In a doctor’s waiting room, I sat without a phone or a newspaper to read. I was just a-sittin’, observing those scattered about.

As the length of my time has stretched into many years, I realize the exceeding importance of giving moments of kindness. Take for instance, my friend, Edward.

Silently, Tink closed his laptop. He had been showing me a couple of videos. He observed me for a moment before asking, “You miss him, don’t you?” I nodded, my eyes pooling. “Very much.”

This story comes on good authority which assures us that this good story is true. One day, Tink and I were visiting his father, former television Executive Grant Tinker, when the conversation turned to Merv Adelson, a legend of iconic 1970s television shows.

Count me in as one who still enjoys holding a good, local newspaper and absorbing almost every word. From the front page to the obituaries to the sports to the legals.

Sometimes, I have decided, rudeness works. Sometimes, it’s even called for. I had to do a lot of thinking on this because I advocate kindness and courtesy.

In the modest country home where I grew up, prejudices were not allowed. Though there was a serious bias against what Daddy called “no accounts,” men who laid up drunk and didn’t feed their families.

This is how prayer works: Tink and I were one hour into a seven-hour trip home from Memphis. I’d been on a book tour for two exhausting weeks and had a stomach bug, very rare for me.

Dolly Parton is, unquestionably, one of music’s best songwriters. Arguably, she is the best writer of the “girl singers,” as they were called in the 1960s, to come out of Nashville.

In 1949, a young North Carolina preacher decided to take his ministry to the streets of Los Angeles where he and his staff pitched a tent and waited for the people to come. A few did.