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…

Dearest Becca, I’m praying.

Surgeons are going to cut off your ear tomorrow. They found cancer in your ear, and they’re going to cut it off.

Sadly, I won’t be in town because I’ll be in Ohio, performing my one-man trainwreck on Lake Erie.

But oh, I wish I were here.

If I were in town, Becca, I’d be there in the hospital with you. Sitting beside you. Holding your hand. Because you’re my best buddy.

I don’t know how a middle-aged fool became best buds with a 12-year-old girl, but there you are.

I’d be hanging in the hospital room alongside your parents, eating vending machine food, playing card games with your dad, horsing around with your family. Trying to keep everyone in a positive mood.

Regretfully, I’ll be in a rental car. On my way to Seventeenth State. But I want you to know, you’ll be on my mind the whole time.

You claim you’re “not scared” about the surgery. And I totally believe you. Because even though you’re only 12, you’ve had lots of surgeries before. Fifty or sixty, I

think. More than anyone I know.

You were born to a mother with substance abuse problems. You were in foster care until your parents adopted you. Your life has been lived out in hospitals.

One surgery took away your lymph nodes. Another took away your ability to hear clearly in one ear. Another surgical operation removed your vision.

There have been too many operations to count. So this is nothing. I get it.

Even so, I know the procedure is weighing on you. I know you’re worried this won’t be the last operation. I know you’re worried they might have to do more treatments, or whatever it takes to remove the cancer.

You wear a brave face. You smile a lot. But I know you’re thinking about it.

I know this because when we talk, you give…