“Dear Sean,” the letter began, “there’s a dog in my neighborhood who was lost and followed me home.

“We think he is an Irish Setter. Mom says I can have him but that I should ask you because its a lot of responsibility for a 10-year-old to have a dog.”

The letter was signed Ellen.

Dear Ellen, first off, your mother is right. Having a dog is a huge responsibility. I should know. I have three huge responsibilities.

My dogs are: Thelma Lou (bloodhound) and Otis Campbell (alleged Labrador). My third dog is Marigold, the blind coonhound who is 60 pounds. They are all curled at my feet right now as I write this column.

A typical day with dogs goes like this: You wake up. You feed your dogs. Then you let them all outside to go pee. Then you let them back inside. Then outside again. Then in. Out. In.

After which you will attempt to go about your day. You will get maybe 3 minutes into

your work routine before there is a violent scratching at your back door, which is the sound of a 90-pound responsibility alerting you that you need to open the door and let your responsibility out to go pee again.

So, even though there is a doggy door installed in this door, a door which took roughly eight hours to install because the instructions were printed in French, Swahili, and Pig Latin, your dog still wants YOU to open the door because, by in large, some dogs have the intelligence of—I am not being negative here—Hellmann’s mayonnaise.

This scratching will not stop until you open the door. The scratching never stops. After they bury you, you will hear scratching on your tombstone.

Dogs can be strange creatures. One of my dogs, for example, loves cattle bones. So we give her lots of cattle femurs which can be purchased from your local…

In a few weeks my wife and I will be walking 500 miles unless we die before we finish.

We will be walking the Camino de Santiago, a medieval religious pathway across Spain. We will be on foot. With backpacks. And we shall not be called “hikers,” but in the ancient Spanish tongue: “Locos Americanos con mochilas.”

The preparations are underway. Jamie and I have been walking A LOT lately.

We must walk. Got to get in shape. Because in Spain, we will be walking 14 miles per day in hopes of finishing the route before my 103rd birthday.

We have been training every day. A lot of people see me trudging along in downtown Birmingham, wearing a large backpack, wearing a general countenance of misery, standing on a street corner, waiting for a red light, and these people usually give me pocket change.

The most common question I am asked is, “Why?” People want to know why two middle-aged taxpayers are

spending their hard earned cash to travel to Spain for the privilege of living like homeless persons for upwards of two months.

The answer is simple. Because my wife said so.

No, I’m only kidding! (Sort of!) The honest answer is—and this is the truth—I can’t put my finger on why.

What I CAN put my finger on is that I am the same age my father was when he died. And this has really affected me this year.

My dad was a good man whose life was half lived. He was a responsible homeowner, a hard worker, and he diligently changed the oil every 11 miles. But I never saw him live. Really live. I never saw him take care of his own human spirit.

And so the main reason I am walking the Camino, and I don’t mean to reach for melodrama here, is to find…

Last night our band played historical music.

We were in a small theater. I played fife. The snare played military cadences. My friend and boyhood idol, Bobby Horton, was beside me. He was dazzling the crowd by playing all the music he recorded for the Ken Burns documentaries.

We selected songs from the American Revolution. “The Girl I Left Behind Me,” “Yankee Doodle,” and “Irishman’s Epistle.”

The lyrics were antiquated. The melodies, ancient. But the meaning came through.

These were songs colonist soldiers would have played during the heat of battle. The tunes the fife and drummer would have been playing as their brothers were falling.

I told stories between songs. Stories from history. Tales you might have heard in Valley Forge, and Lexington, or Fort Ticonderoga. Then we all sang melodies you would have heard in colonial taverns. In colonist living rooms.

I was having fun on that stage, yes. But meanwhile, deep inside, I was feeling something. Something I have never

felt before.

It was a deep-in-the-bone feeling. A sensation in my gut that swept over me. Like warm water.

The feeling was connectedness. With people I’ve never met. With colonists. With my ancestors. Whose names I don’t know. Whose biographies were never written.

I felt kinship with bygone farmers, coopers, woodrights, cabinetmakers, brickmakers, tailors, bookbinders, joiners, and millers who came before me. Men and women and children, who stood shoulder-to-shoulder against the madness of King George.

Thirteen colonies who should not have had a chance in hell at winning a war waged against the greatest military in the world.

And for a few moments, I was sort of on that battlefield. I was one of the teenagers, marching into a hornet’s nest, alongside my fellow villagers.

I was standing alongside ghosts. Minute men. Common men. And I could see that these people were not fables. They…

I am not complaining. So help me, I’m not.

Idiots complain. And I’m not a complete idiot. Idiocy is all about percentages. I’m only 40 percent idiot, the other 75 percent of me is bad at math.

But this morning I was logging into one of my personal accounts, entering my password, which is a long complicated password that is at least eight characters long, contains one capital letter, one symbol, one article of punctuation, and the blood of a sacrificial goat.

And I got to thinking.

Did you know that the average American has an average of 168 passwords across personal accounts, with another 87 passwords for work accounts? Meaning that the ordinary American has an average of 255 passwords.

Then I found myself wondering how we got here. Have you ever stopped and thought about all the analog things that have disappeared from our daily lives?

For example, where did coin-operated horses outside supermarkets go? Why did we get

rid of those?

How about gumball machines? Did my childhood dentist, who resembled Fred Mertz after a long night, confiscate them all?

What about prizes in cereal boxes? What happened to the free nautical whistle in Cap’n Crunch?

Missing-person photos on milk cartons? The black plastic thingies on the bottom of two-liter bottles? Shirley Jones?

How about playgrounds? Where are the playgrounds? One study found that playgrounds in the US have decreased by nearly 40 percent. Many schools are tearing down swing sets and monkey bars.

Speaking of kids. Where are all the tiny bicycles? Where is the army of young people pedaling through my neighborhood, unsupervised?

And why did laundry detergent commercials stop advertising how their products remove grass stains from children’s clothing?

What about tree-climbing? One study found that three quarters of American kids have never climbed a tree.

Also, what happened to…

Columbus, Georgia. I was eating at a barbecue joint not far from the state line.

My cousin, John, insisted that this joint serves the best barbecue in the state of  Georgia. He made me promise to try it.

I ordered the ribs.

I ate them without sauce. The true test of ribs is to eat them dry. Barbecue sauce is like a beautiful woman. If she’s too sweet, she’s hiding something. If she’s too spicy, you’re going to be sorry in the morning.

Behind me was a young couple, eating. Early 20s. Maybe late teens. I could hear their conversation.

“Has your mom texted yet?” said the young man quietly. They were eating a massive plate of smoked meat.

“No,” said the young woman. “Not yet.”

“Do you think she’ll text you?”

“Don’t know. She’s definitely mad.”

“Bad mad?”

“Yes.”

“You think she’ll ever forgive us?”

The girl spoke with a mouthful. “I don’t know. She doesn’t like what we did.” 

“You mean that we snuck off to get married?”

“It’s called eloping.’ I think that’s what they call it when you run away to get married.”

“She doesn’t like that we

‘loped.”

“EE-loped.”

“I can’t believe we’re really married.”

“I know.”

I ate my ribs and listened. I have my mother in me. I can eavesdrop with the best of them.

The boy was chewing as he talked. “I think lots of people’s grandparents ee-loped. My grandparents went to Donaldsonville to get married. You could get married in Donaldsonville back then, without your parents’ permission.”

“So how can it be so wrong if our grandparents did it?”

Shrug. “I know. And my grandparents are super old, too. My grandma is almost 60.”

I turned around to sneak a glance at them. She was pretty. He was so skinny, God love him. He would’ve had to stand up five times just to make a shadow. They were sitting on the…

I get a lot of comments about grammar. And after having studied the subject for years—mainly by reading thousands of critically acclaimed cereal boxes—I’ve decided to answer questions from readers who inquire about various errors in my work.

Let’s git started:

Q: Sean! You NEVER start a sentence with “however”. I saw this in your essay and was disappointed.

A: It is a common literary misconception that beginning a sentence with “however” is not permissible. However, according to the Associated Press Stylebook, it is completely acceptable as long as you: (1) follow “however” with a comma, and (2) get a life.

Q: Hi Sean, it’s not “butt naked,” it’s “buck naked.” Please use colloquialisms correctly.

A: I’m sorry, those are both wrong. Here in Alabama, it’s “nekkid.”

Q: When you use “irregardless,” I hope you know that you’re using nonsense. It’s not a word.

A: Two things:

First thing: Actually,“irregardless” is a real word, and while this may not be a word you enjoy, or a word that you would use when the bank forecloses on your home, it

has been in use for over 200 years, employed by a large number of educated people, published authors, and many of us trailer-park residents

Secondly: Don’t make me get butt nekkid over hear.

Q: You often end sentences with prepositions. The English teacher in me wants to scream, “Study your own language!” If you ever have a doubt about a preposition, just remember, a preposition is anything a rabbit can do to a log.

A: That’s inappropriate and uncalled for.

Q: There are typos in your work. Yesterday I found two mistakes in your column.

A: You get a free toaster.

Q: I believe in a recent column you misused “there” when you meant “their.” I am not normally put off by bad grammar, but this particular mistake gets my goat.

A: Remember, anything a goat can do…

It is my third week without a smartphone. Twenty-one days ago, I purchased a Japanese “dumb” phone with the same high-tech functionality of coleslaw.

The weirdest part about not having a smartphone is that I keep experiencing random phone vibrations in my back pocket, indicating that I’m receiving texts from my old smartphone, even though my old phone is powered off and locked in a safe.

I can only assume that for the last umpteen years there has been a vibrating device in my back pocket and my brain currently doesn’t know what to do now that it’s gone.

So I have a constant vibration coming from my intergluteal cleft, even though there is nothing in my pocket.

I actually went to the doctor to ask about this. I thought I might be having some sort of nerve trouble.

The doctor replied, “Hold on, let me finish this text.”

Without a smartphone, I now routinely venture into the real world without a phone at all. I am re-learning to navigate unfamiliar regions

without GPS, using only maps and verbal expletives.

Also, I don’t have a phone camera anymore. So if there’s something I want to take a picture of, I just look at it real hard.

Technically, my “idiot” phone is capable of receiving text messages, but I can’t read them because the screen is about the size of a lone Skittle. So, for the most part, I am phoneless.

Yesterday, my flip phone battery died and I actually used a payphone to call my wife. I didn’t even know they HAD payphones anymore.

WIFE: Hello?

ME: It’s me.

WIFE: What’s wrong? I don’t recognize this number.

ME: I’m calling from a payphone.

HER: A payphone? Omigod. What is it?

ME: It’s a coin-operated public telephone located in high-traffic areas, but that’s not important right now.

One…

I saw a shooting star. A big one. I was exiting Walmart. Pushing my buggy. It was dusk. The sky was pink. I looked into a cloudless sky and there it was.

A long streak shot across the sky moving faster than a knife fight in a phone booth.

I stopped walking.

I closed my eyes.

I made a wish.

I cannot divulge what I wished, of course. Otherwise the wish will never come true.

What I WILL tell you is that the last time I saw a real shooting star, I was 15.

Fifteen was a bad year for me. Actually, they were all bad years. I had a tragic childhood, painted with abuse, violence, suicide, grief, codepenency, loneliness, and crappy Top 40 hits.

But when you’re a kid you don’t really know how bad things are if your situation is bad. Everything is normal to you. You don’t have any clue that you’re miserable. Life is just life.

So

anyway, I was a mess. I didn’t have friends because, well, it is not the nature of most children to befriend the pathetic. My father’s death left a stain on our lives. I quit going to school and became truant. And for many years I was unable to look people in the eye, I felt too far beneath them.

But on that night so long ago. That star.

The world suddenly seemed so mysterious. So big. So full of mysterious things. I closed my eyes. And I wished.

Looking back, I now realize that I was young enough to still believe in magic. I still had enough little kid inside me to be pure of heart except for the time I set fire to the living room rug.

At that age, I still believed in wishes. I still closed my eyes when blowing out candles on birthday…

I was late for a plane when I saw him. The freckled kid was in uniform. Operational camouflage combat fatigues. Reverse-flag patch on the right shoulder. High and tight haircut.

He was standing on the sidewalk outside the airport. His mother was beside him, straightening his collar. His little sister was there, too. So was his dad.

The young man was carrying a backpack the size of a Frigidare, the thing must have weighed a few metric tons. He was vaping from an e-cigarette nervously.

I could tell by everyone’s body language that this was farewell.

Mama stood three feet shorter than her boy. She stared upward into his young eyes and the expression on her face was mournful.

“You got everything, baby?” she said.

He might be on Uncle Sam’s payroll, but he’s still “baby.”

“I packed sandwiches in your bag,” said Mama. “It’s a long trip, be sure to eat, need to keep your energy up.”

“I’m good, Mom.”

“Are you sure?”

He nodded solemnly, but offered nothing heartfelt in return.

Dad clapped his son on the shoulder. “You’re gonna do

great.”

“We’re so proud’a you,” said Mama.

“I love you,” said Little Sister.

Mama gave one final hug. Then he stooped to embrace Sister. The soldier then shook his father’s hand and the old man pulled him inward.They squeezed. They released. Little Sister blew her nose.

And the kid was gone.

The airport was pure chaos. Cable news was blaring. Businessmen in Guccis were towing roller luggage. Executives having loud conversations on phones as they walk.

Why is it that travelers in airports always act so important?

When I got to my gate I happened upon the young soldier again. He was sitting with his head in his hands.

The kid was wearing a face he had not worn earlier on the sidewalk. Outside, he had been stoic, stern, and a real hard butt.…

I am playing the fiddle near the swimming pool at my hotel in Dothan. I always play in the mornings. Routine. I’ve been on the road for 14 days, playing music and performing my one-man spasm in different states.

There are kids by the pool, playing on phones, texting each other although they’re two feet apart.

The hotel radio is playing “Beat It” (1983) by Michael Jackson. The song I am warming up on is “Blackberry Blossom” (1860).

My grandfather always said the beauty of the fiddle was that, no matter how many people were around you, whenever you started to play, magically, everyone nearby would suddenly leave the room.

But that’s not the case this morning. As I play, a young boy quits playing with his phone and wanders toward me. Without saying a word, he sits in a chair and listens. When I am finished, he applauds.

Finally, he speaks. “Is that hard?”

“Sort of.”

I hand him the fiddle. He tries to play. The music he makes sounds

horrible. Welcome to the club, I tell him.

So I give the boy a cursory lesson. I teach him to hold the bow, and how to play “Do Lord, Do Remember Me.” Not a hard tune to play. Impressively, within only minutes, the boy is playing better-ish.

The radio music overhead is now “Call Me,” by Blondie (1980). Which sounds like a dying animal caught in a Cuisinart.

Meantime, more children gather around us, watching the boy play. Amazingly, nobody is on their phones anymore, texting, scrolling, buying crypto currency, etc.

The boy stares at the fingerboard with laser focus, already playing better than the fiddle’s owner.

The music overhead is now “Step by Step” by New Kids on the Block, á la (1990). A song which features the same musical sensitivity as a dump truck driving through a nitroglycerin plant.

But the kids don’t hear the…