10/02/2026
WHERE IS DILLON? — Personal Vignette
By Wayne Stephen
I love the little traces people leave behind.
Especially in used books.
A grocery list tucked into an old cookbook. Somebody's phone number scribbled inside a paperback. A movie ticket used as a bookmark. An inscription from Grandma to somebody who eventually hauled Grandma's book off to Goodwill.
Little pieces of people you don't know.
I found my latest down at Waysetter Coffee.
Heather's got a nice little collection of books down there.
The coffee is...let's just get this out of the way, the best cup in the county. Period.
That aside...
She had to scale the bookstore collection down significantly after the move to Waysetter. There's simply less room.
It may be smaller.
But it's smart.
Especially the children's books.
Which is how I ended up with this magnificent little dinosaur book.
And Dillon... Well...
Not Dillon.
Evidence of Dillon.
Inside the cover, written in magnificent little-kid handwriting—the kind where every letter appears to have been negotiated separately—is a name:
Dillon.
And now I have questions.
Where is Dillon?
WHO is Dillon?
Is Dillon still Dillon?
The book was released in 2018.
Judging by the penmanship, I've conducted some extremely sophisticated forensic analysis and determined Dillon was prolly seven when he planted his flag inside this thing.
Which means Dillon is fifteen now.
Jesus...
Dillon probably just got his learner's permit.
That's the part that gets me.
Eight years ago this little sunvuva bitch was fascinated enough by dinosaurs to scrawl his name across the inside cover.
Today Mom might be sittin beside him, white-knuckling the Jesus handle while Dillon attempts his first left turn across traffic.
Brake.
Brake.
DILLON, BRAKE!
Maybe he's six feet tall now.
Maybe he's still a dinosaur nerd.
Maybe he doesn't remember this book at all.
But I have it.
I have an old wooden record box from the 1940s, too.
Paid twenty bucks for it at a garage sale years ago. It says RECORDS on the outside. Inside, somebody had engraved a name.
Of course I had to know.
So one day I followed the name and the few clues I had until they led me back to a World War II veteran from Richfield, Minnesota.
A guy I'd never met.
His record box somehow became mine.
And the weird thing...
Every once in a while I'll put on an old vinyl record from his era and think about him.
Dont know why.
I just do.
That's why Dillon got me.
Some little kid held this dinosaur book eight years ago, wrote his name inside the cover, eventually outgrew it and went about the business of becoming whoever Dillon is becoming.
The book kept moving, and it ended up at Waysetter.
Then in my hands.
And now, for no particularly good reason, I give a s**t about Dillon.
I hope yer doin all right, buddy.
So wherever you are, Dillon,
if my math is anywhere close...
Buckle up, kid.
Winter's coming.
And it's a bitch learning how to drive in Minnesota.
