A real Thermos story:

We had an entourage on the road consisting of a white truck loaded with gear and a couple of cars. We took a back road out of Memphis, as I recall, backtracking through Hickory Flats, Mississippi through some real, down home, William Faulkner Deep South.

The truck blew a tire. We had no spare, so George, our chief roadie had to take the flat tire in one of the cars to the nearest town. Meanwhile, we we're left sitting on a desolate country road, with one lone house on the hill. The house was a sagging, decrepit two-story frame with a half eaten crust of peeling paint. Some of the windows had cardboard in place of glass. The hill running up to the house was weedy and we thought it was probably abandoned.

Until this 17-year-old kid came out. Shy at first, he made his way down to the road, where we struck up a conversation. He was country in the old time tradition of the word. At first, I could hardly make out a word of his thick, Delta accent. But eventually, he revealed that he was totally illiterate. Amazing because he struck me as really bright, really perceptive. His folks didn't believe in book learning. They recited the Bible to one another at night, over a kerosine lamp on the supper table.

Suddenly his eyes widened with revelation. "Hey, can y'all do something for me?" he asked. "I been waiting a long time." He was really excited.

I didn't know what he meant. He was gone so fast I didn't have time to ask. He ran up the hill, disappeared into the house and after a time came out with a stack of record albums under his arm. The real albums, genuine vinyl discs about a foot in diameter, with those wonderful colorful album covers of the day. Some would even open up like a book, filled with stories and photos of each band.

When the boy finally sat beside us with the stack, he handled each album cover with reverence, as if it was his only connection to the outside world. I had the definite impression that the elders in the house were unaware of this little cache. He kept looking around, watching for something as he handed the first album cover over to me.

"What this'n say?" he asked.

I ran my index finger over the wavy letters. "C.R.E.A.M.," I said. "The name of this band is Cream."

He smiled. "Yeah, they're pretty good. Who's 'is?" I went on to translate a Hendrix album and others. He became increasingly interested, talking about the outside world. That was because he was about to turn 18, when he could legally leave the house. He had already lined up a job in Atlanta. He was to become an assistant cook in a restaurant. His goal was to become a chef. He had a nice apartment lined up at, of all places, a place called Riverbend. The number one swinging singles complex at the time. Very trendy.

"Pretty fancy," I said. Yep, he had a friend there who'd lined up the job. The boy figured it didn't matter much if he couldn't read, because he could cook. However, the road signs would be a problem, I pointed out. "Yeah, but you get to know a place, its like any other place," he said. And I nodded, knowing he was perfectly right. My college education didn't mean squat. I couldn't find work anywhere related to the degree I had. I was in a band having the time of my life and glad as hell to be out of there (college) anyway.

I knew by the fire in this kid's eyes that he would make it. He'd be just fine. He'd work hard, have a fancy apartment in Riverbend, buy a shiny car, find a girlfriend and live a good life. Me, I was scraping by, too smart for my own good. Later on, I would remember that kid and finally get a job. He was a great teacher.

A, yes, the punch line in the play of time: You never know where the lessons are going to come from on...I hate to drop this cliché but it fits...on the road of life.

There. Story #1.