Sean Dietrich

He was a good kid. You could just tell. He was maybe 11. Twelve at the most. He was in the supermarket. He had his little sister balanced on his hip. You don’t often see boys carrying toddlers out in public. The kid was filling a shopping buggy. He was reaching for a bag of tortilla chips on the top shelf. I saw one of the older ladies in our aisle reach upward and remove a bag of Tostitos for him. They were Tostitos Scoops. The greatest invention by the chip industry, and perhaps the finest human achievement of the last century with the possible exception of penicillin. “Thanks,” the boy said. His buggy was nearly full. He had lots of adultish items in his basket. Coffee. Vegetables. Diapers. The older lady asked where the boy’s mother was. She asked this in a concerned, parental tone. Her concern, of course, is understandable in our modern day. You don’t often see kids wandering around by themselves anymore. During my youth, however, shortly after the close of World War I, kids almost never had parental supervision. We walked to school. Our mothers sent us to the store on errands. We hung out at the mall without supervision. We rode bikes into the woods, built campfires, constructed deathtrap treehouses, and made serious attempts at discovering new ways to break our own legs. We were feral. “Where are your parents?” said the older woman. “My mom’s waiting in the car,” he said. The woman’s brow furrowed. “She let you come in here by YOURSELF?” He nodded, then readjusted Little Sister on his hip. Little Sister had a snot bubble the size of a Canadian territory. “You’re GROCERY shopping?” the woman said. Nod. The lady was aghast. She wore the patented look of disapproval. “You shouldn’t be in here without an adult.” The kid didn’t reply. “Your mother should be with you,” she said in a half-scolding voice. “It’s dangerous. You’re too young to be by yourself.” “But,” the boy explained kindly, “shopping’s not that hard.” “That’s not what I meant. Your mother could get into a lot of trouble for leaving you unsupervised. This is unacceptable. Someone should tell the manager.” Little Sister’s snot bubble reached critical mass. The kid apologized. He looked embarrassed. He left the aisle and pushed his buggy to the cashier lane, often glancing behind him. Like he now realized he was doing something wrong. I watched him load items on a conveyor belt. I saw him use a credit card to pay. Later, I saw him in the parking lot. I saw the idling Honda that contained his mother. I saw Mom sleeping in the front seat. Then, I saw the middle-aged mother crawl from the vehicle. She was a skeleton. I saw her pale skin. The bandanna over her balding head. The hospital bracelet on her wrist. The bandage on the bend of her elbow. She was trying to help her son load groceries, but she struggled to lift a single bag. When they finished, the boy gave her a hug. And they held each other for a long time. Longer than a normal hug. Because, as I say, he was a good kid. You could just tell. Sean Dietrich is a columnist, novelist, podcaster, and stand-up storyteller known for his commentary on life in the American South. His work has appeared in Newsweek, Southern Living, Reader's Digest, Garden and Gun, The Tallahassee Democrat, the Birmingham News, and his column is syndicated in newspapers throughout the U.S. He has authored fifteen books, and he makes appearances on the Grand Ole Opry. To learn more about Sean or to purchase his books, visit his website at https://seandietrich.com

Don’t shoot the messenger. But in America, one third of children have never handwritten a letter. And it’s not just kids. Nearly 40 percent of adult Americans haven’t written a letter in the last five years, while 43 percent of Millenials have never sent one in their lifetime. Whereas recent studies show that Generation Z can’t read cursive and has no idea what the heck Grandma’s letters say. The New York Times says that “The age of proper correspondence writing has ended…” “Letter writing is an endangered art,” The Atlantic said. “The death knell of written correspondence has been sounding for years,” said the Chicago Tribune. This is not new information, of course, unless you’ve been living underneath a slab of granite. Letters have been replaced by emails and texts. But texts and emails are not letters. An email has no charm. A text message does not not feel private. You cannot smell the paper. You cannot feel the weight of stationary in your hands. An email is temporary. An email will only last as long as your device is charged. Fact: Around 92 percent of working Americans feel anxiety when they see an unread email in their inbox. But a letter. A letter is real. A letter exists in physical space. A letter will not disappear unless you burn it. There are letters that still exist from 500 BC. Letters from early Romans. Letters from kings and queens. Letters from soldiers in the American Revolution. A letter is artwork. It is culture. It is language. A letter represents years of handwriting practice in Mrs. Burns penmanship class, as she peered over her cat eye glasses at you, barbarically swatting a ruler in her open palm. A letter is a moment of time. It is rewrites, spelling corrections, merciless editing, and the act of keeping one’s lines straight. You can tack a letter to your refrigerator. You can place a letter into a shoebox and have it for years to come. Letters are personal. You can hear a letter’s personal voice as you read. You see ink on a personal page, intended for your personal eyes. The letter’s postage stamp has been licked with someone’s personal sputum. So how did we get here? Every single minute, 208,000 pictures are posted to Facebook and 65,000 images are posted on Instagram. TikTok sees an influx of 34 million uploaded videos each day. Each day in the world, 18.7 billion texts are sent. The average American will send 40 to 90 texts per day. Most Americans will receive one to two text messages every minute. I have received eight texts since I sat down to write this. But I bring all this up because although letter writing is not efficient; although it is time consuming; although I can think of more important things I ought to be doing, I still remember the impact handwritten letters have had on my life. The letter my mother sent me when she was out of town in Saint Louis. The love letter my wife sent when we first started dating. The letter my father sent only days before he died. I still have them all. I still read them. I still love them. Which is why I still write letters. And I hope I always will. Sean Dietrich is a columnist, novelist, podcaster, and stand-up storyteller known for his commentary on life in the American South. His work has appeared in Newsweek, Southern Living, Reader's Digest, Garden and Gun, The Tallahassee Democrat, the Birmingham News, and his column is syndicated in newspapers throughout the U.S. He has authored fifteen books, and he makes appearances on the Grand Ole Opry. To learn more about Sean or to purchase his books, visit his website at https://seandietrich.com

Dear Kid, Don’t grow up. Don’t turn into an adult. That’s my advice. Resist adulthood. Be a kid forever. Right now, a lot of adults are angry in America. To be fair, we have a lot to be angry about. But adults can behave badly when they are angry. So please forgive us. Because the truth is—and I shouldn’t be telling you this—adults can be pretty stupid. Don’t misunderstand. I don’t mean we’re “stupid” in a negative sense. Truly, I don’t. After all, just because someone is stupid doesn’t mean you can’t love them. Take dogs. Dogs can be very unsmart, but we still love them. Hallmark Channel movies can be ingloriously stupid, but they are also wonderful. Still, this doesn’t change the fact that we adult humans are, in fact, giant dipsticks. The problem is, of course, that we adults think we are brilliant. Oh, sure, our species occasionally does some brilliant things. Beer is only one example. Humankind has also, for instance, learned to manufacture smartphones with touchscreens capable of flushing our toilets from outer space. But this doesn’t make us smart. Because we still don’t know how to listen. We don’t empathize. And even though our parents taught us, we still don’t know how to share. You know what we DO know how to do? We know how to kill each other. Again, I’m not being pessimistic. This is just a fact. We are among the only mammals who kill one another. Tigers do not kill tigers. Squirrels don’t kill squirrels. When was the last time you saw cows killing each other? But look at history. The Punic Wars in (164 B.C.), 2 million killed. The Jewish-Roman Wars, (66 A.D.) another 2 million. The Crusades (1095-1229) 3 million. The Mongol Invasions, 40 million. The Conquests of Timur, 20 million. Spanish Conquest of the Aztec Empire, 2.5 million. Spanish Conquest of the Incan Empire, 8.5 million. The American Civil War, 1 million. World War I, 40 million. World War II, 85 million. Vietnam War, 4 million. I don’t mean to disturb you, I simply bring this up because I want you to know where you fit in to all this. Because you see, you’re not like us. At least not yet. You were born into this wonderful world with a clean slate. You’re a kid. You are oblivious to our adult fussing and our adult need to be right. Your entire kid philosophy is “Let’s have fun!” That’s it. That’s how you see this world. Every morning you wake up and you look for the party. For you, every day carries the possibility of magic, music, art, friends, and bladder-compromising laughter. There are no taboos in your world. No villains. You forgive easily. You love fiercely. And even the things you hate, you LOVE hating those things. You are perpetually excited, rarely disappointed, hopeful to a fault, miraculously naïve, way too trusting, and you believe in God without even trying. And someday when I grow up, I hope to be just like you. Sean Dietrich is a columnist, novelist, podcaster, and stand-up storyteller known for his commentary on life in the American South. His work has appeared in Newsweek, Southern Living, Reader's Digest, Garden and Gun, The Tallahassee Democrat, the Birmingham News, and his column is syndicated in newspapers throughout the U.S. He has authored fifteen books, and he makes appearances on the Grand Ole Opry. To learn more about Sean or to purchase his books, visit his website at https://seandietrich.com

Americans are arguing right now. And believe me, I get it. There is a lot going on. Everyone has differences of opinion. But I wondered if we Americans couldn’t put aside our disagreements for a moment, and agree on a few things we love. I’ll start. I love quilting. Quilting bees, quilting circles, quilting parties. Americans didn’t invent quilting, but it’s an American artform nonetheless. I used to watch my mother quilt with dogged persistence. Day after day. Month after month. She used birch-wood quilting hoops, and pieced recycled fabric together. She could take seemingly unrelated scraps and make art. My mother always said, “When life gives you scraps, you make a quilt.” Also, I love jazz. American fiddle tunes. And the way New Orleans smells on a summer morning, after tourists have spent all night urinating in the streets. Stetson hats worn non-ironically. Case knives, butter yellow, dual blades. Moe Howard, Larry Fine, and Curly. Shemp is okay. The old men in cafes who still drink coffee in groups. And the young men who still idolize them. Boys who still ask Santa Claus for BB guns. And their little sisters, who steal their GI Joes because Barbie needs a viable love interest. Kids who still ride bikes. Children who play tag in their backyards, screaming and laughing, without ever once checking their phones. I love Waffle House. An American institution. Yes, I realize eggs are expensive right now, raising the cost of an ordinary omelette to about the same price as a Range Rover Autograph. But I will continue to eat Waffle House fare until my end. Namely, because I have eaten at Waffle House to benchmark the most important moments in my life. I ate at Waffle House the morning after my own wedding. After the funerals of friends and family. God willing, I will eat at Waffle House the day after my own funeral. I love baseball. Not just the game itself. I love the culture. I love how baseball terminology has crept into everyday vocabulary. “Just touching base.” “I’ll go to bat for you.” “He’s out in left field.” “You knocked it out of the park.” I miss the grungy AAA ballparks of youth. The smells of flat beer, cigar smoke, and meat-like rubber served on a hotdog bun. Back when the game was slow, and pitchers still batted. Davy Crockett. Louis Armstrong. Helen Keller. Dorothea Lange. Aretha Franklin. Andy Griffith. Groucho Marx. Lucille Ball. Laura Ingalls Wilder. Dolly Parton. Willie Hugh Nelson. And I love you. Whoever you are. In fact you’re what I like most about America. You’re a great person. No matter how different we might be. No matter how we might disagree. No matter how dissimilar our backgrounds. Maybe I am foolish enough to believe that, even though we appear differently, think differently, and believe differently, it is contrast that makes the scraps of a quilt truly beautiful. Sean Dietrich is a columnist, novelist, podcaster, and stand-up storyteller known for his commentary on life in the American South. His work has appeared in Newsweek, Southern Living, Reader's Digest, Garden and Gun, The Tallahassee Democrat, the Birmingham News, and his column is syndicated in newspapers throughout the U.S. He has authored fifteen books, and he makes appearances on the Grand Ole Opry. To learn more about Sean, visit his website at https://seandietrich.com