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,…

There I am, watching him. He sits on the steps of the Shell Station. A backpack beside him. His skin is rawhide. His beard is white.

His name is Buck. He’s from North Carolina. He says he completed two tours in Vietnam.

He’s not here begging, he’s resting his feet.

“My old feet hurt more’n they used to,” says Buck. “Hard getting old, buddy.”

There is a half-smoked cigar next to him. He dug this used cigar from an ashtray. It still has life in it, he says.

He’s sipping coffee.

“First cup’a joe I had in a week. Fella gave me a quarter a few minutes ago. Piled my coins together to buy me a cup.”

A quarter.

When Buck went inside to buy it, there were only cold dregs left in the pot. He asked the cashier if it were possible to brew a fresh pot. She told him to get lost.

“But I’m paying for it,” he insisted.

She escorted him to the door.

So, he’s drinking dregs for which he paid full price—for which he is grateful.

There are holes in his shoes. He

found these sneakers in a sporting-good-store dumpster. Buck estimates he’s put nearly eight hundred miles on them. Who knows if he’s exaggerating or not. Buck has a flare for the dramatic.

Still, his bloody toes poke through the fronts. His middle toenail is missing.

Buck explains, “God says, ‘Don’t worry what you’ll eat, drink, or wear.’ And I believe it. But it’s hard sometimes. ‘Specially when you ain’t eaten and you don’t have [cussword] to wear.”

So I walk inside the gas station on a mission. I ask the aforementioned cashier to brew a fresh pot of coffee—I tell her it’s for me. I am very polite about it.

She smiles and says, “Sure, sweetie.”

Ain’t she sweet.

I buy a hot cup, an armful of snacks, and a pack of Swisher…

I’d say the biggest problem facing this country is typos. Typos are cropping up everywhere. In advertisements, in emails, and even within the very words your reading now.

The main reason for this is your phone, which thinks it’s smarter than you. Your phone will automatically correct your text without your consent.

As a writer, typos deeply affect my life. Whenever an error is found in this column, I usually learn about it in the form of irate emails, direct messages, and ransom notes.

I received one such email this morning, which read, verbatim: “...It’s unprofessional for your article’s title to contain such a glaring typo. Franky, I cannot believe this happened.”

I can only assume that I am “Franky.” Which means this emailer was name-calling. Which, honestly, is something I will not Stan for.

Americans make billions of typos every minute. And that’s not an exaggeration. On average, Americans send 250 million texts per hour. Over 60 percent of our texts contain serious topography eros.

You can also find major-league typos in most printed material that

is around you.

One such typo I will never forget occurred when a public library advertised a summer reading program. The billboard used the library’s catchy slogan, which read: “This summer, it’s time to go pubic.”

Talk about a nightmare for pubic relations.

Another consequential typo happened within a eulogy my cousin wrote. This was published in the printed order-of-service handout. The eulogy began: “Charles will always remain my deadest friend.”

Do you want to know why there are so many typos in written content these days? Do you want to KNOW why typos are occurring in major published works more than ever before in history?

Autocorrect, baby.

See, long ago if you wrote something, say, on a typewriter, whenever you made a mistake you were usually aware of it. You’d just correct the mistake later.

But then, autocorrect came along, instantly altering…

Approximately 5,000 US movie theaters have closed in the last five years. Which is about 1,000 theater closures per year. More theaters are predicted to close.

People just aren’t going to the movies anymore.

“The biggest competitor we have is not Netflix…” says the CEO of AMC Theaters. “It’s the couch. People have simply decided they don’t want to leave their homes as much as they used to.”

I personally mourn the loss of movie theaters. There was a time when the average American teenager attended a few movies per week. I was one such teen.

The movie theater was where your whole life happened. The theater was where you socialized. The theater was where you hung out. The theater was sacred.

In those days, however, the theater wasn’t a temple of silence, but a loud, sticky-floored cathedral where we threw Milk Duds at our friends. And, most importantly, the theater was where you got to first base with Rachel Billings.

I remember sitting through a feature film with Rachel Billings beside me.

I pretended to yawn, casually draping my left arm over her shoulder, only to discover that Rachel had always considered us “just friends.”

Sadly, those days are gone. Today there are millions of teenagers who have never even visited a theater. There are even more teens who have never even heard of Rachel Billings.

Today we have streaming services. Today we have trillions of shows being produced every hour by Hollywood.

And yet, here’s the funny thing: Current stats show that most young people are unable to even watch a single movie all the way through.

In a recent study, 60 percent of teens admitted to playing on their phones while watching movies, usually losing interest within the first 10 minutes. The average digital attention span for teens has dropped to roughly 4.2 seconds.

Other things we are losing:

Sedans. This year, Chevrolet will cease production of…

Here is the news that didn’t make the front page this week, but should have:

—Researchers have grown tiny organs from stem cells, then used these cells to test a new form of therapy for regenerating injured spinal cords. The cells were then treated with a new therapy, called “dancing molecules.” Amazingly, it worked. The therapy successfully reversed paralysis in an animal study.

This was a major breakthrough, and perhaps a big step toward healing spinal cord injuries

—In China, scientists discovered a groundbreaking technique for mass-producing cancer-fighting cells.

Researchers figured out how to engineer these powerful cells from cord blood and are now able to generate a massive output of cells specifically designed to hunt and destroy cancer.

—Polar bears in Norway’s Svalbard archipelago are getting fat. This is a good thing. Because being fatter means healthier. At least for polar bears.

Currently, polar bears are fatter than they have been in the last 30 years. In a recent study, 770 polar bears were in better condition and had higher

fat reserves than in the 1990s. In other good news, I also have higher fat reserves than I did in the ‘90s.

—Steven Maa lost his dog, Rocky. This happened in Summit County, Colorado, when Steven went skiing. He dropped his dog off with a pet sitter, but the dog broke out of his harness, escaped, and ran away.

Steven and his girlfriend looked for Rocky for hours before finally giving up. They called Summit Lost Pet Rescue for help.

The nonprofit’s volunteer team jumped into action. The team searched for Rocky using high-tech rescue techniques including wildlife cameras, a scent station, and whistling really loud. Rocky remained lost in subzero temperatures, in the extreme wilderness, for 43 days.

Last week, rescuers found Rocky sleeping in one of their traps. Rocky had gone from 50 pounds to 28 pounds.

“Amazingly he’s going to make a full recovery,” one rescuer…

JOHN—My angel story takes place when my wife was dying, and I watched everything go downhill in a matter of months. And every night, I would hear a voice tell me “You can get through this, John.”

On the night she died, I heard that voice again. And this time it was my wife’s voice saying, “John, I’m okay. Don’t quit believing.”

LYNN—When I was a young woman someone tried to attack me during a home invasion, but the man was never able to touch me. I screamed for help and something prevented the man’s hands from physically touching me, like he was paralyzed. I know it was an angel that saved me.

BARBARA—A few weeks after my husband’s death, in a fitful sleep state, I heard my husband’s words spoken gently: “Honey, remember Psalm 30:11.” Then the voice went away.

The first thing the next morning, I looked up the verse. I found these words:

“Thou has turned for me my mourning into dancing; thou has put off my sackcloth, and girded me with gladness.”

KATHY—It was 1977 and we had traveled from Alabama to North Dakota for my grandparents’ 50th anniversary. I had twin girls—a daughter, a son, and another son on the way.

On the day we were loading the car, after the reunion, my sister asked one of the twins (Angie) to tell us about a dream she had.

Angie said, “Angels from heaven came down and brought me to heaven and I saw Jesus.”

I worried about it all the way home and for quite a while after that. But the memory of my daughter’s dream eventually faded.

Flash forward to 1978, the girls were almost 7 years old. It was a sunny day, unseasonably warm, and the girls went to play outside with friends.

Suddenly, I had an overwhelming need to look out the window. It was as though the world was standing still.…

Yeah, I believe in angels. I haven’t always. And sometimes I wish I didn’t believe. It would be easier not to.

It all started in third grade. My teacher read to the class from a book. A mass-market paperback. A book about angels. They were stories of impossible rescues, and unlikely redemptions. Then, she told a story of her own.

She was a little girl. She fell through a second-story window. She was bruised and battered. The paramedics said she would die. But a man came to her. A man only she could see. He said she would be in the hospital for a while, but she would be all right, if she could just hold on. She eventually grew up to teach third grade.

Yes, my teacher was as crazy as a sprayed roach. But I believed her story. And I still do.

There is another friend I have. He talks about being in the hospital after an accident. The doctors said he was going to die, too. He

was in his bed in a coma.

A nurse came into his room. She was a towering woman. Motherly. White hair. Glowing skin. She leaned over his bed, held him tightly, and sang to him. She sang, “God is going to deliver you.”

When he woke up, nobody believed him. It was a hallucination, they said. He asked medical staffers who the woman was. They said no employees fit her description.

A guy from Alaska wrote to me and said that his son suffered brain stem damage after a hunting accident. The kid was going to die. No doubt about it.

When his son was unconscious, a strange woman found him, there in the woods. She kissed his face and said he would not die, for he still had important things to do on Earth.

Today, that kid is 46 years old and he works as a volunteer with a…

I’ll call her Julie. Julie parked the car in the prison-visitor parking lot. Her hands were shaking, but not from nerves. More from excitement.

Julie and her mother entered the correctional facility together. Both women underwent a series of body scans and inspections. They had both undergone criminal background checks, too.

The chaplain was waiting for them; he still had a lot of paperwork to go over. The DOC wants all t's crossed and all i's thoroughly dotted.

“You’re on the visiting list, right?” the chaplain asked Julie’s mother.

“We put her on the list last month,” said Julie.

Once they passed all checkpoints, they were led to the visiting room. It was a plain room. Small and sterile. Harshly lit. The tables and chairs were low to the ground, like preschool tables, to prevent visitors from passing items.

After a few minutes, Robert was led into the room. He had lost a lot of weight since she last saw him, which was only a few months ago. People age faster here.

There was no

touching allowed. But the DOC allowed the couple to sit side-by-side. And—if you were fortunate—your state might even allow you to hold hands.

The chaplain finally said it was time. And the ceremony began. Julie wasn’t crying. Robert wasn’t crying. They were relaxed. Smiling. Holding hands.

The couple has known each other since they were toddlers. They have been best friends since childhood. They rode bikes together. Built forts together. They had never been romantic. Not until Robert was inside. One day, Julie simply realized that she loved Robert.

Their romance was not fast. It was slow. It took years to develop. Prison romances are different. There are no worldly possessions included. All couples have is their bond. Which is tested each day.

The chaplain could see this one-of-a-kind connection between them. He noticed the knowing looks they exchanged, the inside jokes, the private sarcasms.…

I used to volunteer at an animal shelter. I loved it.

My favorite place in the shelter was called the “Introduction Room.” This was the room where people went to meet the dogs that were up for adoption.

The room was supposed to be inviting, sort of like a living room. And at one time, I’m sure the room actually did resemble an ordinary living room. There was furniture, a sofa, and a tableside lamp.

But the room had seen better days. The whole space was so covered in so much dog saliva you weren’t sure what color the walls used to be. The interior smelled like wet fur. And whenever anyone sat on the crud-covered sofa, an explosion of dust and dander would instantly transform the room’s visible atmosphere into approximately 80 percent dog hair.

But it was in the Introduction Room that I learned something. Something about dogs that I’d never known before:

Dogs have more than one name. That’s just how it works. People name their dog. Then they give a nickname. THEN, they

nickname the nickname. Everyone does this. I don’t make the rules.

I bring all this up because I want to tell you about a special dog.

Her name was Claire. But she also went by “Clair-ee,” “Claire Bell,” “Clarinda,” “Clarinder,” and —why not?—“Judy Bell.”

I’m not sure which breed she was. I think she was a Goldendoodle. But I don’t know.

Either way, she definitely had poodle in her. You can tell by the eyes.

Poodle eyes are dark amber, swallowed by the pupil, making them look like doll eyes.

Poodle breeds also have longer eyebrows. This means their eyes appear doubly expressive. Almost humanlike. With their fluffy eyebrows they can show surprise, excitement, glee, confusion, disgust, mischievousness, and severe incontinence.

Claire loved long walks. She loved tennis balls. She loved terrorizing birds, chasing pigeons and seagulls off the backyard pier. Sometimes, dolphins…