It's funny how people pass through our lives. Some, like family members, are always there for us. Others, like a special teacher, pastor or coach, spend only a short time with us but have a lasting impact on our life. But most of the people who touch our lives do so only briefly, and then they're gone.

They're clerks, receptionists, bus drivers and others who help us along our paths with relative anonymity. There are also people, like co-workers, whom we see often enough that they help form the fabric of our lives, and there are others whom we may never see, who are essential to our existence.

I have no idea what the person who delivers my mail looks like. I don't know if it's a man or a woman or even if it's the same person every day, but I'm glad mail carriers are there, and I appreciate what they do.

In fact, there are so many people you meet during your everyday life that it's probably impossible to really get to know them, but I'll bet they all have a story to tell if you could only take a moment to ask. I discovered this for myself just the other day as I watched a man cooking me an omelet.

I was staying in a hotel that offered its guests a cooked-to-order breakfast. As I approached the front of the line, I was greeted by Bobbie, a tall, thin man with eyes the color of faded denim and a face creased like a smoothed-out sheet of aluminum foil.

He handed me a numbered ticket and said, "You're No. 4. What'll you have?"

I watched him as he spooned eggs, sausage and mushrooms into a pan and then gently rocked it back and forth over the burner to cook the eggs evenly. After a few minutes, he lifted the pan off the burner and, with a quick flick of his wrist, flipped the omelet into the air to turn it over and caught it expertly in the pan.

"You've been doing this for a while, haven't you?" I asked.

"I've been cooking for 35 years," he said. I didn't say anything, but he continued, "I used to have my own place, Herb and Bob's Coffee Shop."

"What happened?"

"I got screwed out of it," he said with a touch of bitterness that had obviously softened over time. "I liked running my own business, but I like working here."

I talked to him again the next two mornings, and it was clear that he did enjoy what he was doing. But I would liked to have known more about his restaurant and how he came to be cooking breakfast in the atrium of an Embassy Suites. Unfortunately, you can't conduct much of an interview in the time it takes to cook an omelet.

Still, I got more than a couple of omelets from Bobbie. I was reminded of the stories that are out there, all around us, and I resolved to look, listen and ask questions. To be sure, I can't interview everyone I meet, but I can talk to some of them.

I've been lucky. My life is rich, and I've been blessed in many ways.

Others have been less fortunate, and some, more, but I want to learn a little more about the people who provide the color in the painting that is my life. After all, you have to crack an egg to make an omelet.

— Contact Star columnist Bill Nash at bnash805@aol.com.