bring relief. It doesn't. It slices like sheet metal.

Why am I telling you this?

Because two out of two people die. One day, you're going to go through this—if you don't die…

We went to college together. He worked at a hardware store. His parents were illegal immigrants who didn't speak a lick of English. He was born in Prattville, but spoke with a Latino accent.

His high school counselor helped him choose a career path. He joined the Marines, got a few tattoos, served his country, then enrolled in college on the GI bill. Today, he has a wife, two children, and he's an engineer. He cares for both elderly parents.

He told me once, "My father come to this country so I have opportunities. Taking care of them is the least I can do."

She was pretty, but she always looked tired. You would too if you worked three jobs. Two waitress jobs. One cleaning hotel rooms.

Her sister was sick. Bedridden. When my friend wasn't cleaning rooms or bussing tables, she was swapping shifts with her mother to care for her.

When her sister finally passed, she told me, “I wish I could'a done more for her.”

More.

His parents were drug

dealers. They were rough customers. As a five-year-old, he spent one year living in a tent before they got arrested. When they were hauled off to prison, his grandparents gained custody of him.

Suddenly, he had his own room. A television. He watched all the Westerns he could stand. When he got older, he decided to try his hand at junior calf riding, and team roping. He was awful. Anyway, he's a school teacher now.

He saw his father recently, he treated him to breakfast. His father told him, “After all I put you through, I want you to know I'm proud'a you.”

His father overdosed a few months thereafter.

She's been married forty-eight years now. Twelve years ago, her husband's tremors started. It was Parkinson's. Today, he can't get a spoon to his mouth, or walk without help. He's in diapers. She is his caregiver.

She…

Pinch yourself. Right now. Go ahead. I'll wait.

You feel that? You are—to put this quite bluntly—pretty damn incredible. If you don't believe me, think back to when you used to poop your diaper five times per day. You've come a long way since then, big guy. Your brain is faster, your skin tougher, you don't make impulsive decisions, you'll even admit when you're wrong.

And.

You're getting better looking with age. Hand to God. If you think I'm making this up, go look at your prom pictures. Better yet, try taking cellphone photos of yourself. Just be certain you hold the camera above you when you do it. Otherwise, your face will turn out looking like Porky Pig's older cousin.

Look, I don't care if you have wrinkles on your forehead and silver in your hair. Who ever said this was a bad thing? Not me. Because I squarely disagree. I love gray hair, and I think wrinkles are privileges some people never get. Besides, I'd rather have crow's feet and good

insurance, than the body of a sixteen-year-old who couldn't get heartburn even if he ate Cajun-sausage pizza past five o'clock.

Each year, month, week, day, hour, minute, second, you get better and better. And every few seasons, you make new friends—they all think you're wonderful. I know this, because I'm one of them.

Furthermore, if you keep making buddies at this rate, by the time you take the ferry to Beulah Land, you'll have your own personal ethnic group.

Also,—and try to stay with me here—you look good naked.

I just lost most of you. But I'm not sorry. I've never seen you naked, thank God, but you have. And I hope you stand before a mirror, jaybird-style, admiring the body God gave you. I don't care what shape it is. It's perfect.

If you're a woman, you ought to take pride in your hips—no matter their…

Cheeseburgers are God's gift to humanity. You can quote me on that. Once, I traveled to Montgomery, to try what some call Alabama's best burger—at a hole-in-the-wall place called Vicki's Lunch Van.

As it happens, Vicki's is not a van. It's an old building. Furthermore, I can assure you, the rumors are false. This is not Alabama's best. This is the best in the cotton-picking United States.

Anyway, I'm getting ahead of myself.

Long ago, when I worked as a house framer, I ate burgers every lunch. This went on for years. I ordered them with extra cheese and pickles.

My friend ate with me. He had a curly black afro and stuttered badly. Because of this, he usually wanted me to order for him. So, each day at lunchtime, I'd tell the girl at the counter, “Two burgers, fixed pretty.” She knew what to do.

We'd eat on the tailgate. My buddy would often say something like, “Y-y-you think you could g-g-get me more C-C-Coke?”

“What am I, your butler?” I'd say, then

I'd get him a refill.

I remember the day he told me about a girl.

He said they'd gone bowling. And then, with great enthusiasm, he explained how she was a special girl. She had a young son, with cystic fibrosis. She lived with her friend in a bad part of town. Their relationship was, for all practical purposes, fiscal failure. Between them, all they had were a few nickels and a car payment.

He married her.

I showed up for the wedding. There were maybe five people attending. His mother, brother, and a few others who looked like they'd just gotten off work. His tux was cheap, so was her dress. Her son sat in the front row, crutches on his lap.

When my friend said his vows, he stammered so hard the preacher winced. His bride never quit smiling.

They moved out of town—she…

There's a portrait in my friend's office. An eight-year-old drew it. My friend's ears look like wide-open car doors, but otherwise I'd say it's an undoubtedly accurate depiction.

My friend teaches art. Well, sort of. He teaches it once every two months, since Alabama schools have deemphasized arts and music. He tells me his students didn't even know how to operate scissors or draw basic happy faces.

“It's sad,” he says. “Technology has changed everything. And so has the school system, we've just kinda let art dry up.”

Most of his students spend school hours doing math homework.

“If our school doesn't bring math grades up,” my friend says. “It affects our funding. These kids have an hour of homework every night. It's crazy. There's no time for kids to go outside and play anymore.”

God help me.

I don't have many bones to pick with the society. In fact, I believe American kids are quite privileged. Furthermore, my wife is a math teacher, so I need to be careful or I'll be sleeping in

the barn. But it burdens me to think children don't have time to practice shooting cap guns.

My friend decided to fix this by holding after-school art classes.

“It was just me and a few other dads,” he said. “The first class, we taught'em to draw turtle shells. Which is just a bunch of equilateral octagons.”

For the love of Crayola, refrain from the math jargon.

“Kids got into it,” he went on. “Then, we taught'em faces. Everyone took turns drawing portraits of their partners.”

His art class grew.

Soon, several kids and parents stayed after school to get messy with paint and clay. Once, they even made guitars out of cigar boxes.

And then the county got involved. Someone didn't like the idea of folks on school property without sufficient staff. After all, someone could get injured with a paintbrush on school grounds.

One…

My uncle was always broke. After my father died, he'd take me into town and say, “I forgot my money-clip, how much you got?”

I'd reach in my pocket and give him what pittance I had. He'd smile. “Thank God, I was afraid we wouldn't have gas to get home."

He sunk his little bit of savings into a rusted Dodge RV that was hardly bolted together. Whenever the thing came bounding down our road, it sounded like a shopping cart.

The door was loose, one window was covered with cardboard. Inside: a couch he'd found on the side of the road which used to smell like cat urine.

He parked in our cattle pasture. The cows took to him quicker than they ever took to me. They wandered around his vehicle and looked through his windows.

Often, I'd find him in a lawn chair outside, with two Aberdeens underneath his awning. He'd named the red one, Barbara. Whenever he'd see me coming to visit, he'd slap her hindparts, saying, “Get outta here old

girl, make room for my nephew.”

Barbara complained.

I'd sit with him half the day sometimes. He was lonely, I was fatherless. Some friendships are meant to be.

He told stories—he has millions. I could pass entire afternoons listening to one after another. Whenever he'd tell a blatant false one, he'd raise his hand and say, “Hundred and twenty percent true. Ain't that right, Barbara?”

Barbara didn't like being brought into disputes.

My uncle was, by all means, a decided failure. Not the kind of example many people aspire to become. He worked in a lowly fertilizer plant, smelled bad, and couldn't afford supper. And, he was the only living member of my family lazy enough to pick guitar, or memorize dirty jokes.

To me, he was a genius.

You should've heard his knockout storytelling. Sometimes, he'd talk until one in the morning—until I'd laugh so…

The honey bees are dead. They keep disappearing. Because of this, scientists predict one day mankind will no longer have peaches, tomatoes, magnolias, coffee, Home Depots, the NFL, the Atlantic Ocean, or mothers.

In other breaking news: the political candidates ate breakfast. Sorry. You probably expected something more exciting than that. But it's all we got.

More headlines: a wealthy athlete remained seated during the National Anthem. Mosquitoes continue to spread a virus which turns people into cream-cheese-colored puss. Toxic algae grows in Florida. Cellphones cause thumb numbness.

And studies prove 2016 was the most homicidal year since Thomas Edison invented the drive-up ATM.

Florida Fish and Wildlife developed new taxes on deer hunting. Deer hunters fight back by not giving a damn.

Coffee will kill you. So will smiling.

Apple unveils new iPhone—recent reports find older iPhones are unexplainably malfunctioning.

The presidential candidates ate pastrami for lunch—stay tuned for further updates.

Hurricane Hermine brews in Gulf of Mexico, threatening the slaughter of millions of babies and unadopted kittens. Evacuation rumors reverberate throughout Gulf Coast.

Weather Channel's

Jim Cantore tells ABC news affiliates, “I've seen a lot of freaky $#*@, man, I don't think the human race will survive this.”

Sports and health headlines:

SEC coach, Nick Saban, instructs Alabama players to stand for anthem unless they want the door to hit them where the Good Lord split them.

Also: gluten makes you live longer. Beer does too. Never mind. We're wrong. They both kill you. Wait. No, they extend lifespans. Scratch that. It's kale. Definitely kale. If you want to make it past forty-five, you'd better eat kale.

In other updates:

Teacher finds syringe in child's lunchbox. Child expelled from kindergarten due to zero-tolerance drug policies. Mother of kindergartener sues teacher for theft of six-thousand-dollar epi-pen.

Drinking water in lower Alabama infected with dangerous levels of politics.

In the continuing war on America's drug crisis, Congress outlaws Willie Nelson…

I'd give my left kidney for a piece of bacon right now. My wife is making breakfast as we speak, I can smell it in the other room—and hear it, too.

Long ago, I didn't think our morning meals were anything fancy—now I know they are. Though it's no thanks to me. She makes everything from scratch: biscuits, sausage gravy, hash browns, even jam. I do my part to help. I watch television for us both.

To be fair, I do buy our eggs. I get them from my pal who raises chickens. I can't eat Winn Dixie eggs—if you grew up like some of us did, then you'll know supermarket eggs taste a lot like toddler snot.

She's off work the next few days, it feels like a long weekend. She'll stay in her pajamas, and I'll putter around. We don't say much around the house.

“You hear about Sister So-And-So getting married?” I might say.

“Yep,” she'll remark. “Her new husband is a real piece of...”

You get the

idea.

She might watch murder mysteries on the sofa. Or: wander into my office while I'm working. She'll tell me she's unsure of what we're having for supper. And we will discuss this subject at least forty times per day.

“You want pizza tonight?” I'll ask.

“No, I wanna eat at home,” she'll say.

“Fine, but I don't want beans again, I'm sick of beans.”

And then I get a black eye.

My friend died last week. It happened in his car, in a parking lot. They found him sitting in the front seat with a to-go box on his lap. Nobody saw it coming. A heart attack.

He sat there a full day until his car idled itself out of gas. He was a good man with a nice wife. No kids. We drank together some. I called him my cousin, he called me, Red.

Last Saturday, I rode east on Florida Highway 100 until I ran smack-dab into a sign reading: "Welcome to Palatka."

Palatka is a faded town on the Saint Johns River, with so many mossy oaks it'll catch your breath. There's a downtown small enough to pitch a baseball through, and a diner named, Bradley's—which boasts the most mounted deer in the tri-county area.

It's political season in Palatka. Posters everywhere. One reads: “Elect Gator for sheriff.” The sign beside it: “Crickets, red wigglers, ammunition, and boiled peanuts."

We stayed at a friend's house. Miss Leslie rolled out a spread. Her husband, Tank,—a goodhearted man who resembles a piece of military defense machinery—operated the deep-fryer.

And by dog, we had a party.

The buffet line had all the trimmings you'd expect in the deep South. Field peas with enough ham to make a cardiologist nervous. Venison, casseroles, deep-fried everything.

The conversation didn't follow any ground rules. One woman talked about the health benefits of cow pies. Miss Jane—distinguished English teacher and highly-decorated hell-raiser—recited a toast which made

someone laugh so hard he swallowed his cigarette.

A group of fellas in the corner talked about the finer points of sausage. John told a story about when a hog bit off his buddy's finger.

Then, there's white-headed Nana, whose candy-apple red blouse and earrings matched her pocket book. She looks like the cover of a Better Homes and Gardens magazine—only sassier.

Nana said, “I feel lucky to have lived in Palatka all these years, it was a perfect place to raise children. And even though we don't have many shoe stores, we get by."

They do more than get by.

They live easy. Sure, they have problems, this isn't heaven. But it's pretty stinking close. If you don't believe me, you ought to visit the curbside stand that still sells raw honey using the honor system.

No thefts since 1947.

Well. Except for…