We had no money. We’d been married for less than 24 hours. We rode in my beat-up Ford Ranger, painted primer gray.

My wife was seated directly beside me on the bench seat. Our hands clasped together. Our knees touching.

Trucks used to have bench seats before Planned Parenthood got involved.

We crossed into South Carolina, limping into Charleston County on fumes. The 21-year-old dropout, and his breath-stealing bride.

It was a motel. Not a hotel. Big difference. The guy behind the counter was wearing a wifebeater, reading the box scores.

I approached the counter. “I think we talked on the phone,” I said. “I made a reservation. We’re the newlyweds.”

He lowered his newspaper. He said, “Mazel tov” without dropping the cigarette from the corner of his mouth.

Our room was dated. Orange carpet. Yellow walls. A shower with a rusted drain. The entire room smelled like—how should I put this?—poop.

There were cigarette burns in the bedspread. We slept atop bath towels. We brought our own pillows. The room featured a mermaid night light

with glowing boobs.

The next day we walked through the city. Chucktown was the most exotic city I had ever visited unless you count Texarkana.

The cathedrals, the shops, the cobblestones, the horses and buggies, the single houses, Rainbow Row.

We went out for dinner one night. I think it was the cheapest restaurant in town, not far from a Circle K. I wore my funeral clothes. My wife wore a dress.

The hostess looked at us, wearing our Walmart clothes. “Are you the newlyweds who made a reservation?” she said.

“Yes, ma’am,” I said, tugging at my necktie.

“We have a special table for you.”

She gave us a table on the…

An old highway. Somewhere in America. Two lanes. No shoulder. Faded yellow lines. Oh, the things you see while driving old American highways will enchant you.

I pass a young woman walking the side of the highway, carrying supermarket bags. She is young. Ponytail. Sunday dress. There is a little boy on a bicycle following her.

This makes me smile. Because I am glad to know children still ride bikes.

When I was a kid, an estimated 69 percent of American children between ages five and 14 rode bikes. Today, it’s down to nine percent. The percentage drops every year.

Growing up, bicycles were our religion. A kid and his bike were invincible. Your bike carried you far from home, into new realms, introducing you to the world at large.

We kids had no technology. We had no social media. No smartphones. The bike was our internet, our phone, and our Instagram.

Used to, our entire neighborhood would be littered with tiny bicycles, scattered in random front yards. And if

you wanted to know where your friends were, you just looked for the bikes.

I pass a Baptist Church, tucked in the trees. Big gravel parking lot. Cars parked everywhere. Mostly trucks or economy cars with muddy tires. No Land Rovers.
The cemetery backs up to a cattle pasture. On the church lawn, I see a couple kids in dress clothes, roughhousing in the grass. If I were a betting man, I’d say one of those kids is about to get his butt reddened.

I pass a baseball park off the highway. And although it’s Sunday, the stands are full. There are players on the field. White polyester uniforms. Parents cheering.

Which is unusual to me.

Because it’s Sunday. When I was a kid, we were not allowed to…

The nameplate over the bus driver’s seat said his name was “B. Love.” Big guy. Broad shoulders. Mid-fifties. Hands the size of supermarket chickens. He was our airport shuttle driver.

Our plane had touched down in Hartsfield-Jackson Third World International Airport. We were riding in the shuttle, which airline passengers affectionately call the meat wagon.

I was riding alongside a lot of people who were trapped in their respective, and invisible, anti-social bubbles, thumbing away on their phones, shutting out the world.

Nobody was socializing. A recent study found that Americans socialize 64 percent less than they did two decades ago. The article went on to say that only one quarter of young Americans physically “hang out” with friends anymore.

But B. Love was breaking through the barrier.

He was a natural comedian. He was happy. He was loud. He was great.

A young family was on their way back from Pigeon Forge when B. Love stared into the rearview mirror and spoke to them. “Remember y’all promised to adopt me?”

The young dad looked up from

his phone. Zoned out. “Huh?” he said.

“Remember,” said B. Love, “you said you’d adopt me, when I picked you up in the shuttle last week.”

“Adopt you?”

“Yep. You said you’d make me your son and take me to Pigeon Forge with you, like one of your kids.”

The young dad finally got the joke. He let out a little laugh, then dutifully went back to scrolling Instagram like his life depended on it.

B. Love was unfazed. He was on a comedic roll. There were some musicians on the bus.

“When you taking me on your next gig?” said B. Love.

One of the musicians replied, “Can you sing harmony?”

She was crying in the airport. A college kid. Maybe 19. She had just goodbyed her family. They hugged each other at least 3,293 times before parting ways.

We were in a long line, waiting to pass through the TSA checkpoint. TSA is the wonderfully unique government institution wherein security agents with cheery dispositions frisk little old ladies and demand them to remove their insulin pumps.

The girl’s eyes were puffy and red. Her nose was stopped up. “Sorry,” she said, wiping her cheeks.

“You should be,” I said. “I’m horrified.”

She smiled.

Then the girl looked back at her family. They were still waving to her in the distance.

“I’ve never flown before,” she said.

“You’re in for a real treat.”

“Why do you say that?”

“I won’t spoil it for you.”

Ahead of us, a barefoot man with a walker was being patted down by TSA agents. His beltless pants fell to the ground, displaying the perpetual whiteness that follows him.

“Nervous?” I asked the girl.

“Little.” She looked at me. “You fly a lot?”

“Some.”

“You have any tips for

me?”

“Plant your corn early.”

“I mean about flying.”

I nodded. “You can use your shoes for a pillow when sleeping in the airport.”

A small trace of another nano-smile worked its way across her face. Meantime, her people were still waving goodbye, as she inched farther away from them.

“That your family?” I said, nodding toward her people.

“Yeah. My mom and sisters. My boyfriend. My little brother is the one on the left.”

“Where’s Dad?”

“He passed away a few weeks ago.”

“Weeks?”

“Last month.”

A crowded airliner. We were somewhere above Virginia. I was sandwiched between two passengers like Prince Albert in a can.

It has been said, if you’re a bad person in this lifetime; if you treat your fellow man poorly; if you live by the code of violence; if you are cruel to elders and children and UPS men; when you die you will wake up in economy class, riding in the middle seat.

Which is where I was.

The guy on my right was tapping on a laptop. The guy on my other side was scrolling TikTok. I had no armrests to speak of.

Throughout the flight, I noticed TikTok Guy kept staring at Laptop Guy. Like he recognized the man. Finally, TikTok Guy leaned over my passenger body to speak to Laptop Guy.

“Excuse me,” said TikTok. “Are you who I think you are, sir?”

Laptop nodded. “I am.”

“Omigod,” said TikTok. “Can I get a picture with you?”

And here is where things got awkward. Because there I was. Stuck between them. Like a man

trapped in hell. Or worse, the DMV.

There was no way to snap a selfie without also capturing the buck-toothed, redhead in the middle seat between them. And I wasn’t wearing any makeup.

I cleared my throat. “Maybe you should wait until we get off the plane to take pictures,” I suggested.

TikTok gestured to Laptop. “Do you KNOW who this is?”

“Yes. He is a man who will still be here when the plane lands.”

“This guy’s famous.”

Laptop shook my hand and recited his name. He was a young guy. Dressed nicely. Matinee-idol smile. I’d never heard of him, but that doesn’t mean anything. I live under a brick.

Laptop…

The Normandy American Cemetery and Memorial sits on a French cliffside overlooking the coastline in Colleville-sur-Mer. It is home to the graves of 9,388 American soldiers; and a memorial to the 73,000 American Allied forces who landed in Normandy on June 6, 1944. D-Day.

On that day, 13,000 paratroopers were suiting up in the marshaling area.

ARMY SGT, 101st: “Before the jump, Eisenhower came to every one of us and said, “What’s your name, son?” Some guy would answer, “I’m So-And-So, from Ohio,” and Eisenhower would say, “Are you afraid?” And we all answered “No, sir.”

The planes took off under the cover of darkness. Some 15,000 aircraft were in the air on D-Day. You could walk across the wings like stepping stones.

TOM POCELLA, 82ND: “With the roar of the engines in my ears, I [jumped] out the door and into the silence of the night. I realized I had made the jump into darkness.”

It was a hard jump.

TURK SEELYE, 82ND: “After I left the door,

the plane [got hit by a shell and] nosed downward, and I watched the tail pass a few feet over my head.”

ED BOCCAFOGLI, 82ND: “I fell out because I slipped on vomit. Some guys were throwing up from nerves… my feet went out from under me, and I fell out upside down.”

Planes were going down left and right. The Allies lost 127 aircraft in a matter of hours.

HAROLD CANYON, 82ND: “Just as I approached the door, the top of the airplane opened up. It had been hit by some type of explosive shell. …The plane started going into its death spiral. It took everything I had to get over the threshold… I was the last man out of the plane.”

The paratroopers sailed to the ground and into a food processor.

CHARLES MILLER, 82ND: “It looked like a great big Fourth of July celebration. The whole sky was…

We went for a walk. Becca and me. Yes, I know that's bad grammar. But oh well. Whenever my 12-year-old goddaughter visits, we take walks through old Birmingham neighborhoods at dusk. We talk, laugh, and climb impossible hills with our pale, middle-aged, pathetic chicken thighs.

Becca uses one arm to hold me and the other hand to brandish her white cane. She’s gotten pretty good at using the cane.

I remember when Becca had just gone blind, and she wasn’t adept with her cane yet. Now, she can find her way through even the most confusing, disorganized, dangerous, and possibly fatal mazes. Such as, for example, my office.

But mostly, she likes to use her cane to whack me in the shins as we walk. She does this on purpose. She places her cane before my feet and I walk right into it and it always stings like a mother. This gives Becca great pleasure.

The rhythm of our walks usually goes:

Step, step, WHACK! Step, step, WHACK!

“Does that hurt?” she will say with a smile.

“Yes.”

“How bad

does it hurt?”

“I don’t know. Bad.”

“Scale of one-to-ten.”

“I need a baseline. How bad is ten?”

“Being burned alive.”

“Then it’s about an eight.”

Step, step, WHACK!

We met a lady who was playing with her grandson on the playground. The kid was on the swingset, swinging next to Becca.

The lady introduced herself. Then the lady asked what I did for a living. I was about to answer but Becca beat me to it.

Mid-swing, Becca shouted, “OMIGOSH! HE IS A WRITER! HE IS MY FAVORITE WRITER IN THE WHOLE WIDE WORLD! AND HE IS THE BEST WRITER OF ALL TIME HE…

Becca and I walked inside the nail salon, which was located in a stripmall that was almost completely obscured by a giant cloud of estrogen.

We were walking across the parking lot when a lady noticed Becca using her white cane. The woman rushed out of the salon to open the door. Although, frankly, I don’t know how this sweet woman managed because her hands were wrapped in tin-foil and Ziploc bags.

We were welcomed into the nail parlor by many smiles.

“This is, literally, so cool,” said the 12-year-old.

“Becca,” I said, “you don’t need to say ‘literally’ after every word.”

“Why not?”

“It’s redundant.”

“I, literally, don’t even know what ‘redundant’ means.”

There were women everywhere, undergoing medieval beautification rituals. Some women’s fingernails were being treated with power sanders. Others had feet submerged in tubs of what appeared to be melted industrial plastic.

“How may we help you?” said the lady cashier.

“I have no idea,” I replied.

She looked at Becca. “Would the young woman like a pedicure?”

“Yes, please,” said Becca.

The woman showed us a menu. “Would you like the

deluxe package or the basic French pedicure?”

“We want the el-cheapo package,” I said.

The woman smiled at me, but her heart wasn’t in it.

Soon, Becca was sitting in a ginormous massage chair which had more features than a tactical combat helicopter. Becca liked this chair very much. She set the chair to “knead” and the chair started gyrating.

“You should try this chair,” said Becca. “It’s, literally, blowing my mind.”

“Literally?” I said. “Or figuratively?”

Becca gave me a look.

The pedicurist was named Hai, an older man with grandkids Becca’s age. Hai is a big believer in pedicures. Hai believes Americans have the worst feet in the world because Americans neglect toe health. This is a problem Hai considers a national crisis, registering somewhere on the threat-scale between U.S. tax-code reform and…

The Scripps National Spelling Bee was broadcast a few nights ago on the Ion network, drawing a staggering 14 viewers not including nursing-home residents unable to reach the remote.

And I don’t know about you, but I was spellbound.

The winner was a 12-year-old seventh-grader from Saint Petersburg, Bruhat Soma, who attacked 30 words in 90 seconds and became the best speller in the English language. His winning word was “abseil,” a mountaineering term.

Bruhat received $50,000 in cash prizes, and had to beat away the ladies with a Merriam-Webster’s Dictionary.

I was not a good speller in school. Every year we had a spelling bee and I always bombed. One particular spelling bee sticks out in my mind. My losing word was “purple.”

I never forgot that day. Namely, because nobody let me forget. Other kids were eliminated from the spelling bee with hard words like “onerous,” “munificence,” and “honorificabilitudinitatibus.”

My word was purple.

I knew how to spell purple, of course. Everyone knows how to spell this word. Even many forms of

inanimate fungal life know how to spell purple. But in my defense, I was nervous.

And in the heat of the moment, when powerful stage lights are shining on you; when the whole school is assembled in the gymnasium, staring at your face; when Arnold Williamson is making flatulent noises with his hands, that’s a lot of pressure.

Also, my main problem spelling “purple” was that I couldn’t remember whether this word ended in -EL or -LE.

I’ve always had a problem with the stupid -EL, -LE-, -AL rule. Even now, this spelling rule confuses the hele out of me.

And before you write me off as a dork, I looked up this unique spelling rule on a respected grammar website, and here’s what they said:

“...If the letter before the suffix (the ending) is a small or “wee” letter (ACEMNORSUVWXZ) then the ending is usually…