At the Bearwater Brewery, downwind from Canton’s historic paper plant, my daughter worries over what impact the first line of her poem might have on me.

After my son’s second surgery, a good friend asked me how I was doing, I replied, Not so good.

Are you praying?, she asked.

I tell her — Can’t do it right now.

Can you sit still and do nothing?

Champion at that, I respond.

When two sheriff cars pull into our driveway, an officer rolls down his window and asks my wife, ‘Are you the owner of a White Siberian Husky?’

She thinks, ‘Oh no, what trouble has he gotten himself into this time?’

I dressed in layers -- two pairs of jeans and sweaters, my Elmer Fudd overalls, North Face Winter gloves, a hoodie, my bike helmet, and a gas mask. In my arms, I held two rackets -- one for tennis, one for racquetball, both for a war on bats.