A crowded international flight. I am flying to Italy.

I paid an arm and a kidney for these tickets. And we are going to be on this plane for 10 hours. Ten hours is a long time on a plane, but thankfully, the plane is also cramped and miserable.

There are many non-Americans in the cabin with us. In fact, there are hardly any Americans on this flight at all.

There is a passenger behind me, for instance, talking loudly in either Polish, or Russian, or some other spit intensive Slavic language. As a result, my neck, shoulders and hair are covered in a fine spray of international saliva.

At one point, I turned around and asked the man to quit spitting on me, but he just spoke something in friendly Spittish. Then he smiled.

“You’re spitting on my neck,” I politely explained.

He smiled and said something foreign.

“Spitting,” I clarified, speaking in fluent hand gestures. “On my neck. Your sputum. It is on my physical person.”

Thumbs up.

Meantime, there are announcements coming

overhead, recited by the flight attendant in rapid-fire Italian. And I’m getting a little nervous because I have been slacking off on studying my basic Italian before this trip. And now I only have 10 hours to become fluent.

So I open my little book of useful phrases and get to work.

Right away, I learn that “buona notte” means “good night.” “Bonjourno,” means “red passenger bus.” And saying “ciao bella” after kissing the tips of your fingers and gesturing happily, is the traditional way of saying, literally, “I am an American tourist.”

There are other useful phrases I learn in my book. Such as, “Non so dove mi trovo,” which means, “I don’t know where I am.”

And “Cosa vuol dire che non esiste il tè dolce?” “What do you mean there is no sweet tea?”

And of course, “Mi stai sputando addosso.” Translated:…

Dearest Becca,

I am writing this shortly before boarding an airplane and flying 40,000 feet above the earth. I am about to leave the country, and I wanted to write before I go.

It’s funny, I’ve been humming the song “You Are My Sunshine” all day, thinking about you. This is a song people in my family sing to the people they love. Actually, the song is official code for “I love you.”

I remember when my mother sang it to me. I remember when I first sang it to my wife. I remember when my wife’s dying mother sang it to us only minutes before she passed.

Speaking of death. Soon, Jamie and I will be seated in the rear of the aircraft. We will be flying Livestock Class, where passengers are forced to ride with chickens in their laps. We do this because I am a writer, and writers do not make a lot of money.

For the next several weeks I’ll be in Italy, celebrating my wife’s 50th birthday. I’ve never

left the country before, so it will be the most uniquely disorienting experience of my life except for the brief period I worked as a telemarketer. We will also be eating a lot of pasta in Italy. So when I return I will be fat.

But the reason I’m writing is because your mother said you were a little depressed because I’m leaving you.

I know you have a history of people leaving you, Becca. I can’t pretend to know what that’s like. But I know it has left a bad taste in your mouth.

You are 11 years old, and have already experienced more trauma than most humans ever will. You were born to biological parents who abused drugs. You were placed into the Great American Foster Pinball Machine before you were adopted by two loving parents.

You’ve endured heart surgeries, lymphadenectomies, ear surgeries, eye…

I was a kid. My father and I walked into the filling station. The bell above the door dinged.

Daddy was filthy from working under a car. He was always working under cars. He came from a generation of men who were born with Sears, Roebuck & Co. ratcheting wrenches in their hands. These were men who changed their own motor oil, who worked harder on off-days than they did on weekdays.

Old man Peavler stood behind the counter. He was built like a fireplug with ears. He, too, worked on cars all day. Except he did it for a living, so he hated it.

Daddy roamed the aisles looking for lunch among Mister Peavler’s fine curation of top-shelf junk food. In the background, a transistor radio played the poetry of Willie Hugh Nelson.

My father approached the ancient cooler, located beneath the Alberto Vargas calendar my mother warned me not to look at under threat of eternal hellfire.

The white words on the fire-engine-red cooler said DRINK COCA-COLA—ICE COLD. My father removed

the sensuous hour-glass bottle, dripping with condensation. Then he grabbed a plastic sleeve of salt peanuts from the shelf.

We approached the counter.

“Howdy,” said old man Peavler. Only it came out more like “Haddy,” because that is how real people talk.

Old man Peaveler looked at our items, did some mental math, and told us how much we owed by rounding up to the nearest buck. The old man’s cash register hadn’t worked since Herbert Hoover was in the White House.

We exited the store and sat on the curb in the all-consuming sunlight. There, my father and I counted cars. For this is what people did before Olive Gardens and Best Buys ruled the world.

Daddy used his belt buckle to pop open his Coke. He used his teeth to tear open the peanuts. Then he carefully dumped the nuts into the mouth of the…

This morning I started thinking about you. Mainly, I was thinking about what you’re going through right now. Whoever you are.

I don’t know you. I don’t know anything about you. But in a way we know each other because you and I aren’t that different.

True, you probably have better health insurance than I do. And I can almost guarantee that you’re smarter than I am—you’re looking at a 2.0 GPA right here.

Still, sometimes we fools know stuff. No, we might not be good at trigonometry, but even a broken clock tells the correct time twice per day. So here’s what I know:

You will get through this.

Yes, you’re going through a rough patch right now. Yes, you’re wondering what’s around the next curve of the highway, and it’s freaking you out. Yes, everything is uncertain. But you’re going to make it.

You have a serious health issue. A doctor just gave you bad news. Your dad is in the ICU. Your mom is dying. Someone you love is secretly hurting you. You’re depressed.

Or maybe it’s simpler

than that. Maybe you’re late on your mortgage, and you feel like you're drowning in bank notes. Perhaps your kids are making complete disasters of their lives. Maybe you’re lonely.

Either way, what you usually wonder to yourself is why. Why does bad stuff keep happening to you? Why is it that lately your life could be summed up with a Morton Salt slogan?

I can’t answer that. But you don’t need answers right now. Answers wouldn’t help you anyway. None of the answers would even make sense. That’s how life works.

When I was a boy, I remember my mother’s sewing basket. It sat beside her sofa, filled with knitting and embroidery work. One time, I removed a folded-up piece of cloth from this basket and unfurled it. What I found was a tangled mess of knots and…

This is a column about grammar.

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

Let’s git started:

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

A: Hello, friend. It is a common literary misconception that beginning a sentence with “however” is not permissible. However, 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 or not at all.

A: I’m sorry, those are both wrong. In this part of Alabama, it’s actually “butt-[three-letter-word] nekkid.”

Q: When you say “irregardless,” I hope you know that you’re using a phony word and it undermines the value of your work.

A: Thank you. Two things:

First

thing: Actually,“irregardless” is a real word, and while this may not be a word that you like, or a word that you would use when the bank forecloses on your house, the word has been in use for over 200 years, employed by a large number of educated people, published authors, and Alabamian trailer-park residents. Secondly: Don’t make me get butt nekkid over hear.

Q: Did you know that you often end sentences with prepositions? It makes the English teacher in me want to scream, study your own language! If you ever have a doubt about what a preposition is, just remember that 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. Do you even have an editor? If…

It was an average weeknight in Birmingham when I stood atop the Vulcan statue. I was looking at the city below, standing beneath Vulcan’s massive butt cheeks.

From atop the monument, I looked at my little town, laid out before me like a quiltwork of lights and streets. There was a young couple touring the statue at the same time I was. They were maybe 19. The boy was very affectionate with her, but she didn’t seem that into him.

“I love you, darling,” the boy kept saying.

“What time is it?” she kept saying.

I leaned on the guardrail and watched 1.11 million folks beneath me, buzzing like ants in an anthill. And I wondered what they were all doing inside their little homes down there.

Were they happy? Or were they all too busy running around to figure out whether they were or weren’t? Do these people watch reality television? If so, why?

Also, why do Americans fill up their garages with worthless junk, but park expensive cars in their driveways?

Why do hotdogs come in packs of 10, but buns come in packs of eight?

Some questions will never be answered.

The Vulcan statue stands at 180 feet tall, altogether. He stands atop a pedestal high above Magic City. You can see him from all over town.

He is the Roman and Greek God of fire and the forge. Which is why the statue is made entirely of cast iron. This is also why he is butt naked. He is the largest metal statue made in the United States, which makes his buttocks the size of a small subtropical continent.

When I moved here a few years ago, friends all kept asking me, “Why Birmingham? What’s so special about Birmingham?”

At first I didn’t know how to answer them. Because I can’t explain it. Whenever people move to a new city, they usually choose a place with…

DEAR SEAN:

I’m sorry I’m emailing you cause I know you probably won’t answer this… I am in sixth grade and I don’t think my stepdad likes me cause he’s only been my stepdad for a year… But he’s not super talkative to me.

Ever since my mom has been with him I haven’t seen her because she’s always with him and not with me and I feel like I’m pretty much alone now. My real dad is not someone I know at all, so he’s pretty much nothing for us because he lives in California and never calls me or anything. I don’t know why I’m emailing. Anyway, that’s really it.

Okay, thanks,
SAD-GIRL-IN-GREENVILLE

DEAR GREENVILLE:

Let’s take a look at the American Guy.

I have here an illustrated anatomical chart of the American Guy’s brain. Yes, I realize the Guy Brain is a lot smaller than you expected.

But allow me to direct your attention to the Emotion Sector, way over here, located just above the Queso Dip sector, to the left of the Gaseous Bodily Noise sector. Notice how

small this emotional section is? Especially when this sector is compared to, for example, the Budweiser Lobe.

This tells us some important information about guys. Such as, guys are, by and large, very dumb.

I can say this because I am a guy. And therefore, I am dumb. I do not mean this negatively. It’s just a fact of nature. We are dumb compared to women, and this is just the truth.

On the Sixth Day of Creation, God took one look at man and said, “I can do better than this.” And then he did.

The problem with us guys, of course, is that we are not known for exhibiting emotions.

Don’t misunderstand me, I’m not saying that guys don’t HAVE emotions. We do. It’s just that guys only show important emotions during critical events, such…

I come from a generation whose ketchup came in glass bottles. And therein lies the fundamental difference between my generation and the current one.

Glass bottles. They were everywhere. They were the essence of life.

You walked into a restaurant, and there were glass condiment bottles sitting on tables. Usually, Heinz Ketchup. You had to bruise your palm to get the stuff out.

And when you couldn’t get the ketchup to move, you handed the bottle to your daddy and watched him invent new cuss words. This is what kept families together.

Glass packaging was the norm. We had no space-age plastic polymers. We had glass, that was all.

And glass, somehow, just made us happier. It unified us. It made us American. Glass bottles kept crime rates down, literacy rates up, and it made everyone sing the national anthem at ball games.

Which reminds me, I was at a ball game the other day when the national anthem was played. Everyone stood. Many placed hands over their hearts. But do you know

what? Very few people sang.

Actually, almost nobody sang.

All 42,000 silently listened to the singer on the field without opening their mouths. The singer was a recording artist from Nashville with three Grammys, two ESPYs, one Pulitzer, and whatever else.

The singer performed two minutes of vocal gymnastics so that it sounded like he was having a febrile seizure. And the boy in the seat next to me leaned over to his mom and said, “Which song is this again?”

You see, when I was a kid, everyone sang the “Star Spangled Banner.” That’s just how it was. We learned it in school. We SANG it in school. We knew all the words.

So you sang the anthem at games. You didn’t let anyone else sing it for you. Before ballgames, my grandfather would carefully balance his cigar on his beer, my father would remove his…

The Alabama game was on. The Crimson Tide was beating Texas, and my heart sang.

We were at a family reunion. I was sitting on a porch overlooking the Choctawhatchee Bay of my youth. There were people everywhere. The weather was coolish, but not unpleasant. Many of the family members were devout Baptists. Others were Methodists, but hey, nobody’s perfect.

Family members were mingling, cheering for the game, telling old stories. Because that’s what family reunions are for. Storytelling.

And the memories were getting so thick you had to swat them away like gnats.

There were a lot of empty chairs at today’s gathering. The mean age of the attendees was much younger than in years past, which gave a touch of melancholy to the air. Because all the good ones are gone.

I had checked out, mentally. I was staring at the old pier where I had one of my first dates with my wife, a few decades ago.

I remember it clearly. She wore pink. I don’t know what I had on, but I was trying out a new cologne that night,

purchased on clearance from TJMaxx. My date kept gagging whenever she came too close.

“Why are you gagging?” I asked.

“I think someone spilled some gasoline on your shoes,” she answered.

We sat on a swing built for two. We looked at the water. We held each other and I asked if it would be okay if I kissed her.

There was a long silence.

She said, “Most boys don’t usually ask that sort of thing before they do it.”

“They don’t?”

“No.”

“Well then what do most boys do?”

She shrugged. “Normally they sense the right moment and they just go for it.”

I said nothing.

She said nothing.

“But,” I asked, “what if the boy’s senses are a little off?”

She smiled. Probably because I smelled like a crude petroleum product.

“Yes,” she finally…

Erin has a guardian angel. A real one.

This supernatural cherub was a gift from her mother, long ago. It all started when Erin was six years old. Her dying mother called Erin to her sickbed, said a prayer, and gifted her daughter an angel. Simple as that.

After her mother passed, Erin was raised by her grandmother in a ramshackle house near the railroad tracks. Times were not easy. Her grandmother was a single parent, and kids ain’t cheap. Simple as that.

“We ate a lot of Hamburger Helper,” said Erin. “And we shopped at thrift stores.”

But an angel is worth a lot more than greenbacks. Especially an angel like hers, who has made himself evident at pivotal moments throughout her life.

There was the time in elementary school when Erin fell off a low balcony at her friend’s house. When she opened her eyes, she was in no pain. The doc couldn’t believe what he saw. Not a bone broken.

There was the time in high school when she was driving on

the interstate. A voice inside Erin said, “Take the exit, and wait at the gas station.”

She did. On that same highway, on that same night, an auto collision occurred involving an eighteen-wheeler. Four people died.

There was the time when Erin was engaged to a young man whom she thought she loved. The wedding was fast approaching, but something inside her said, “This is wrong. Do not marry him.”

She called off the ceremony, simple as that.

Erin gave back the wedding gifts. She returned the ring. And many years later, Erin realizes she made the right call. The man she might have married has already been remarried thrice.

Another time, she was in an apartment building visiting a friend. There was a man in the hallway who looked suspicious. He was standing too close to her.

When Sarah brushed past him, the man’s…