Cracker Barrel. Somewhere in Louisiana. It was late. Approaching closing time. Cracker Barrel officially closes at 9 p.m. But it wasn’t 9 yet.

So they let us in.

They were apparently short staffed. The employees were in the weeds. They had a bunch of grumpy customers, most of whom kept demanding more ranch.

Nevertheless, the waitresses treated each person in the dining room like they were one of the Kennedys.

My wife and I had been on the road since 5 a.m. We’d crossed three state-lines, and survived on gas-station fare. Earlier that day, in Mississippi, I ate a gas-station hotdog that will remain in my lower intestinal tract for the following 62 years.

I was road weary. Starting to see double. I had done a performance in Florida that morning, and we were on our way to Texas where I would make a speech for a roomful of people who sold tires.

The waitress came to our table. I ordered the catfish. Cracker Barrel’s catfish is heaven. The most underrated dish on the menu. You get two cornmeal crusted U.S. farm-raised filets, three hushpuppies, tartar, and a King James Bible.

I was busy eating cornbread when I noticed the guy sitting next to our table.

He wasn’t elderly, but he moved like an old man. Careful and slow. He was wearing a chewed-up ballcap. His face was unshaven. His plaid had holes in it. His shoes were Velcro.

He could have been 60. Could have been 80. Hard to tell. Each time he took a bite, he shook so badly that food fell off his fork. He wore a bib of many colors.

A stroke maybe? Multiple sclerosis? Perhaps Parkinson’s. Every time he tried to eat, it wasn’t working out. He wasn’t getting any food into his mouth.

There was a young woman sitting nearby. With her friends. She was maybe 16.

She was a typical teen of our modern world. Piercings. Tats. She was dressed in faux-Western-hipster cowboy boots. Scuffed jeans with holes in the knees.

She asked his permission to sit down.

The man looked at her. A flash of embarrassment washed over his face. This was not his first encounter with the “concerned public.”

“I’m okay,” he said.

She smiled.

“Listen,” he said. He placed his fork down. His body kept gyrating. “I’m okay.” He was shaking badly. “It just takes me a while to eat. That’s all. I do this every day.”

“I know you’re okay,” she said. “My mom has M.S.”

“You don’t know anything about me.”

“No. So we can start by introducing ourselves.” She sat down. Uninvited.

“I don’t want company.”

“My name is Mackenzie.”

She presented her hand.

He realized he’d been whipped. He told her his name. They shook hands awkwardly. But the girl was a brilliant conversationalist. Not a moment of dead air between them. Not a serious word spoken. Lots of laughter.

And the conversation seemed to distract him. Soon he wasn’t even paying attention to his food anymore. He was too busy talking to a lovely young woman. I could see the man relaxing. He was calming down.

And when their conversation came to an end, the young woman left his table. By then, the man’s shaking had reduced considerably. He ate easily, with hardly any issues.

Her teenage friend whispered, “How did you get him to stop shaking?”

“I didn’t,” the girl said, dipping her fries in ranch.

But I think maybe she did.