One day, as God was sitting in all of heaven’s sovereignty and sanctity and etherealness and stuff, little Randy came to visit.

Randy was the youngest angel trainee in the squad’s junior division. He had just graduated Angel Second Grade. He had freckles and missing front teeth. He hadn’t yet earned his halo. His wings hadn’t fully dropped yet.

So there God was, sitting on a big chair, looking listless and bored because God always liked to keep hands busy, but today was a rest day.

Randy entered God’s presence. The cherub and seraph, God’s two assistants, were standing at the door, giving Randy scolding looks when they saw how disheveled he was.

To be fair, they weren’t wrong. Randy’s little blue jeans were covered in mud and holes, and his knees were all skinned up. Randy liked to play outside a lot, and it showed.

“You left the house looking like that?” said the cherub, under her breath.

“If you were my kid,” said the seraph, “I’d give you a flea dip.”

Then the two angels fist-bumped and laughed quietly.

God beckoned Randy forward.

“What can

I do for you, Randy?” said the Almighty.

Randy was taken aback. “You know my name?” Randy replied.

God smiled. “Duh,” saith the Lord.

“Well,” Randy began. “I’m kinda nervous. This is the first time I’ve actually seen you in person.”

“Come closer, Randy,” said God.

Randy shuffled forward.

“You don’t look anything like I thought you would,” Randy said.

“Do I surprise you?”

“It’s just—Well, down on earth they have all sorts of pictures and paintings of you, and well… They’ve got you all wrong.”

“It’s okay,” God said with a laugh. “I’ve had a…

Fulton, New York. The year was 1940. The gray-haired man was behind his woodworking bench, clad in an apron. He was feeling around for his spokeshave. He was blind and deaf. His name was Tommy Stringer.

The 18-year-old girl beside him was his assistant for the day. She was lovely and helpful. Her name was Mari. She was deaf.

She noticed Tommy grasping for a tool, so she tried to help him. Tommy could feel her hands furiously searching his bench.

He gripped her wrist.

“What do you think you’re doing?” he signed into her palm.

She replied, “Looking for your spokeshave.”

“I didn’t ask for your help,” he spelled rapidly. His fingers moved so fast she could hardly follow.

“If you truly want to teach blind-deaf students someday,” he spelled, “you must resist the urge to step in and do a task for them.”

The 54-year-old master craftsman was no amateur. He was adept with his tools. To watch him work quickly and comfortably in his shop was like watching a sculptor work

with clay.

Mari was not blind, but born mostly deaf. She was learning manual sign language to become an interpreter and teacher for the deaf-blind someday. The Perkins School for the Blind sent her here to Tommy’s shop to learn from him. Tommy was one of Perkins’ most notable alumni.

He was a gifted artist. An expert with numbers, capable of conceiving and calculating complicated engineering equations in his head.

Tommy’s hands finally found the spokeshave. He placed the shave into one of Mari’s hands and spelled into her other:

“Do you want to try?”

“Yes.”

Tommy stood behind her. He guided her young hands with his own. Mari had never done a thing with wood before.…

It’s weird. Being back in America again.

For one thing, they don’t call it “America” over in Europe. It’s bad form. They call it “the U.S.”

When in Europe, to call your mother country “America” is considered egotistical and disrespectful to other North Americans, Central Americans, South Americans, as well as Puerto Ricans, people from the Virgin Islands, and people from Guam, who all sort of consider themselves “Americans,” too.

Although I’ve never heard any South American friend refer to himself or herself in this way. They always say, “I’m Colombiano,” or “Argentino,” or “I’m a Peruano.” If you were to call a Central American an “American,” they’d laugh and then spike your food with ceremonial death chiles.

Still, modern decorum dictates that you’re not supposed to say “America.” It’s considered rude, and sort of low rent.

Sorry, those are the rules.

After all, Mexicans are also from North America, along with Canadians. But again, I’ve never once heard a self-respecting Canadian refer to themselves as “North American.” Neither do Mexicanos refer to themselves as North Americans. In fact,

“Norteamericano” is a Mexican term reserved for persons from the United States.

So anyway, this modern vocab issue was a problem for me the very first time I visited Europe. I kept responding to people’s questions of my origin by replying, “I’m from America.”

And they’d look at me like I had just mowed down the Sistine Chapel with a Sherman tank. By modern political correctness standards, I was an uneducated little puke.

“It’s called the U.S.,” I was quickly informed by Europeans.

Except, wait. No. I’m mistaken. They’re NOT called “Europeans.”

Erroneously, I assumed that people from Europe must follow the same dialectal rules we Americanos are expected to follow. So I began referring to European Union…