Clinton, South Carolina, Friday, July 12, 2019, 1:28 p.m.

My mother, 79 years young, and I chat on the phone most days. It is my theory that the relation between generations is all mathematic.

When I was born, Betty Davis Dutton was not quite 18. When I was 4 and she 22, we were miles apart, thought certainly not in love and devotion. For a kid who’s 4, those who are 5 are in an entirely different social stratum. They’re just 80 percent alike. When the kid is 16 and a high school sophomore, seniors are not too different and almost approachable.

Now I am 61, and my mother’s 79, and I’m as close to her in terms of knowledge and maturity as to a 5-year-old when I was 4. I have friends 10-11 years younger and older now. Beyond a decade, they’re friendly acquaintances but not really friends because that’s an exclusive category. Friendly acquaintances are to friends what traditional friends are to Facebook friends.

As one gets older, he or she must appreciate the positives because the negatives grow.

Yesterday Mom told me she had bumped into Shirley Jenkins, who’s a city councilwoman – in Laurens they are all councilors but in Clinton, they are still -men and -women. They worked together at Whitten Center, the state mental retardation, no, handicapped, no, special, no, challenged, facility in Clinton. Mom told me that Lula, a babysitter of ours when my two sisters, brother and I were growing up, was Shirley’s grandmother.

“Lord, we gave that woman hell,” I said.

“You sure did,” Mom said. “When y’all were little, you bragged about it a good bit.”

The grandmother of my mother’s friend was one of my babysitters during the years when my parents ran a steakhouse in town.

Yeah. I’m old.

Clinton is a provincial little town. I sometimes tell people it’s not that I love it, but, rather, that I know it. Back when I traveled the country writing about NASCAR, I didn’t really live here. I just paid bills, washed clothes and cut grass here. Then it was off to the road to, say, Martinsville, or the airport, on Thursdays, and back home on Monday nights.

People used to ask me, “What are you doing in town?”

“Well, I live here,” I’d reply.

This is the seventh year since I ran away from the circus after running away with it 20 years earlier, and I’ve become a Clintonian full-time again. This morning I drove as far away as Greenwood because my Continuous Positive Air Pressure (CPAP) machine conked out after 10 years. When one is accustomed to the CPAP, it’s hard to sleep without one. I slept very little last night and have been guzzling coffee since I awakened. Greenwood is only a half hour’s drive, but it was grueling.

The company that provided me the CPAP and supplies for it has merged with another company to form a larger company, and it’s fortunate that I called ahead because I very nearly drove to Union, where there is no place now to provide my needs. Also, with the new provider, my records never got transferred. The fellow at the Greenwood office provided me with a loaner for now, but next week I’ll have to get my doctor to call so that I can get a new one.

See what happens when I go out of town?

In my present job, which requires me to keep up with whatever is shaking in Laurens County, I am still learning Laurens, the county seat, but I know Clinton. I have grown to appreciate little charms of the area. I like to hang out in places like L&L Office Supply, Sadler-Owens Apothecary and Steamers, where I have breakfast when I have a morning appointment and thus a reason to “power down” the laptop. Debra Mann knows that I want the “meaty” breakfast, eggs over-medium with grits, sausage, bacon and sourdough toast, unless I tell her different, which I have done once in the past two years when a taste for pancakes interceded. I cook almost the same exact breakfast at home, too, on the days when I have no reason to get out until afternoon.

Clinton does not provide that much variety, but life is reliable.

The news and sports beats keep me attuned. I often take pictures of little children running around; it’s probably the part of the job I enjoy the most. Since I got back from Greenwood, I’ve been editing obituaries. It’s a little early yet for the arrest report.

This is home. As noted earlier, I know it, and I’ve gotten old enough to appreciate it.

On Wednesday, I was taking photos of the Clinton Red Devils and Laurens Raiders playing summertime catch – 7-on-7s, they’re called – and the Laurens football coach, Chris Liner, noted that I was standing on the Red Devil sideline.

I told him I had been on the Raider sideline earlier and was wearing a Furman T-shirt in the name of local impartiality.

“I don’t blame you,” Chris said. “If I’d gone to Clinton, I’d be on that sideline, too.”

He’s one of my favorite people in the county. I like the Red Devils’ new coach, Corey Fountain, a lot, too, but we’re still getting acquainted.

I hope Laurens wins every single game but one, and that’s the way it’s supposed to be. I’m not sure what separates Clinton from Laurens in the bloodstream or water supply, but it’s just a little different. Clinton is where the roots of my raising are anchored in the soil.

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My eighth novel is called Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.

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