I had a toy rocket when I was a kid. It was made of plastic. The word NASA was printed on it. It was a Saturn V rocket, king daddy of all rockets. The same one that took men to the moon. My GI Joe doll could ride it like a horsey.

My friend Bradley had a shuttle-stack rocket, with winged orbiter and two solid rocket boosters. You want to talk power.

All the boys wanted to play with that thing. We would fight over who got to play with it.

“It’s my turn, Randy. Give it here, you big hog. You’ve had it forever, it’s not even yours.”

“I’m telling Mom. What did you call me? No I’m not. Say that again and you’ll have a fat lip.”

“What did you call me? Nuh, uh. YOU’RE a stupid turd monger. Oh yeah? I know you are but what am I? MOM!”

I recently had a conversation with some young people about space. They were teenagers. They were uninterested.

I asked whether they knew we’d

been to the moon. One of them shrugged and said the moon landing was a hoax. I smiled. Then, I asked whether they knew what the International Space Station was, and how it was designed in 1984, and how it’s been in orbit for 27 years, and how it’s been visited by almost 300 astronauts.

The teen just smiled vacantly and said, “The international what?” Then they went back to texting each other dirty pictures on their phones.

But there was a time in our culture when space exploration was treated very differently. I come from old men who worked on Roadmasters and Impalas beneath shade trees in the backyard. Men who loved machines. Men who thought rockets were the glory of all manmade achievement. Men who used the words “John Glenn” with the same tone they used when speaking of the Gentle Nazarene.

That’s…

Wake up. Start coffeemaker. Turn on TV. A panicky news journalist is saying America is doomed and only minutes away from exploding. And if not America, at least my house.

Turn off TV.

Coffee is ready. Pour said coffee. Check my phone. Look at emails. The first subject line attracts my attention. “YOU ARE NOT A TRUE AMERICAN IF YOU DON’T READ THIS!!!”

I want to be a true American, but for the next few minutes I’ll have to settle for being a fallacious one. Namely, because it’s a little early to be reading anything in all caps.

Sip coffee. Massage eyeballs. Leash up dogs. Take them outside for morning walks. It’s still dark.

One of my dogs doesn’t want to pee. So we walk in tight, concentric circles through the neighborhood as I whisper-shout, “Go pee!” As though these two words have ever helped a canine successfully urinate within the long and noble history of dogdom.

I check my phone. To give

my dog privacy. Hop on social media. My newsfeed is nothing but politics. Whatever happened to cute kitty videos?

The first post I see shows the picture of an American flag covered in mud, or perhaps it's a more organic substance. The first words are: “PREPARE TO HAVE YOUR MIND TOTALLY FREAKING BLOWN, AMERICA!”

The user who shared the brain-blasting patriotic item is my childhood Sunday school teacher. A woman whose wardrobe once consisted entirely of polyester. Her profile picture is a bald eagle wearing a bikini.

Soon, I am walking through a dark neighborhood near my house. My dog is sniffing the millions of locations where other dogs peed. I’m encouraging my dog to leave her mark on this world so we can go back home.

Surrounding me are yard signs galore. There must be hundreds, perched in everyone’s yards. Each sign has some urgent message.…

We crossed the Indiana state line at noon. It was sunny. Cloudless. The springtime air was dry and pleasant, smelling of apples, IndyCar, and Hoosiers.

The GPS took us on backroads. We saw tractors, and cows, and fields of soy and baby corn, and big billboards that said Jesus loves you and doesn’t want to send you to hell so please call the toll-free number to learn more or visit our website whose address was a scripture verse with a dot com at the end.

We pulled over at a country gas station. I saw a guy pumping gasoline on the other side of my pump. He was wearing denim work clothes, filling up an old Ford pickup. His beard was white. His truck bed was full of firewood. Cherry and hickory, from the looks of it.

“Alabama, huh?” he said in a Midwestern accent. “I’ve been to Alabama. Good barbecue. No lottery.”

This was all he said for a while. Then he spit into a small cup.

“Do you have a lottery in Indiana?” I asked.

He laughed.

“Is a bear Catholic?”

“What about barbecue?” I asked. “I’ve never had Indiana barbecue, what’s that like?”

He pointed to the truck bed full of wood. “Follow me and find out. Me and my sons are barbecuing all weekend.”

I told him I really wished I could but I have to be in Nashville, I can’t make it. He smiled and said, “Next time.”

Then the man explained that Indiana barbecue is not talked about in mainstream culture, but it’s a beautiful thing nonetheless. Even though Indiana’s barbecue doesn’t get any press alongside Barbecue’s Big Four—Memphis, Texas, Kansas City, and Carolina—it’s a work of art, he told me.

“Our sauce is sweeter,” he said. “Sort of similar to Kansas City barbecue sauce, but we don’t just use brown sugar. We use stuff you’d find on a farm. Sometimes we use maple…

I am in the hotel elevator with a guy and his dog. The dog is wearing pajamas. They are white pajamas with polka dots.

“Say hello to Kevin,” says the man with the dog.

Kevin wags his tail, looking at me. Waiting for my salutation.

I press the button for the lobby. “Hello, Kevin,” I say.

Kevin is an American Hairless Terrier. The tiny pair of pajamas he is wearing are actually long underwear. Kevin is all business. He is staring alertly at the doors, as though he is our platoon commander.

“Kevin is always wearing some sort of clothing,” the man explains. “He gets cold since he’s hairless. He prefers pajamas at night because they’re much easier to sleep in.”

I completely understand. If you’re a dog, the last thing you want is to wear your day-to-day clothes to bed.

“We tried a nightgown,” says the man. “But that didn’t work.”

“Is that right?”

“We have silk pajamas for him, too.”

I smile.

“There’s a hole in the butt,” the man adds.

I jingle change in my pockets.

I look at Kevin, who is staring

at the elevator doors with laser-beam focus. He’s no longer wagging his tail, which is poking out from his aforementioned opening. Kevin is just standing vigilantly, staring at the doors, every muscle in his body tense, poised, and ready for combat.

“I’m taking him to Florida tomorrow,” says the man. “It’s a vacation just for him and me.”

“Florida sounds fun,” I say.

“Yeah, Florida is Kevin’s favorite place in the world. Because it’s warm. He likes warm places.”

I ask what sorts of things Kevin likes to do in Florida.

“Oh, lots of stuff. He likes walks on the beach. He loves chasing the seagulls. He likes to go out to eat. He’s a big fan of shrimp.”

Join the club, Kevin.

“Last year I had to put him on a diet when…

I like you. I like everything about you. I like your smile. Your teeth, no matter how crooked. Your physical shape, no matter which shape that is. I don’t care about the size of your butt.

I like your freckles, your moles, your warts, your imperfections, your scars, your thoughts.

I like your laugh, even if you think it sounds weird. I like it.

I like the way your eyes kind of get all squinty when you smile.

I like all of you. I like your face. I like the way you look. Eighty percent of 17-year-old girls are unhappy with their body. Eighty percent of adolescent boys feel deep shame about their bodies. Social media is killing our children’s body image. Our kids continually compare themselves to impossible standards. And so, probably, do you.

But never mind all that. I like you.

I like it when you do nice things. I like the way it makes you feel inside. I like how you are instantly given a warm-squishy feeling.

I like how being nice

to people sort of gives you the sensation that you’ve discovered the meaning of life itself. Which, you kind of have.

In fact, THAT’S the best feeling in the world. Giving stuff to people.

Giving affection. Giving time. Giving food. Giving money. Giving away your art, for free. Not to be famous. Not to be rich. Not to have any recognition at all. Not for any ego boost or validation. But just because you enjoy helping someone. Not helping out of pity, but because you truly like that someone.

Which leads me to my next question:

Who do you like? Which people, I mean? Do you like everyone? Or are you choosy about it?

Do you like only those who like you back? Do you like only pretty people, who dress the right way, talk the right way, act the right way, have the right…

We walked into a packed Waffle House. All booths taken. Two cooks and two waitresses running offense.

“Let’s sit at the bar,” said Morgan.

Morgan is a 20-year-old UAB student. She is beautiful and slight. Her hair is violently red.

We sat on stools and looked at menus.

“Let’s split a waffle,” said Morgan.

There was an elderly couple at the bar beside us. You could tell they were married because they weren’t talking to each other.

Meanwhile, Morgan was swinging her legs on the stool and talking a blue streak.

She has spent the last few years in and out of the hospital. When she is in a hospital, she is not usually talkative. Usually, when I visit her hospital room, Morgan is too exhausted to talk.

But today she’s talking. Happily. Excitedly. Cheerfully. And I’m just trying to keep up as her conversation jumps topics.

“...And did you know dinosaurs were so big because there was WAY MORE oxygen back then, and…?”

“...In my sorority, one time we had this dance party where everyone had to dress up

like a…!”

“...Okay, there was this time in the car, and like, my friend was driving, and like, something just felt wrong, and guess what? We were driving the wrong way on the interstate, and…!”

Birmingham is her oyster. This city suits her. She is blossoming here like a hibiscus.

When I first met her, Morgan lived in Locust Fork—a town so small both city-limit signs are nailed to the same post. Birmingham is Morgan’s great adventure. She thrives on the energy of this city, the vitality of its people, and the rapture of afternoon gridlock on Highway 280.

The waitress brings our waffle.

“Will you cut the waffle for me?” she asks.

Morgan is paralyzed on one side of her body. She has blindness. She is diabetic. She has gastroparesis—meaning her intestines are paralyzed. She lives on TPN, which…

The year was 1939. The month was September. Only days after World War II broke out.

The woman was so moved to tears when she read the headlines of war in the papers. Her first thought was, “Another war?”

She was 59 years old. She’d already survived one World War in her lifetime. Now another? When was it going to stop? When were the men in suits going to quit playing chess by slaughtering the innocents?

They say she sat down and cried. Actually cried. Cried for all those people. For the horrors being committed. For all those young soldiers dying. For all those innocent families, wretchedly caught in a whirlwind not of their making.

The first thing the woman did was wipe her eyes and go into her office. She sat down and typed a letter. She had to stop typing a few times and dab the tears.

This is her letter:

Dear Friends—I have been following the news of the past few weeks with a heavy heart. I

know that the night is dark, and that the shadows are deep. But I also know that the sun is still there, and that the light is still stronger than the dark.

We are all blind and deaf until our eyes are opened to the truth of our own souls. The news may be bad, and the reports of world strife are indeed a sorrowful burden, but the spirit of man is good.

Let us not be discouraged by the reports of the world’s strife. Let us rather be the light that we wish to see. It is in times like these that we must hold fast to the belief that the wrong which seems so strong is but a passing shadow.

The real map of the world is not the one drawn in blood and boundaries; it is the one drawn in the hearts of those who still believe…

In 2012, Greg Thomas was diagnosed with cancer. Stage Four. He was sent home to get his affairs in order.

Against medical advice, Greg spent his dwindling energy on renovating a 150-year-old abandoned church. He spent entire days refinishing pews, scraping paint, or sanding floors.

After months of labor, Greg went for a follow-up exam. The tumors had vanished. The doctors called it “spontaneous remission.” Which is medical shorthand for “What the…?”

In 2004, a 60-year-old Japanese man named Shinshū Kōda was diagnosed with malignant lymphoma. The abdominal tumor was the size of a softball.

Kōda refused chemo and retreated into meditation and prayer, sometimes for upwards of 12 hours at a time.

Months later, doctors found no tumors. The mass had liquefied. Doctors theorized this was due to a rise in Kōda’s interleukin-2 levels, immune system protein levels in the body associated with prayer. Nobody knows how these proteins work, or what they are exactly.

So, doctors called it “spontaneous remission.”

In 1986, Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson was in his mid-80s. On

a whim, he began a weekly tradition. Each Sunday, he would pass out crisp $1 bills to anyone who came to visit. He would give a blessing, then the dollar. Each recipient was supposed to give his or her dollar away to charity.

One day, a man visited Schneerson. The man was scheduled for high-risk heart surgery to repair a ruined valve. He was actually on his way to the hospital when he stopped to see the Rabbi.

Schneerson gave the man a dollar and told him, “The doctors are looking at the wrong map.”

One hour later, surgeons opened the man up. They found his cardiac valve wholly intact. Medical staffers checked the man’s identity bracelets, certain this was the wrong patient.

But no.

The scans which had been taken only two hours prior showed a destroyed valve. But new echocardiograms showed the valve had corrected…

With everything going on in the world, with all the wars, international conflicts, and high-stakes political maneuvers, I’m sure you’re all anxious to hear about what’s going on with the problem of legalized raccoon ownership in Tennessee.

Well, actually, a lot is happening. In the Sixteenth State, a new proposed legislation, sponsored by Senator Joey Hensley (R-Hohenwald) and Representative Kip Capley (R-Summertown), would lift the permit fee currently required to own a pet raccoon.

Finally.

Personally, I can sleep better knowing that Tennessee’s lawmakers are FINALLY putting the people first.

Especially since Tennessee is one of the fastest growing states in the nation, with inflation hitting harder than most states. In the last five years, inflation has driven the cost of Tennessee housing up by $100 per month. In some regions it’s closer to $400. And that number is only growing.

Moreover, 87 percent of Tennesseans say their wages do not keep up with the cost of living. Almost 789,000 Tennesseans admit difficulty just maintaining proper housing and food security.

So

the raccoon bill comes at just the right time. The pressing problem of raccoon pet ownership has been ratified. I’m proud to say that as long as your raccoon was obtained from a legal source; has been vaccinated; is non-native to Tennessee; was not captured in the wild; and has a current possession permit issued by the Tennessee Wildlife Resources Agency, you’re good to go.

There are some other great laws in our nation worth mentioning.

Foremostly, there is the pickle law in Connecticut. This is real. State lawmakers banned soggy pickles by passing a law which says, “a brined cucumber cannot officially be called a pickle unless it bounces.”

This law was passed in 1948 after two pickle packers were arrested for packing expired pickles to the general public. A laboratory test was developed involving dropping pickles from a height of 12 inches. If the pickles don’t bounce,…

I’m in a hotel lobby. It’s breakfast. We are waiting in line for our gruel. Guests congregate around the coffee urn like puppies at the teat until they drain the urn and leave nothing but dregs for us tired, huddled masses.

The dining room is full. There are people everywhere.

A group of businessmen at a table, eating their “eggz.” They are talking with important-sounding voices, the way guys do when they’re en masse. Trying to establish who is alpha by public urination contest.

They’re talking about the eclipse.

“This eclipse is no big deal,” one guy says in a macho tone. “I’ve seen an eclipse before.”

“Yeah, well, I’ve seen dozens,” another guy says.

“Oh, yeah?” a guy adds. “Well, I used to watch eclipses every weekend, back when they used to play for Miami.”

There is a young family nearby. A mom, dad, and a few kids. One kid is wearing his glasses, looking at his mother.

“Mom, look!” he says. “I’m wearing my glasses!”

Mom does not even move. She is staring straight ahead, like maybe it’s been a long road trip.

“Mom, look! Mom, look!

Mom, look!”

The woman takes a sip of coffee. She does not look.

“Momlookmomlookmomlookmom…!”

There is an older couple. They are, evidently, in love. They can’t keep their hands off one another. The older woman is mid-70s, wearing cutoff shorts à la Daisy Duke, cut so high they are showing her her everlasting aspirations. The guy is wearing a tank top and it appears that his upper body hasn’t seen the sun since the early Carter Administration.

They are groping each other. They are kissing passionately while waiting in the serving line.

“They’re definitely not married,” says one elderly lady in line, using a walker.

“How can you tell?” I ask.

“Are you married?”

“Yes.”

“Did you see where he grabbed her?”

“Yes.”

“Have you ever been grabbed like that?”

“No.”