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The wisdom my 77-year-old father has passed on to me came more throughosmosis（渗透）than lectures. Pinning down a dad's influence to one true thing is like saying that the final inning is all that matters in a baseball game—when in reality, it's every play up until then that has gotten the team to where it is. And my dad has been there since the first pitch. From making "the best pancakes you kids have ever eaten" on Saturday mornings, to assuring tearful teenagers studying for finals that all they needed was a good night's sleep and everything would be better in the morning, my dad'sdogged（顽强的）optimism shines through. It is a big part of the reason I recovered after a pelvis-smashing accident, when I was run over by a truck: My father assumed that I'd be jogging with him again. He would also be the first to note that a grand slam by the last batter in a two-run game can change everything. In that he's a realist. But the thing about Dad is that he believes he is the guy who will hit that ball out of the park in the clutch play. Even though his first great-grandchild was born a year and a half ago, he's still that kid on the bench saying, "Put me in, Coach." Old age hasn't slowed him, mainly because he doesn't think almost-80 is old. I should have taken a photo of my dad swimming in the lake in front of our cabin in Alaska last summer to show you what he looks like. He is strong, bald and about 5'10", 150 pounds, with a long French nose, blue eyes and a great smile. He had come for a visit and was training for a charity swim across the Hudson River in New York, where he lives. He wore his custom-fitted wetsuit (it zips up the back, so we had to help him into it), but he still got so cold that when Ihauled（拖，改变主意）him, leaky goggles were all fogged up and I feared he'd die ofhypothermia（降低体温）. We warmed him by stoking the woodstove and parking him, wrapped in a sleeping bag, as close to the open oven door as we could without cooking his legs. | 
