My Uber driver is in her mid-30s, and she is friendly. She is driving us to our hotel, and we are stuck in gridlock traffic.

There is a network of tattoos adorning her limbs. As she drives, I notice a thumbprint tattoo on her neck. I ask about this tattoo.

First she doesn’t reply.

Then she says quietly, with a pained smile, “It’s my son’s thumbprint.”

I am prepared to let the subject die here, but it is she who breaks the quietude.

“He died last month. He was twenty-two.”

She goes on to tell us that it was an accident. The accident happened in her house. It happened in front of his little brother. It was bad.

She drives in silence for a long time. I offer her an “I’m sorry.” I hate saying this phrase in response to such discourse. It sounds so inauthentic. Even so, the only thing I hate worse than saying these two words is not saying them at all.

“He was an organ donor,” she says. “So they did the honor walk for him.

The whole hospital lined the hallways to watch his bed roll by. Everyone. Doctors, nurses. Even the janitors. Everyone was there. My son saved so many lives that day.”

Then she offers us a common piece of wisdom. But this time, the words fall differently onto my ears.

“Life is so short.”

We are dropped off at the hotel. There are no restaurants within ten square miles, so we need to call another cab to take us to dinner.

The cab arrives. It’s a young man. He’s nice. He’s got a story too.

He says he started driving cabs after his mom died. He had been her primary caregiver for so long, he’d forgotten what it meant to be around the general public.

“I’d been isolated so long, taking care of her,” he says. “When she was suddenly gone, I…

Pa Ingalls’ fiddle was sitting on the table of the museum archive room. Still in its case.

The curator, Tana Redman, smiled at me.

“You’ll need to wash your hands before you play it,” she said.

Pa Ingalls’ fiddle is one of the most well-known and sacred literary objects in American history. Second only to Huck’s raft, Hester Prynne’s scarlet ‘A,’ or the Leg Lamp.

The fiddle is on display at the Laura Ingalls Wilder Museum in Mansfield, Missouri. It is the star attraction of the museum.

I inspected the fiddle.

The fingerboard was not made of ebony but softwood. Pearwood maybe. There were divots worn in the fingerboard from Pa’s fingers. Millions of little nicks from his fingernails, peppering first position, carving grooves in the wood.

The fiddleback was adorned with a pattern of scratches, maybe from Pa’s collar, or perhaps the clips of his suspenders, scraping the varnish.

I tuned it, but the tension pegs weren’t holding. Dry weather makes tension pegs about as cooperative as an IRS auditor.

Charles Ingalls learned to play this fiddle

around age 16. This instrument might’ve been his first fiddle.

He learned to play by hanging out at local dances in Campton Township, Illinois, in the 1850s. Charles attended monthly dances at the Garfield House Inn, like all the young people in the area. Except Charles gravitated toward the band.

After about ten minutes of struggling against the tuning pegs, I finally got the fiddle up to pitch. I wedged the instrument beneath my chin. I positioned the bow against the strings, and…

The fiddle had already fallen out of tune.

The tension pegs kept slipping. In Pa’s day, he would have simply removed one of these pegs and sucked on it. The moisture from his saliva would have made the peg stick. But I wasn’t about to suck on a piece of cherished American history. At least, not unless someone could…

Visitors often walk through this high prairie farmhouse and say they can feel her. They don’t know how. They don’t know why. But she’s here.

A teenage girl is in the farmhouse museum, taking the tour alongside me. She and her mom are in my tour group. The girl is looking at the old woman’s artifacts, nestled behind Plexiglass cases, taking lots of pictures with a phone.

“This is the clock SHE wrote about, Mom,” says the girl.

She.

Everyone here is on a first-name basis with “she.”

The girl says her grandmother is who first got her into the classic book series, back when she was little. The girl has been in love with “her” ever since. Her grandmother would read these books to her every night. And when her grandmother went on hospice care last year, the girl returned the favor.

The home is nothing fancy. It’s your typical Missouri farmhouse. Like something your grandparents grew up in. Musty smelling. Unlevel. Creaky. Two stories. Simple to a fault.

The home was built in

1894. She and her husband made a $100 down payment. There were two rooms. Her husband and a few local carpenters built the rest. Sometimes they paid workmen in bales of hay. Or with chickens.

I rest my own hand on the cracked and faded wood paneling. I feel like I’m in the household of an old friend. The teenage girl, however, is having an almost spiritual experience. She traveled here to Mansfield, all the way from Florida, to make this pilgrimage.

She is carrying one of “her” books in her arms. A paperback. Tattered and worn.

And I kind of understand what she’s feeling. When you fall in love with a writer, you never fall out of love.

I read the old woman’s books when I was a kid, too. I read eight of her books in one week. Then I read them again…

The little boy was already on this plane when we boarded. He has a backpack bigger than he is. And a stuffed animal. He is maybe seven years old.

We passengers can hear him talking to anyone within earshot. He is loud. He is chatty. He does not use an indoor voice.

The kid is nothing but friendly.

“Hi,” he says to the businessman across his aisle.

“Hello,” the man replies without looking away from his device.

The boy is smiling. “How are you?”

“Fine,” the guy says. Very annoyed. His tone is communicating that he doesn’t want to talk.

“I am good, too,” the boy says even though the man didn’t ask.

The boy digs into his pocket. “Would you like a Starburst?”

“No.” The man doesn’t even say thank you.

The boy is unfazed. He has a new package of Starburst and it’s too wonderful not to share. He tears it open with his teeth.

“Are you SURE?” the kid says. “I have tropical flavor.”

The man just ignores the kid.

“Which color do you want?” the kid asks.

The man acts like the kid is invisible.

So,

the boy asks a lady nearby whether she’d like a Starburst.

The woman is put off by the constant chatter.

“I wouldn’t care for any,” she says sharply. But at least she adds, “Thank you.”

“You’re welcome,” he replies sunnily.

He turns to the old man in a seat behind him. “Would you like any Starburst, sir?”

The man looks almost offended. He’s watching a movie on his phone. His privacy bubble has been violated. He irritatedly tells the kid to quiet down.

The boy looks hurt, but then a flight attendant saves the day.

“Do you have red ones?” the flight attendant asks

“Yes! I do!”

He gives the attendant more than one.

She thanks him, then engages him in conversation. Many of the passengers surrounding her seem aggravated…

There is a US law stipulating that whenever you’re having a good day a pharmaceutical commercial must appear.

It will be a frightening one, too. Sometimes the same startling commercial will be replayed three, four, maybe five times. That’s the law.

You will see this commercial so many times, you will be able to recite the list of fatal side effects by heart:

“Zombacore may cause drowsiness, upper respiratory infections, headache, fatigue, injection site reactions (redness, swelling, brain death), fungal skin infections, paralyzation, organ failure, and lightheadedness in men who are nursing or pregnant.”

These advertisements are seldom pleasant. They are intentionally disturbing sometimes. It is, however, the shingles vaccine ad that takes the cake.

You see big, nasty, red, goopy infected lesions of shingles. The fluid-blisters are shown up close, as though you are watching TLC and it’s Shingles Week.

The music for these commercials is even better. Pharmaceutical commercials often select a knock-off version of a 1970s top-40 hit that nobody ever liked in the first place.

Such as Ozempic’s theme song, which is

a ripoff of “Magic” by Pilot. Which goes: “Oh, oh, oh, Ozempic!” Also, there is the nonsensical song for Skyrizi which features existentially confusing lyrics which say: “Nothing is everything.”

I don’t want my dogs watching this.

These songs are usually paired with scenes of normal people, losing weight, wearing sleeveless tanks, barbecuing, smiling about it, or playing pickleball, which is America’s fastest-growing sport.

At least this is what everyone tells me about pickleball. We have pickleball courts near our house. People are always waiting in line to use occupied courts.

You can see them there, waiting, spinning their paddles, doing violent stretches, talking about pickleball. If you ever engage them in conversation, someone is bound to say, “Pickleball is the fastest-growing sport in America.”

I don’t know why they all say this verbatim. It is the mantra for pickleballers. Even when you do…

The 18-year-old young woman walked into the office. She was nervous. Her hands were trembling.

Which was really saying something, because this was a young woman accustomed to being onstage. She wanted to become a serious actress someday.

In fact, that’s why she was here. Her teacher, Mrs. Ship, said she had real talent. Said she’d never seen an actress with such stage presence. Said she had flawless timing. She recommended the young woman visit the drama department director, Madame Pauleen Sherwood Townsend.

Madame Townsend sat behind her desk, reading glasses low on her nose. The woman peered over her spectacles at the rail-thin girl entering her office.

“You’re late,” said the woman, checking her clock. “By two minutes.”

“I’m sorry,” said the girl.

“What’s your name?”

“Everyone calls me Ophie, ma’am.”

“Sit down, Ophie.”

The girl sat. She tried to steady her quivering hands, but couldn’t. So, she sat on them.

“Mrs. Ship tells me you want to be an actress.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“What will you be reading for me?”

Young Ophie had prepared a reading. She’d memorized a selection from a classic work. She had rehearsed her piece so

many times she could recite it in her sleep. She cleared her throat and began.

The old woman listened with eyes closed. But something was wrong. Terribly wrong. The woman’s eyes snapped open. Her facial muscles tightened. An expression of concern lit her face.

Madame Townsend stopped the girl mid-sentence. Ophie was not even halfway through.

“What on earth happened to your voice?” said the woman.

“My voice?”

“Your voice is horrid. You’ve strained it. How on earth did you ruin your voice like this?”

The color went out of the girl’s face. “Strained it?”

“Think, child. What have you done to your voice to destroy it so?”

“Destroyed it?”

Tears swelled behind young Ophie’s eyes. “I don’t know. I was a cheerleader in high school?”

“A cheerleader? Oh,…

There is an ancient proverb that says, “The couple that does not record audiobooks together stays together.”

These are wise words. I know this now because recently, I wrote a book with my wife. This past weekend, Jamie and I recorded the audiobook version together, which was a lot of fun. And anyway, now I’m scheduled for dental surgery.

We got to the studio early. The engineers instructed us to wear “roomy clothes,” and not to eat anything that would cause “digestive noises” over the microphone.

It bears mentioning: My wife and I have never recorded an audiobook together. Frankly, I did not know you COULD record an audiobook with your wife and keep all your guy-parts intact.

The studio’s method of operation was simple. First, I would read my portion of the manuscript into the mic, then it would be Jamie’s turn. This required painstaking effort and a lot of concentration. Then, once we successfully nailed the reading of one section, after thousands of retakes, the audio engineer would happily pronounce that

“Your stomach was rumbling in that last take.” Then we’d start all over again.

I was given the role of “director of audiobook.” Which meant I had to give Jamie direction.

This role was given to me because I have been recording audiobooks for years now. Actually, in another lifetime, I used to record radio jingles and announcements.

These jingles were recorded in a basement studio, then shipped off to small mom-and-pop stations all over the nation. My voice advertised everything from home renovations to wholesale senior diapers.

The most difficult part of being a jingle singer was getting jingles out of your head after work. These were godawful ear-worms that bored themselves into your frontal lobe. Even after all these years, I still have millions of jingles stuck in my head.

Sometimes, for example, I will be stuck in traffic and I’ll start singing to myself: