It's one a.m. I know because the cuckoo just popped out to announce the time. I ought to be asleep but it seems early yet, given that for the past two nights I haven't gotten to bed before 3:30 a.m. The last time I kept hours like this was when I was nursing twins.
The reason for the late hours is that those folks in Fairhope, Alabama court some sort of latent New Orleans complex. They're like Avis -- in the number two spot so they have to try harder. Or was that Hertz? Given the lateness of the hour, and my lack of sleep this weekend, I hereby declare that grace will be granted to anything I put forth in this blog. I cannot be held responsible for it. You will simply have to forgive me.

Amy Dickerson and I pulled out of the Waffle House parking lot on Friday morning around 8 a.m., without the benefit of Starbucks or any other form of java, and drove south about 20 miles before stopping at a Cracker House to refuel. I know it's not really called the Cracker House. I just happen to like that terminology. Amy bought me a cup of coffee and this real sweet waitress brought us all the increments we needed to doctor the coffee into something resembling lattes, but Amy, who apparently possess a nose that couldn't track an angry skunk, had us pouring curdled milk into our coffee and then swallowing gulps of it before determining that the milk was indeed sour. Nothing worse the first thing of a long drive than a cup of sour coffee. Ewww YuK!!!

But the Cracker waitress was a kind soul, who had an allergy to milk in any form and thus was way sorrry for the bad curd, got us fresh coffee, fresh milk and a bottle of Scope. Okay. I'm kidding about the Scope but I did buy some peppermints to get rid of the taste.

Thus began our jaunt into the southern most part of Alabama. Trees rolled over the hills in waves of gold and orange, red and green. Sunlight poured in through the expansive windows of Gordon's big red truck, which he loaned us for this trip.  Amy, who  also suffers the plight of werewolves the world over (lack of warm blood), was enamored with the heated seats. She kept hers turned up high even when the temperature reached the low 70s. She'd want me to turn the air conditioner on just so she could continue to use her heated seat. How can you not like a person who is so dang easy to please? Warm her buns and she'll be your friend for life.

Speaking of which, Amy and I met with authors Chad Gibbs and Michael Morris on our swing through B'ham. "How do you know each other?" Michael asked. I looked over at Amy. She smiled that sweet grin of hers and I cocked my head and answered, "Amy and I have a lot of lesbian friends in common."

Michael like to have spit out his teeth laughing so hard.

We laughed a lot this weekend, which is the trademark of the Southern Writers Reading program. Can there be anything more fun than bringing together a bunch of smart mouthed Bubbas and Barbie wannabes and has-beens for a weekend of riotious storytelling?

This was my second trip to Fairhope, and worth every second of my increasingly decreasing life. Amy and I pulled up to the Hudson home at Water Branch Hole around 5:30 p.m. Suzanne was waiting for us on the front porch at the end of a dirt drive. The uncombed, stringy mangle of Spanish Moss hung from the ancient oaks sheltering us. Suzanne's home is like something from a storybook. Shoot, it is a storybook, in and of itself. Painting and pictures of every sort hang on nearly every room of the sprawling house. Pictures of Suzanne as a dimpled cheek girl, snapshots of her mama, Buddha, giggling with her sisters, cutting wedding cake, a father in military garb. There were baskets of magazines, shelves of books, easels with bright paintings, brightly colored glass stuffed with white Christmas lights, candles in the fireplace and on the mantel. A shoe tree. A piano in the yard at Everett's house, the neighbor who is the appointed Mayor of Water Branch. A grizzled man who paints and writes, and has the ability to do both in the dark, given that we could never find a lamp in his charming home. A home whose cupboard doors were adorned with picket fences, crafted, I'd venture by Everett himself. There's also a portable tv, that I'm sure he's owned for 30 years, sitting on the shelf on the porch. There's words on the masking tape that identifies the special qualities of the old set: "Round Sound" and other words more clever that in my addled state I can't remember. But I do remember that Mayor Everett had a bucket hanging from a chain on the porch and that a warm fire was burning in it and that Everett had forgotten to zip his fly, either by mistake or with intent, I'm not sure. He likes women. As do all the men in Fairhope, if the poem Martin sent to Amy is any indication.

Though Shari Smith, our new soul sister, warned Amy that Martin is just that way: "Don't think you're special if Martin skywrites your name. It doesn't mean anything. That's just Martin."

Shari is not from Fairhope. She's from Claremont, North Carolina, which is somewhere near Hickory where my buddy Layne Smith pastors. Shari told me so many stories this weekend, I'm pretty sure I know everyone in Claremont, but my favorite character is Avery. Though the school principal has some endearing qualities, too. Avery put up 27 tombstones in his yard this Halloween, painting each one himself. I can't tell the stories of Avery as well as Miss Shari so I won't even try. But I do have to tell you the story of her son Walker, who, it seems, learned whole language like my daughter Konnie. You know, where they contextualize the words?

Walker comes home from school, announces that he's learned all about the presidents that day, and in an attempt to prove his newfound knowledged tells his mama that Bill Clinton is president but that he knows that Hammerhead Lincoln used to be president.

Hammerhead Lincoln.

Then there was that time, Shari recalled, when Walker was watching a nature show about "Penchanzees."

Rick Bragg, Shari's redneck friend, tells her she should write these stories. I agree. But I told her if she didn't I would. So see, I'm unabashedly copping some of the material I heard over the weekend.

I want to bring Walker and Avery back to Oregon. And I want to go to Claremont and met all these characters that Shari talks about, non-stop.

"Write that story," David Poindexter, president of MacAdam Cage urged Shari.

I"m thinking about starting a campaign to get Shari to write, but maybe I ought to just figure out a way to get her arrested. I figure if she was incarcerated, she wouldn't have time to do anything else but write and we'd all be the better for it. And the jails would be organized in no time with Ms. Shari running it from the inside.

I'll telll you more about Fairhope soon. I got to get to bed. Gordon has a CAT scan at 8 a.m. and I'm the designated driver for the event. Not a bad job. At least I ain't got to drink all the chalky stuff he's got to.

Uh-oh. Now it's 2 a.m. According to the little bird who chirps.

I'll leave you with this thought at the end of a Sabbath day. A billboard erected on private property between B'ham and Montogomery: "Go to church or the devil will get you."

Down south, even the billboards tell a story.