Once upon a time, there was a princess who lived in a great big old castle. She was very beautiful, with long, flowy hair, and her teeth were really nice, too. Nice and straight.

The princess had everything she wanted. Whenever she lacked, she snapped her fingers and said, “Bring me…!” and then she would name the object of her desire and her servants would fall all over themselves to secure the object of her want. If her servants took too long fetching the object, however, the king would become annoyed and occasionally mention the possibility of removing their heads.

On the other side of the kingdom was a village where lived a peasant girl who was not imbued with such fortune. She was the youngest of a poor family. She worked part time at Dollar General.

The peasant girl had wiry hair, since she did not use expensive shampoos but the cheap stuff. Her teeth were not super-straight. Her clothes were rags.

So anyway, one day, the princess was riding

her horse through the woods. Her servants were following behind, but she was galloping so fast that her servants lost sight of her. Soon, the princess was lost in the woods.

Then the worst thing happened.

A band of thieves fell upon her. They took everything of value that she had. They stole her fine garments, all her jewelry, and even her horse. They left her lying in rags, in a ditch, with a few broken bones. And worse, her hair was all messed up.

That same afternoon, an old beggar woman walked the woodland byway. She saw the princess lying in the mud, but did not know she was a princess. She saw only the ragged robes, and the mud on her face.

“Please help me,” moaned the princess.

But the beggar woman continued walking onward. She cast not even a glance toward the princess.

“I’m too old…

A crowded airliner. We were somewhere above Virginia. I was sandwiched between two passengers like Prince Albert in a can.

It has been said, if you’re a bad person in this lifetime; if you treat your fellow man poorly; if you live by the code of violence; if you are cruel to elders and children and UPS men; when you die you will wake up in economy class, riding in the middle seat.

Which is where I was.

The guy on my right was tapping on a laptop. The guy on my other side was scrolling TikTok. I had no armrests to speak of.

Throughout the flight, I noticed TikTok Guy kept staring at Laptop Guy. Like he recognized the man. Finally, TikTok Guy leaned over my passenger body to speak to Laptop Guy.

“Excuse me,” said TikTok. “Are you who I think you are, sir?”

Laptop nodded. “I am.”

“Omigod,” said TikTok. “Can I get a picture with you?”

And here is where things got awkward.

Because there I was. Stuck between them. Like a man trapped in hell.

Or worse, the DMV.

There was no way to snap a selfie without also capturing the buck-toothed, redhead in the middle seat between them. And I wasn’t wearing any makeup.

I cleared my throat. “Maybe you should wait until we get off the plane to take pictures,” I suggested.

TikTok gestured to Laptop. “Do you KNOW who this is?”

“Yes. He is a man who will still be here when the plane lands.”

“This guy’s famous.”

Laptop shook my hand and recited his name. He was a young guy. Dressed nicely. Matinee-idol smile. I’d never heard of him, but that doesn’t mean anything. I live under a brick.

Laptop gave his signature to a few passengers nearby. Then Laptop Guy turned to me. “Would you like me to sign anything for you?”

I smiled. “I left my autograph book at…

Backstage at the Ryman Auditorium. I am a fish out of water. What am I doing here?

It is the Gatlin Brothers 70th anniversary concert, and every Nashville A-list celebrity you can think of is here. I am supposed to do a song with everyone at the end. Larry Gatlin told me to bring my banjo.

But I’m experiencing a bad case of “tiny banjo syndrome” right now. I don’t belong here. I don’t know how to act around famous people.

I just had a conversation with Bill Gaither, for example, in which the first words I muttered were, “Did you know that you’re Bill Gaither?”

The 89-year-old man whose name I have only seen in hymnals just smiled his perfect chompers at me and touched my shoulder. He said, “Thanks for clearing that up.”

For most of the night, I am backstage, waiting to go on. I watch most of the show with the Oak Ridge Boys. We all stand in the wings watching guys like Vince Gill sing. The Gatlin brothers never

sounded so tight.

Now and then, I look into the audience. I’m looking for my wife. I am pretty sure I see Amy Grant sitting a few seats away from my beloved.

And I feel like I am glowing. But I also feel out of place. Like the guy who fell into the beer keg and drowned, but had to crawl out twice to pee first.

At some point, I wander back into the men’s dressing room to watch the show on monitors. I am alone in the room with empty guitar cases, all bearing the inscriptions of names I’ve only ever heard on the radio.

And I am thinking about the little boy I used to be. The kid who dropped out of school after his dad died. The flunky who hung drywall. The fool who finally received his high-school equivalency at 30-something.

What am…

I receive a lot of mail in the form of emails, letters, private messages, texts, Morse code, etc. It is impossible to answer all these messages, so I compiled some commonly asked questions:

Q: Hi! I am an angry Baptist/Pentecostal/Presbyterian/Methodist/evangelical/fundamentalist/fringe-group-religious-person-with-rigid-object-stuck-in-well-known-orifice-of-my-body, and you need to know that you’re way off base with all your talk about lovey-dovey stuff. There’s only one way to heaven, pal, and if you don’t proclaim the message exactly as I say you should, both the Holy Word and my pastors say you are going to the non-heavenly place when you die.

A: Thanks for your comment. I’ll see you there.

Q: This world is a mess, why don’t you ever address the political upheavals of our society? It seems irresponsible to not cultivate awareness especially in light of what’s going on in the news. You’re a coward. Why are you pretending that humanity is one great big happy family, and everything is hunky dory? This isn’t helping our country.

A: I think someone needs a nap.

Q: No, I’m serious. Don’t gloss over the question with your glib, sophomoric attempt

at ill-timed humor. Don’t you see what’s going on on this country?

A: This country needs more love. Not more opinions from keyboard warriors.

Q: Hi. I just want to know: Is Sean Dietrich a real person, or just a secret team of a bunch of wannabe writers pretending to be one guy?

A: We aren’t wannabes. We’re never-weres. Big difference.

Q: Ginger or Mary Ann?

A: Lucille Ball.

Q: Come on. That’s not fair. Please comment on this age-old debate.

A: It’s not a debate. Not really. Dawn Wells, who played Mary Ann on “Gilligan’s Island,” former Miss Nevada 1960, received more fan mail than Tina Louise (Ginger) and nearly every other actor at CBS Studios combined.

Even after Wells’ heyday she still received some 5,000 fan letters per week from hormone crazed post-pubescent boys,…