Citizen Writers Fighting Censorship by Helping Americans Understand Issues Affecting the Republic.
Sean Dietrich 
Four guys. Four ordinary guys. Our band arrived at the Oxford Performing Arts Center theater early for soundcheck.
The theater production crew was waiting for us. The soundmen were huddled onstage for a pre-show briefing. The ushers were looking over seating charts. The ladies in the ticket booth were smiling. The beverage vendors were icing down the Mick Ultra.
I miss glass bottles. I come from a generation of glass. And therein lies a fundamental difference between my generation and the current one.
Her name is Honey. She is in the meet-and-greet line after one of my shows. She holds one of my books. White hair. Tiny frame. Maybe five-foot.
My first week owning a dumb phone has been, well, dumb. In fact, it’s been so uneventful, I’m not totally sure what to do with myself.
I’m sure some of you have noticed I haven’t been writing as much as I used to. I get lots of emails asking why this is. Many of these emails are ultra-friendly emails, beginning with the words, “WHERE THE HELL ARE YOU!!!?”
To answer this, I need to start by telling you about our trip to Spain.
You’re going through something right now. Something bad. Something truly, inexplicably, wholly, and everlastingly crappy.
I don’t know what it is. But it’s ugly. And it’s getting the best of you.
A little boy walked into the little church, unannounced. It was a weekday. A country church. Clapboards. Tin roof. The kind of church that—until a few years ago—only had window-unit A/C.
I have no children. The closest I ever came to having a child was when my wife got me a goldfish for Christmas. His name was Gary.
My phone finally arrives in the mail. It’s small. Ugly. It’s “dumb.” And it looks like it was invented during the Herbert Hoover administration.
Morgan arrived at the little lake cabin around lunchtime. Her sorority sister Grace was driving the car. The car wheeled into the gravel driveway. When Morgan crawled out of the passenger seat, we all rushed her and embraced.
How did I get here? What career path led me to this moment? Why am I onstage, before several hundred, shaking my fundaments?
I like Pennsylvania. They’re nice here. They say “yous” and “yinz” and “soda pop.” They have Appalachian manners, a steelman’s work ethic, and potholes big enough to swallow Peterbilts.
Here is how the typical morning of a columnist goes. You sit down at the computer. And before you write, you begin by asking yourself the age-old question, “Why should anyone care what I have to say?”
Morning. I am driving two-lane highways in the backcountry of Missouri. I have been sharing the highway with mostly rusty pickups and Massey Ferguson farm implements. Also deer.
Missouri. The place where the western prairie meets the southern cotton patches. It’s a foreign land to me.
You’d never know I was born in Missouri. You’d never guess my father died in Missouri.
The complainers speak in all caps sometimes.
“AMERICA IS FALLING APART,” they often say. “THINGS ARE WORSE NOW THAN EVER BEFORE.”
But just because something was typed in capital letters doesn’t make it true.
Q: Sean!!! Are you going to write anything about how poorly Ingrid Andress sang our national anthem at the Home Run Derby? It’s an attack on our country!!! If you stay silent on this you are a complete wuss!!!!
A:
“There’s a bug on my leg!” said Becca.
“There’s no bug on your leg,” I said confidently.
“Are you SURE?”
“Absotively,” I said.
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.
The news is in. Less than one third of Americans have ever written a physical letter in their lifetime.
Jim was stuck. In the middle of the rural two-lane highway. Right there on the pavement. Not far from the solid yellow line. Tucked tightly in his shell. Scared to death.
Vehicles sped past little Jim, on both sides, shooting by with the deafening roars of F-16s.