Clinton, South Carolina, Tuesday, April 16, 2019, 11:45 a.m.

When my mother told me Notre Dame was burning, at first I thought she meant the football stadium. I switched to a news channel. Pete Buttigieg was talking. He’s the mayor of South Bend. It all made sense.

Not.

I’ve never been to Paris, but I’ve been to Oklahoma. Someone told me I was born there, but I really can’t remember. (A tip of the cap to Hoyt Axton, who had never been to Spain, but Notre Dame Cathedral is in Paris and it’s the best I could do.) Paris, not Spain. What does it matter? What does it matter?

The first rampaging storm front has swept through. Here we got off pretty easy. Another one’s headed this way. Want to know the best way to make a man believe in climate change? Destroy his house. It is an unfortunate aspect of human nature: that’s what it takes.

Meanwhile, my inbox informs me that I can get 50 bonus points “on this Croatian vacation.” No, I’ve never been to Croatia, but last month I went to Asheville. My daddy used to trade horses there, but I barely still remember.

The last eight days, I’ve aged a year. Don’t be alarmed. I had a birthday. I got my taxes done. I underwent dental surgery. Maybe it wasn’t a pun after all.

It’s a song. Life’s a song. Probably a Tom T. Hall song. Don’t let them big-city people get to you ’cause money’s the name of the game, don’t you see? They might pat your fanny and say you’re a dandy, but they still don’t like pickin’ on network TV.

It’s funny. Hilarious. Roger Miller funny. Roses are red and violets are purple. Sugar’s sweet and so is maple syrple. I’m the seventh out of seven sons. My daddy was a pistol. I’m a son of a gun. And about a year ago this time, I lacked fourteen dollars having twenty-seven cents.

Buh-buh-buh-buh-BUH-buh-buh, wow-wow-wow.

In the oldest, Southern, mill-hill meaning of the word, Donald Trump is a pistol. Mama Davis would’ve said, “He’s a pistol, ah’ight,” and Papa would’ve just chuckled. Papa Davis was a man who just let the river flow. He passed his patience along to my mother, but it didn’t get to me.

After he died, folks who worked with him at Lydia Mill told Hudson Davis stories. Years ago, the mill announced that employees could gradually buy their houses on the village, and a sign-up sheet was placed on the bulletin board outside the break rooms.

One of the bigwigs finally walked up to Papa and said, “Hudson, don’t you want to buy that house of your’n up on Peachtree?”

“I reckon I’d like that,” Papa said.

“Well, you ain’t signed up yet, and the deadline’s next Tuesday.”

“Where you go to do that?”

“It’s on the bulletin board.”

Papa laughed softly. “I learned a long time ago that no good generally comes from reading that bulletin board,” he said.

Thanks to Calvin Cooper, Papa made an exception.

Hudson Davis made sure he wasn’t the man who knew too much. He just knew more than most of the folks around him. The old timers say he was the best loom fixer they ever knew. He’d go in and dicker around with them, and then not have much to do. Then the shift would change, he’d pick up a few groceries at the company store and walk up Peachtree to the house. Inside the mill, looms would start breaking left and right.

Pity the man who follows Hudson Davis.

 

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The new novel, my eighth, is called Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.

Lightning in a Bottle is now available in an audio version, narrated by Jay Harper.