He was a man-kid. More man than kid. Coming down the escalator in North Carolina. Army uniform. Reverse flag on the shoulder. Peach fuzz haircut. Heavy green backpack slung over his shoulder.

The escalator was loaded with passengers, on our way to the baggage claim area where we would stand around for a few hours, waiting for our bags, which look just like everyone else’s bags, except that each bag is a slightly different shade of black.

We, the people on the escalator all wore the weary looks of airline travelers. You could just tell many of these people had been sitting on planes for the better part of a presidential administration.

Many of us had experienced flight delays. Delays which had begun somewhere during the Punic wars. One old man looked like he’d slept in his clothes since he was 12.

But the kid in U.S. uniform wore a smile. A big one. When the soldier got closer to the halfway point, a woman shouted.

“John!” she yelled.

She was youngish. Her voice reverberated throughout

the airport.

Beside the young woman were two little girls. Pigtails. Colorful T-shirts.

“Daddy!” said the girls.

The people on the escalator all seemed to know who these little girls were shouting at. And we all turned to look at the man in uniform who was pinching the bridge of his nose.

“Welcome home, Daddy!”

The first person to start applauding was a flight attendant. She was mid-forties. Toting a carry-on bag. A few people around her joined in. Airline captains. Businessmen. Columnists.

Applause is a strange thing. It spreads. It doesn’t take much to get people going. A few lone claps picked up some accompaniment. The noise level grew louder.

Soon, it sounded as if the entire baggage claim area were applauding.

When the young soldier reached ground level, he walked toward the young mother. He took the woman into his arms, along…

The letter came from 13-year-old Daniel, of Chicago. Last year, Daniel’s mother took her own life.

Daniel’s therapist encouraged Daniel to make a list of things he’s thankful for. But Daniel has had a little trouble, so he wrote to me. Bless his heart.

“I can’t think of anything I’m thankful for,” writes Daniel, “because my life sucks.”

So I’m going to get the ball rolling.

Foremostly, I’m thankful for dogs. And for the little whimpers they make when they’re sleeping, and dreaming of squirrels. My dog is obsessed with squirrels.

I am also thankful for water. Ice-cold tap water, in the height of summer. Water, when you’re dehydrated, sweaty, and your clothes are soggy, and you have a swamp butt.

I’m thankful for hot showers. Soft towels. Summer rain storms that come out of nowhere. Dark chocolate. And music.

For tomatoes, hand-picked from someone’s backyard vine. For tomatoes sliced, placed between two pieces of white bread, slathered with Duke’s mayonnaise.

I am not grateful for grocery-store tomatoes. Supermarket tomatoes are of the Devil.

For red-white-and-blue popsicles. For Scrabble. Canada geese.

Tall, gnarled trees that seem to tell a story just by being alive.

I am grateful for cancer treatments. There are approximately 500,000 childhood cancer survivors in the U.S. Our nation has the best pediatric cancer treatments in the world.

For Milo’s iced-tea. For air conditioning. For old men who take little boys fishing. Orange juice, hand squoze. Novels depicting the life and times of Frank and Joe Hardy. For the movie “Airplane!” But not for the movie “Airplane II: The Sequel.”

For cowboy hats. Sunsets over Lake Martin. Cold slices of smoked turkey. Waffle House. Rubber worms that actually catch fish. And swimming pools.

Feral cats who love you for no reason at all than because they want to.

And for the loveliness of women. My life has been made immensely better by the beautiful women in it.…

He sat in a construction office trailer. It was after hours. He was off the clock. He watched a black-and-white television after a long day of work.

He was an ordinary American foreman. He had things to do. He had a busy life. Normally, he would've been anywhere else besides the office trailer. But today was different.

A knock on the door.

An old man with an unshaven face and backpack. The man was lean. He asked if he could dig through the job-site dumpster.

“What for?” asked the foreman.

“Looking to make me a house out of a cardboard box. One that won’t get knocked down by the wind.”

So, the foreman showed him the biggest and best boxes. One was large enough to play basketball in.

They talked. They laughed. The foreman asked if the old man was hungry.

“I could eat,” was the man’s response.

The foreman fed him two bologna sandwiches with mustard.

The old man ate caterpillar-slow. He watched the television with big eyes while he chewed.

“Been awhile since I seen a TV,”

he said.

After the man finished his meal, the foreman gave him all the food in the break-room kitchen. Potato chips, Cokes, peanut butter, a loaf of Bunny Bread. He gave him the money in his wallet, too.

“Where’re you staying?” asked the foreman.

“Behind K-Mart.”

“That’s terrible.”

“Nah, it’s nice back there. Sometimes they even throw away old canned food.”

How about that.

The foreman brought the man home. He introduced him to his family. After a fifteen-minute shower, the fella was hardly recognizable. His skin looked three shades lighter. His hair was less yellow.

They ate. They talked about good…

New York Harbor, 1885. Only 20 years after the Civil War.

Bubs had traveled a long, LONG way to be here, hoping to get hired as part of the auxiliary metal-working crew that would help assemble the world’s most famous statue.

Competition was stiff. Everyone wanted this job.

A big-bellied foreman surveyed the long line of hopeful laborers. When the foreman’s eyes landed on skinny Bubs, he laughed.

“Heavensakes, son,” said the foreman. “You don’t look old enough to shave. You sure you’re in the right place?”

“Yes, sir.”

The other applicants laughed.

“What are you, twelve?” said the foreman.

Bubs said nothing.

At age 23, Bubs looked like he was an adolescent. But he had worked the steel girders on exactly 28 buildings and three truss bridges. Bubs had been laying rivets since his 14th birthday.

“Your mama know you’re here?” said the foreman.

“Yes, sir.”

This got another laugh from the group. But Bubs did not break a smile.

“Do you say anything besides ‘yes, sir,’ kid?”

“Yes, sir.”

The foreman looked at his clipboard

“Well, Bubs, you have any idea how many

beamwalkers die each year on my clock? Have you ever laid a rivet in your life?”

“Yes, sir.”

The foreman shook his head. He held up a hammer. “You want this job, kid, I’m gonna need a little proof.”

In a few moments a full-scale competition was underway. A gaggle of competing American ironworkers crowded beneath a tall unfinished steel skeleton. They were competing for a job.

Young Bubs buckled a leather harness around his waist. Nearby ironworkers were running bets on how fast Bubs would be eliminated.

“Gentlemen, you have three minutes! First man to give me five rivets gets a job!”

Five rivets in three minutes. Even your veteran riveter could only install one rivet per minute.

The foreman wound a stopwatch. Bubs loosened his shoulders. He placed the tongs and hammer into…

The news of my death came from Frankfort, Kentucky.

“…I read recently that Sean Dietrich is dead and his wife is publishing posts to keep his memory alive,” the email read. “Is this true, have I missed Sean’s funeral? Any help on this matter is appreciated.”

The first thing I did after receiving this message was check my pulse. Then I went to the bathroom mirror. Admittedly, I’m not the nicest-looking guy in the trailer park, but I can still fog up a mirror.

Sort of.

Even so, this is a prime example of why you can’t trust all information from the internet. I did a few Google searches to see what else the internet said about me.

It was astounding. One of the search results said: “How much is Sean Dietrich’s net worth?”

I was curious to learn more on this matter, so I clicked the link. The website first offered to sell me male hormonal enhancement pills, then it offered to help me lose up to 30 pounds of belly fat. Then it said I was

worth $512 million.

After I finished laughing so hard my gums bled, I went to tell my wife the good news.

“The internet says we’re worth $512 million,” I said.

“Really?”

“Yes. Apparently we’re rich.”

“Well, then hurry and pack your bags,” she said.

“Why? Where are we going?”

“I don’t care where you go, just get out of my house.”

Suffice it to say, I am not worth $512 million. Namely, because I make my living as a musician and writer. And it is a well-known fact that the only way to make a small fortune as a writer is to start off with a large fortune.

Writing is not an easy gig. In writing circles, all professional writers with health insurance are defined as “married.”

Being a musician is even harder than being a writer. If I were going to…

It was just one of those things. I ran into them in the supermarket. They were no longer boys. They were young men. Gangly. Skinny. Grown men.

They had sincere-looking facial hair on their faces. They had broad shoulders. They were taller than me. No longer were they pale and chubby outfielders and infielders. They looked nothing like I remembered.

When I coached their Little League team, a hundred years ago, I was a young man myself. It was my friend’s son’s team. My friend was the coach. I was his assistant coach.

We all wore jerseys that bore the name of our sponsor, an insurance company. And we all sweat through our shirts until they clung to our bodies like plastic wrap.

They were enthusiastic little boys. They smelled like Limburger cheese, kid-sweat, and classrooms. They had baby faces. They were loud. Unruly. They punched each other to show their affection. They got into trouble. Their primary form of entertainment in the van was releasing gaseous expulsions from both ends.

I had a good time with

the boys because, even though you can’t tell anymore, I am a former boy.

“Mister Sean!” these grown men said, walking down the supermarket aisle.

They were pushing a cart. They were wearing slacks and dress shirts.

I saw them and felt a lifetime come back to me. And at that moment, I felt about as old as Willie Nelson.

We all participated in a manful greeting ritual. A lot of masculine back-slapping hugs. Stiff handshakes, firm and sturdy. Punches to the shoulders.

One of them is married. Three have children of their own. One of them coaches Little League.

I can’t believe they’re still playing ball. I can’t believe they still remember me. I can’t believe they remembered all the stupid motivational phrases I taught them in the dugout.

“There is no I in team…” “There’s no crying in baseball…” “Always, ALWAYS…

I’ll call him Robbie, but that is not his real name.

“Dear Sean,” his email began, “My wife is upset because I sent a text to her grandmother for her 91st birthday, but autocorrect screwed it up. Now my wife won’t talk to me.”

Here is what Robbie’s text read:

“HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO YOU,
“HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO YOU,
“HAPPY BIRTHDAY DEAD GRANNY…!”

Let me start by saying that you’re not alone, Robbie. Each day, worldwide, there are 23 billion texts sent. That’s 300,000 texts per second. Mistakes happen.

Frankly, yours could have been worse. I have a friend, for example, who was asked to do the scripture reading at church. His elderly pastor called when my friend was “hopping” into the shower.

Enter autocorrect.

My friend’s text read: “Let me call you in a few minutes, I’m just pooping in the shower.”

I have another friend who went on a date with a nice young woman. They had a lovely time, and after the date, they planned a follow-up date via text.

“This Thursday will be fun!” texted my friend.

“I’m looking forward to

seeing you again!” came her reply.

“Yay!” my friend texted. “I can’t wait to see those big beautiful dimples!”

Unfortunately, my friend hit the send button before he realized autocorrect had changed “dimples” into a word that rhymes with “fipples.”

I know a man who was texting with his adult daughter, just last week, when autocorrect came into the picture.

His daughter texted, “What are you doing, Dad?”

Her father’s reply came back, “Just looking at boobs right now.”

“What?”

Realizing that autocorrect had struck again, the father tried to repair the damage by sending a follow-up text, in all caps:

“I MEANT I’M BUYING A PAIR OF COWBOY BOOBS!” he texted.

The daughter texted back. “No judgement.”

So we can see that autocorrect is not always our friend.

Then there was the time…

The first time I ever had one of Wilma Dean Jacobs’ cakes, I was a boy. I was redheaded. I was chubby. I was a connoisseur of refined sugar products.

In our town, there was only one place that sold Miss Dean’s seven-layer cakes. It was the little gas-station convenience store up the street from my house. The Happy Store.

I think it was a Chevron.

It would go like this: Your mother would send you to the Happy Store before special family occasions, such as birthdays, baby christenings, parole-release dates.

You’d ride your bike to the Happy Store, you’d walk inside. The bell would ding over your head.

And the first person you saw would be Miss Carla Waters, standing behind the cash register.

Miss Carla was about yea-high. Eighty pounds, soaking wet. Silver hair. A voice like a tuba. She was an older woman who smoked Camels. She always had one hanging from the corner of her mouth. Her husband worked up at the landfill.

The Happy Store had a small wire-metal rack of Dean’s Cakes.

There would be at least 10 or 12 cakes. Mostly carmel. Plastic cake domes. Small, unassuming, stick’em labels on the fronts.

The cakes were like eating a cake made by your grandmother. Sort of.

Namely, because everyone knew who Miss Dean was. She was Miss Dean, from Andalusia, just up the road.

People YOU knew actually knew HER. Your cousins knew her. Your mom’s friends knew her. You dated a girl whose mother went to grammar school with Miss Dean.

That’s who she was.

And although you never knew her, you knew her caramel cake. Everyone did.

Miss Dean’s seven-layer caramel cake had a familiar flavor. The kind of flavor that reminded you of something special. Something nostalgic. Her caramel cake tasted exactly like cherubs singing Handel.

You can still remember exiting the Happy Store, gingerly placing the prized cake on your…

Just before midnight. Somewhere on the Texas prairie. A 20-year-old named Mark was driving on a two-lane highway on his way home.

You have to be careful when driving on an empty prairie. It’s easy to develop “prairie foot.” On a flat landscape, without landmarks, your foot tends to get heavy on the gas pedal. It’s not hard to travel upwards of 200 miles per hour by accident.

Mark saw flashing hazards ahead. A broken down truck with a horse trailer attached. He pumped his brakes and pulled over. And in the rural tradition of all who wear roper boots, he was ready to help.

“Need a hand?”

A young woman slid from beneath the truck chassis. She had grease smudges on her face. She was holding a scissor jack. And she was the most beautiful girl he’d ever seen.

Mark felt his breath get stuck in his throat.

She smiled. “Sorry. No speak’a the Inglés too good.”

Her truck had a flat tire. In her passenger seat was a silent elderly woman. The girl had been under

the vehicle looking for the jackpoint on the old Silverado, which can be dangerous business for the uninitiated.

“Allow me,” Mark said, already on the pavement.

It turned out to be a bigger problem than he’d expected. Her spare tire was shot, worn to the canvas. There was no way she was getting home on that thing.

Mark attached the horse trailer to his own truck and told her he’d take them home. But where did she live? Her jumbled English made it impossible to understand her directions.

So the girl drew him a map. And since there was no paper in Mark’s truck to write upon, she used a Sharpie to draw the route on Mark’s hand.

He presented her his hand, which was trembling when she wrote upon it.

It was 2 A.M. when he reached her aunt’s house. He…