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…

I’m not going to do this story justice. But I’m going to try. Please, bear with me.

It happened in April, 2019. In Washington, the Evergreen State. State tree: the Western hemlock. State flower: the traffic cone.

It was late. There was a woman about to kill herself. The woman was young. She was standing on the ledge of a freeway overpass. Holding a stuffed animal. Hair blowing in all directions. She was going to do it. She was really going to do it.

Traffic whizzed beneath her. Roaring engines. Red tail lights. Endless rivers of Detroit engineering, Dearborn steel, and Peterbilt 379s. This was the end. Game over.

The weeping woman gazed at the long chain of speeding headlights and said a simple prayer into the din of interstate traffic.

“Jesus, I’m going to kill myself. If you’re real, you’ll stop me. I’m giving you five minutes to prove that you care about me.”

Meantime, across town, Officer Rob Kearney was involved in another call. He heard the radio call for the suicide attempt. He

overheard one of the officers speaking over the airwaves, and there was a timbre to the Officer’s voice that concerned Rob.

Something made Officer Rob leave his call and divert to assist. On his way to the scene, more calls came in. “She’s standing on the railing,” the radio chatter was saying. “She’s gonna jump!”

Officer Rob flipped on his lightbar. He stamped on the gas. Hi-Lo sirens blaring.

By the time he got there, there were other officers on the scene. What they all saw surprised them. A civilian man, a stranger, had wrapped his arms around the young woman. The civilian was bear-hugging her tightly, to keep her safe.

She wanted to jump. She was trying to jump. But she couldn’t. The stranger had his arms entwined around her, he wasn't letting her go.

In only moments, officers were involved in the…

Last night the old quilting club got back together for the first time. Nine older ladies gathered in Denise’s living room in rural West Virginia. They sat in a big circle, just like women did in days of yore. They had a kind of socially-distanced quilting bee.

The group welcomed a new member into the fold. Andrea, who is 14 years old. She was the youngest in a roomful of women who were all over age 70.

The first thing anyone should know about quilting is that a quilt is NOT just a blanket. The women are clear on this. Especially not a patchwork quilt. Miss Denise, who founded this group 21 years ago, describes a quilt like this:

“It’s like building a four-bedroom house with a needle.”

Miss Denise remembers her first solo quilt when she was 12 years old. She worked on it for a solid year using scrap material salvaged from her father’s old clothes. She remembers laboring on this quilt while listening to the Everly Brothers sing “All

I Have to Do Is Dream” on a record player.

“I’ve been quilting for a long time,” she says quietly.

On average, a large patchwork quilt takes about 100 hours to complete. Some quilts move quicker; others take longer. Either way, there is a lot more than just needlework involved in constructing the Great American Quilt.

Denise tells me there’s planning, drawing, gathering, cutting, arranging, sewing, fixing mistakes, binding, and constantly repouring glasses of wine.

“Yes, wine,” says Denise. “That’s an important part of our little club. I like the pink wines best. I’m Methodist, we’re allowed to drink.”

The art of quilting is believed by some to date back to 3400 B.C. And to give you an idea of just how old that is: the Sahara Desert began to form around this period.

The pharaohs used quilts. There is also evidence of quiltwork in ancient Asia. Medieval…

Last night, the young man found himself in an old hardware store. There were a bunch of old timers, sitting around drinking coffee. Lots of laughing. The irreverent kind of laughs you hear from old men.

Now and then, customers would walk into the store and ask for this or that. An old guy in the group would lead them to the correct aisle, to help them find whatever they needed. The old guy looked familiar.

But the young man couldn’t put his finger on how he knew him. The cotton-white hair. Those horn-rimmed drugstore glasses. The waistband of his trousers, pulled clear up to his nipples.

He looked like the guy who used to sit on the front porch when the young man was a child, playing mandolin.

The young man’s grandfather used to play mandolin. As a boy, he could remember seeing his grandfather sing old-time music while stomping his right heel onto the porch floorboards, picking away on “Turkey in the Straw.”

The young man left the store. He was in the street

now, walking. He was, evidently, in a little town.

Lampposts. Sidewalks. A barbershop pole. The whole deal. There were people everywhere. It was evening, the world was lit with a beautifully pink sun. He half expected to see Bernard P. Fife making his rounds.

A woman bumped into him. She was carrying groceries. She was young. Pretty. She looked like someone he once knew. Like Meredith Alison, from his grade school days.

As a girl, Meredith had misshapen lower legs. The doctor said her spine was as crooked as a congressman. By fourth-grade, she couldn’t walk and used a wheelchair. Eventually she didn’t need the chair because she died from health complications. The young man never forgot her.

“Do you remember me?” said the young woman.

“Meredith?”

She was smiling. “Yes, it’s me!”

“But, you can WALK!”

They were interrupted when the young man…

MARGARET BRADFORD: Hi, Sean, I am disappointed in you… I found several typos and errors in your recent columns. I have no tolerance for bad grammar and elementary mistakes… I taught English for 42 years in the Illinois public school system and these mistakes aggravate me. Maybe it’s a Southern thing to treat English flippantly, but I promise you, here in the Midwest, we take our language seriously.

COMMENT: Your absolutely right. I apoligise.

JOHN NORMAN: Sean, I am a full-time pastor in Oklahoma. I notice you so often write about beer and alcohol, and this grieves my spirit. I believe this conflicts with your message of faith and hope.”

COMMENT: Hi, John. You are definitely not Episcopal.

SANDRA: In your recent story about heaven and hell I detected DOUBT in your words! My heart tells me you KNOW HELL IS REAL and if you have NOT MADE A PUBLIC profession to follow OUR SAVIOR, I’m sorry, but you’re going TO HELL! Why not PUBLICLY make a profession of faith right now? Here is my

phone number, if you ever want to talk!”

COMMENT: You aren’t Episcopal, either.

BRIAN SCHMIDT: Good works won’t get you to heaven, Sean. Are you saved?

COMMENT: I wish people worried about unadopted foster kids half as much as they worried about my soul.

CHELSEA: You haven’t written about your dogs in a while. Are they okay? I love Marigold, the blind hound. How is she?

COMMENT: She’s good. She has a minor skin rash, so we took her to the vet. They love Marigold at the vet’s office, they always say, “Marigold is SUCH A JOY!”

Anyway, the vet said the rash is nothing to worry about so they prescribed ointment which costs roughly the price of a nuclear submarine, and they put her on steroids, which makes her thirsty, so now she makes “such a joy” all over the kitchen floor.

CHRINA ALLEN:…

A crowded bar. The man is sitting beside me. He’s wearing a tuxedo. Which is a little weird. It’s not every day you see a guy in a tux on the Fourth of July.

The place is crowded. Everyone is getting their patriotic beer. It’s elbow-to-elbow in this joint.

“I’m wearing a tux because I’m going to surprise my girlfriend,” the man says. “I’m going to ask her to marry me.”

“You need a tux to do that?”

“What. You think it’s a little overboard?”

I jingle the change in my pockets. “No.”

He’s no spring chicken. I’d guess he’s in his mid-50s. Maybe older.

“I’m 43,” he explains. “But I’ve got kids.”

He’s been dating his girlfriend since last year. Their story is unconventional. They met on a trip to Texas, on a Greyhound bus. He was traveling to attend the funeral of his former father-in-law. He was bringing both his daughters with him—ages 5 and 9.

They were all on the bus. His 5-year-old was struggling in the bathroom, trying not to pee on her dress. She kept calling from the

commode for her daddy to help her. The woman seated in the row outside the bathroom asked if he needed help.

“No,” he told the strange woman. “This isn’t my first rodeo.”

He is once-divorced. His ex-wife decided she didn’t want to be a mother, about six years into their marriage. She just walked out. One day she was there. The next day, all her clothes were gone.

“I was instantly a single dad.”

The woman on the bus listened to his story. Which was this: He was going to a funeral to see a lot of people whom he didn’t want to see because it was the right thing to do. She offered to be his plus-one. For moral support.

So that’s what happened. The man and his two daughters, and one stranger from the bus,…

DEAR YOUNG PERSON,

I am an imaginary old man. I am a compilation of stories. I am every World War II veteran you never knew. Each faceless GI from the bygone European War. I am in my late 90s and 100s now. Young people don’t remember me, but I’m still here. For now.

I was one of the hundreds of thousands of infantrymen, airmen, sailors, marines, mess sergeants, seabees, brass hats, engineers, doctors, medics, buck privates, and rear-echelon potato-peelers.

We hopped islands in the Pacific. Served in the African war theater. We beat the devil, then came home and became the old fart next door.

We were babies. Wartime was one heckuva time to be young. We went overseas as teenagers, smooth skinned, scared spitless, with government haircuts, wearing brand new wedding rings. We hadn’t seen action, so we were jittery. We smoked through a week’s rations of Luckies in one day.

Then it happened. It was different for everyone, but it happened. You had your first taste of war.

Shells landed. People screamed. And

in an instant, your fear melted and you had a war job to do. It didn’t matter who you were or which post was yours. Everyone worked in the grand assembly line of battle. And when the smoke cleared and the action was over, we had new confidence in ourselves, and we were no longer boys.

Anyway, dear reader, we weren’t just boys, we were girls, too. There were a lot of females serving in the U.S. Armed Forces in World War II. People forget that.

Speaking of women. We guys were always talking about our sweethearts, wives, and mothers. If you mentioned someone’s girl a man was liable to talk for hours about her. And even if you’d already seen his wallet photos before, you never interrupted a guy talking about his gal. Because eventually you’d be talking about yours.

Of course the infantrymen…