I went to visit a childhood friend this past weekend. I was about ten minutes late, the result of a ridiculously long drive through a few Mayberry-looking towns before entering his one-horse village. I had to pull over to rest my eyes at one point. He was waiting on me when I arrived. The guy that let me in said my friend had joked that I probably got lost but that he wasn’t worried. We both grew up in country, rural Alabama, and he knew as well as me that I wasn’t going to stay lost too long in that environment.

Even though I was late, I still had to take my shoes off at the door. The guy he had joked with grabbed up both shoes and stuffed his hands…