You Never Know Whom You’ll Meet in the Morning

Milwaukee, July 1989. My dad, mom, and I were staying at Milwaukee’s nicest hotel, the Pfister, in search of Minnesota Twins. We were baseball nuts. Our yearly vacations took us to Major League Midwestern ballparks. We always stayed in the same hotel as the Twins, and Dad and I collected autographs. I rode in elevators with Kirby Puckett, Kent Hrbek, Frank Viola. But they are not the celebrities of this story.

Dad was an early riser. Even on the road, he was up at 5 a.m. in search of a nicotine-and-caffeine breakfast, a 25-year daily habit too hard to Read more