Yesterday I wrote about people-watching at the airport in Phoenix. So many folks walking here and there. Every one of them with their own personal story.

But the story I really wanted to hear belonged to the very last person I encountered on the journey. It’s just too bad I didn’t make time to hear it.

Most passengers from my flight exited the tram and funneled off to the B-side baggage claim and ground transportation — because in Orlando all things Delta are on side B side of the main terminal. I wasn’t going to baggage claim, so I decided to catch the off-site parking shuttle on the A-side and save a little time by avoiding the exit loop on B.

I took the long escalator down to Level 1, which was slightly dark and very quiet at 1:30 a.m. All the rental-car counters and shuttle stands were closed. I plopped down in a chair in front of some big windows looking out on the mostly empty ground transportation lanes. Then I pulled out my phone and called the dispatcher at The Parking Spot. I told her where I was, and she told me to wait at Stall 11.

“Hey, brother. Do you know what time it is?”

The voice came from a chair to my left.

I looked over and saw a gentleman who was probably in his late 60s or early 70s.

He told me he was originally booked on a flight from Miami that would have gotten him into Orlando at 5 a.m. But he took an earlier flight and now had to wait for his ride to show up from  Daytona Beach. That meant he had about an hour to cool his heels.

He asked me where I’d been on my trip, and I told him Phoenix.

Then he got very interested and wanted to ask me all about the weather in Arizona. In particular he wanted to know about the dry heat.

You see — the man only has one lung. He likes hot climates, but Florida’s moist air makes breathing difficult. He’s been wondering if Arizona might be the place for him.

I told him a quick anecdote about having dinner in Scottsdale with a co-worker a few nights earlier. We dined outside that night, and the weather was perfect. We were curious about the temperature, so I pulled up AccuWeather on my phone and found out it was 85 degrees.

The humidity was only 13 percent. And that made 85 degrees exceedingly pleasant.

My mono-lunged acquaintance smiled after hearing that story and said he would have to consider moving to Arizona.

That’s when I realized I would like to talk to this man for a while. He seemed like a cool guy who has been around the block a time or two. I figured he would be good for a few entertaining stories.

And he called me brother — which is an automatic bonding device.

By then it was after 1:30 a.m. I had a five-minute walk to Stall 11 ahead of me, followed by a five-minute ride to The Parking Spot and a 25-minute drive home. I would be lucky to make it home by 2:30.

I told the guy I was really sorry, and that I would love to talk more about Arizona, but I couldn’t miss my shuttle.

He said he understood. Gave me a big smile, thanked me for taking my time, and graciously waved me on my way.

I regret it now. Getting home 30 minutes later wouldn’t really matter at that point. It wouldn’t make any difference whether I got three hours of sleep or two-and-a-half hours. I would have kept him company. He would have given me fodder for a blog post and a few stories to share with friends.

I could have called the dispatcher at The Parking Spot and told her I was delayed. They run all night anyway.

Opportunity missed.

Then again,  maybe he was perfectly content to sit there by himself in the half-light and think about landscaping with cacti.

Luckily there is no shortage of interesting characters in the world. Hopefully none of them have watches.

I have friends who are musicians, actors, comics, DJs and writers. Some who are all of the above. I have the good fortune to know some incredibly entertaining and funny people.

But sometimes the most entertaining people aren’t on stage, in front of a camera or behind a microphone.

No — a lot of the real funny people are the ones you least expect. And that’s why I dig my friend Brian so much. The guy is a natural comic who works the oil fields of Southern Illinois instead of comedy club stages.

I sat at home last night laughing my ass off as I watched Brian’s Saturday night unfold through a series of Tweets and Facebook updates.

Maybe you have to be from a small town in the heartland to appreciate it. But I hope not.

So here are Brian’s updates from last night, posted without any permission or notice. After all, it’s not like I’m being held to journalistic standards here.

3:30: Getting ready to head to Effingham and check out the Foxx’s Den.

6:58: The Foxx’s Den has good food and a friendly staff. But the patron at the bar twirling his mustache has me concerned. Is he going to tie a woman up with rope and throw her on the railroad tracks?

8:11: Headed to the One Eleven.

• Why on earth are going to the Triple Stick???
• Its where Jim Garrett is!!!! Mony Mony has to be soon!!! LOVE THIS BAND!!!!!!!!!!

10:15: I have been in a bar with a rain gutter urinal running through the wall and draining on the ground I assume.

10:20: The bathroom door doesn’t close let alone lock. Great! I can shit and still watch the band!

10:52: Dive bar bathroom (Photo below)

10:54: Dive bar interior (Photo below)

10:56: Frank: the front door would be enough to turn you away. Southern IL oilfield dive bar

10:58: Screamed in my face: “Its a mandolin not a “CORNISH” guitar STUPID!”

11:00: Wow I need to slow my roll!

11:07: Damn!!!! You do shots with some ole boy with an oxygen tank and you can get fucked up!

11:10: Not feeling very safe. (See brick photo below)

11:20: They are gonna start picking up snakes in a minute…..

11:29: Aw hell!!!!!! They broke out the Marshall Tucker Band!!!!!

11:42: So let me get this straight: Her water breaks and I get a free drink HOW?????

12:20: Looking at the dance floor and you can tell meth ain’t a problem no more.

Brian is a perfect example of why I love the real-life stories of average people.

Because the truth is — they really aren’t average at all.

As a middle-aged guy still trying to figure out what I should do with my life, I find it interesting to learn what other people do for a living and how they ended up there.

Some people seem to have it figured out early on and make all the right choices. Others just fall into it with dumb luck.

Me?

Well, I’ve never been much of a “planner,” so I follow the “dumb luck” model. And I’ve had a few disappointments along the way.

When I was about 11 years old, my dad gently broke the news that I would never be a Harlem Globetrotter.

“John, haven’t you noticed all the Globetrotters have something in common with each other, but not with you?” Dad asked. “And besides — you’re not a very good basketball player.”

So while riding home in the pea-green, ’72 Buick Electra after watching the Globetrotters trounce the Washington Generals at the drafty old Civic Auditorium in Grand Rapids, Mich., I suddenly became painfully aware of my tragic lack of athletic ability.

As we headed north on  M-37, I still couldn’t figure out the other difference between Meadowlark Lemon, Curly Neal, Goose Tatum and young JT. For some reason the color thing wasn’t obvious to me, so Dad got a little more specific and pointed out they were black. And I wasn’t.

There went one prospective career.

A few years later, my sister informed me there was absolutely no way I would EVER be an Air Force pilot because I had bad eyes.

Another career that never got off the ground.

You can always count on family to prop you up on the way to achieving your dreams,  eh?

I know I’m not alone here. Plenty of people spend a big chunk of their life in search of the right thing. Last week I met a guy in Central Florida who stumbled into the right career after 20 years.

Brian owns a business called Buddy Blades. He sharpens things.

I found him through a Google search because my Leatherman multi-tool had a dull knife blade and rusty, sticky scissors. After a brief phone conversation with Brian, I learned he would come to my office and pick up the tool, take it back his shop for cleaning and sharpening, then return it to me the next day. All this in exchange for a picture of Alexander Hamilton.

Yup … 10 bucks for pickup, cleaning, sharpening and delivery.

Now check it out. After Brian completed the pickup, cleaning and sharpening sections, he called to tell me was on the road and about to deliver the restored tool to my office. I was in a meeting, so he said he would just leave it with the receptionist and call me later to get payment over the phone.

There was no paperwork between us. Brian didn’t even know my last name. But somehow I knew my beloved Leatherman would make it back to me, and Brian knew he would eventually get paid. I really dig this experience, because it reminds me of every interaction my dad had with local businesses when I was growing up in the bustling metropolis of Sparta, Mich.

Everything was done on a handshake.

Sparta profile: Around 4,000 people, a few thousand dairy cows, and more than a million apple trees. Think “Mayberry” without the Southern accent. I love that town.

When Brian called a few days later to collect for his work, we started talking about how he ended up in the sharpening business.

“I was a chef for 20 years, and got tired of working 80- and 90-hour weeks,” Brian said. “I have custody of my son. I home-school him. And I wanted to do something that would give me more time at home.”

Brian had already been sharpening his own chef’s knives for years, because he had a hard time finding a professional to trust with tools that cost $200 to $300 each. Eventually he picked up some side business here and there, and it turned into a full-time job. Now he has a shop with about a dozen machines, and a collection of hand stones for sharpening, buffing and polishing different types of blades.

“Something like a single-bevel Asian chef’s knife will never touch a machine. I’ll use six to 10 different stones to sharpen it,” Brian said. “It’s just a matter of figuring out what works with different types of blades. Luckily there are some nice people out there who are willing to share what they know.”

And Brian needs that varied knowledge to help out with the interesting requests he gets. Lately he sees people spending money to maintain existing tools rather than buying new ones. He’s sharpening landscape tools like loppers and hedge trimmers. Even an old-school rotary mower.

Brian found his niche. So I guess the lesson is to never stop looking, because the thing you’re looking for might be just around the corner.

Luckily I can still whistle “Sweet Georgia Brown.”

The story of how I learned the word “coulee” starts in 1897.

In 1897, the population of the United States was around 75 million. Three-quarters of U.S. residents lived on farms and in small towns. The average income was $438 per year. It would be another six years before Orville and Wibur flew their first airplane at Kitty Hawk, NC.

Little known fact: Due to weather delays on the dunes that day, the Wright brothers missed their connecting flight in Atlanta.

And on March 27, 1897, my great-grandfather was born in Colburn, Ind.

Hollie Elivian Ewing had it tough from the start because he weighed only 2 pounds 8 ounces when he was born. There was no such thing as neonatal intensive care back then, so he spent his first few days on a pillow laid on the open door of the family’s cook stove.

Grandpa Ewing’s mother died when he was 6, and he was shuttled between family members for a few years. In 1906 he went to live in North Dakota with two uncles who needed help on their farm. The train went as far as Minot, which was the end of the line. His uncles met their 9-year-old nephew at the train station, and by sleigh they traveled the final 60 miles to the farm.

Legend has it that on the train trip to North Dakota, my great-grandfather met legendary outlaw Frank James, who would have been 63 at the time. Grandpa told me this himself more than once. So it’s true.

By the time I came along in 1964, Hollie Ewing was 67 years old and living back in Indiana. He and my great-grandmother had been married 49 years and raised eight children. Although he was a farmer for much of his life, he owned a meat market for several years, served as a minister, and worked at various times as a train conductor, carpenter and fireman (that’s before they were called “firefighters”).

He was quite a guitar player, and often played square dances a couple times a week in his younger days. I didn’t find out about that until after he died.

Feeling the itch to get back on the farm, Grandpa traveled west in the summer of 1966 so he could help my great-uncle Ezra with that year’s harvest in North Dakota. Ez was pulling a load of hay, and Grandpa was standing behind him on the tractor. The load slipped and knocked Grandpa forward. He fell off the tractor and was run over by a rear wheel. There were lots of broken bones and various other injuries, but he survived.

The only obvious long-term injury was an arm that constantly shook due to nerve damage. I used to sit on the floor in front of his chair and listen to him tell stories. I watched that arm shake for years. But now I can’t remember which arm it was.

And that’s the point of this story.

Memories.

I didn’t know the Hollie Ewing who farmed and preached and carved out tender roasts so the good folks of Turtle Lake, ND, could enjoy a tasty Sunday dinner after services at Trinity Lutheran Church .

No — by the time of my earliest memories, it was post-accident and I just knew a frail, old man who sat around and told stories about how things used to be. I bet he was a tough little dude in his day, but to me he was just the sweetest guy who ever lived.

And you know what really sucks? I can’t remember any of those stories now. I wish I could. I mean, I remember bits and pieces. But most of them are gone.

Except for this:

My great-grandfather once told me a story about something that happened when he was hunting out in the woods. This wasn’t hunting for sport or recreation. This was the kind of hunting that’s necessary to put food on the table. I can’t remember what he was hunting that day, but he said something about chasing the animal down into a coulee.

He must have seen the confusion on my face.

That’s when he said, “You know what a coulee is, don’t ya, Johnny? Why … it’s like a little holler, or a ravine, with a crick at the bottom. That’s a coulee.”

“Crick,” by the way, is how people who grow up along the Wabash River say “creek.”

So that’s how I learned the meaning of “coulee.”

Of all the stories I ever heard from my great-grandfather, that one stuck with me.

I’d like to write more, but I think I’ll take a walk down by the crick.

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Dying seems to bring out the best in people.

That is, it brings out the best in the people who are still alive.

When a friend or relative dies, we get together and talk about how much he meant to us, or the wonderful memories we have of her. You know — all the stuff we should have told them when they were alive.

Too bad it takes a death to make us say those nice things.

I never told Dwayne Bernard how much I appreciated the cool thing he did for me at his brother Derek’s Christmas party a few years ago. And now it’s too late.

Derek is a longtime friend who makes his living as a professional musician. Dwayne was also a musician. And although I didn’t know him that well, I usually saw him at least once a year at Derek’s annual Christmas party.

The guest list is always heavily weighted with musicians, and Derek pushes everyone to bring an instrument for the jam session on the back porch.  It doesn’t matter if you bring a guitar, a harmonica, or the clarinet you played in high school band — he just wants people to join in.

I’m not a professional musician. I’m barely good enough to be considered an amateur. But Derek’s party is the one time each year when I can dust off my guitar and pretend to be in a band for a few hours.

It’s a little intimidating knowing there are so many good players in the crowd. But if I don’t join in, Derek will tell me what a pussy I am and guilt me into it. “Just grab a chord and hang on for the ride,” he told me the first time.

So I try to hang on.

Things got a little intense at one of these parties a couple years ago. The guys were making key changes that had me scratching my head, and I couldn’t keep up. I finally stopped trying, and decided to sit back and drink for a while.

But before I could walk away and grab a cold beer, the song ended and Dwayne, seeing my frustration, gave me a little wink and called out, “Let’s play one in G — THE PEOPLE’S KEY!”

It’s called “the people’s key” because it’s the easiest key to play in. Dwayne called that audible for me – and I loved him for it.

A few years passed. Then on a cold, windy day this past January, I drove down tree-lined country roads to the Nam Nights motorcycle club compound in Bithlo, Florida. I was there along with two or three hundred other people to pay my last respects to Dwayne, who had died six days earlier.

The big guy known for his laugh, jokes and music was gone. He left behind a daughter, a fiancé, three brothers, sisters-in-law, nieces and nephews, bandmates … and hundreds of bikers who loved to ride with him and hear his band play at their parties.

I’d never been to a service quite like this. It started when a convoy of about a hundred Harleys roared into the compound, followed by a pickup truck pulling a smoker full of meat for the crowd.  There was plenty of food and beer, a big bonfire, and lots of great Dwayne stories.

I knew Dwayne was a loving father, a great brother and uncle, a funny guy, and a really talented musician and singer. But what I didn’t know until that day was what a humanitarian he was, and how much compassion he had.

A biker minister talked about Dwayne’s compassion, and said there will be a bunch of homeless guys out there wondering what happened to Dwayne.

Most people ignore those scruffy, anonymous men at stoplights. The ones holding scrap cardboard scrawled with things like: “Homeless Vet” … “Hungry” … “Need Food” …

Not only did Dwayne pay attention to them, but he didn’t give a damn about holding up traffic for a few extra seconds so he could hand one of the guys a dollar as the light turned green.

So what about the argument from people who say there’s no sense in giving money to “those people,” because everyone knows they’re just going to spend it on booze or drugs anyway?

Dwayne didn’t care about that possibility. His response was, “Who am I to judge another person?”

And I understand where he was coming from.

I have no idea if the guy holding a sign at the stoplight is a lazy bum, or if he experienced some personal tragedy that would push even the strongest of us over the edge.

So in the last month I’ve found myself occasionally putting down my window at a stoplight and handing over a buck. Maybe it goes for beer … or maybe it helps buy a warm meal. I don’t know, and I really don’t care.

Who am I to judge another person?

All I know is — the guy who gets the buck should be thanking Dwayne, not me.

Then I drive away singing “Brown Eyed Girl,” because … well, you can guess what key it’s in.