The Optimist: The magical whiffle ball bat

Today is my son’s 40th birthday. He was born by emergency C-section just after midnight on Sept. 27, 1986. He was a month premature. I couldn’t wait to tell his sister, age 3½, about it when she woke up and I did it in the form of a story, which we came to call “The Day Mikey Was Born,” and which she had me tell over and over through the day and for weeks to come. The star of the story, of course, was her new baby brother Michael. But her favorite character was the doctor who delivered him.