In a perfect world, one might assume that when he was growing up, the celebrated Boston Globe sports columnist Dan Shaughnessy played catch with his dad every summer day and went to Fenway Park so often that the crease in his pants ran sideways. But Shaughnessy does not live in a perfect world, and never did, in spite of a career and celebrity for which many of us, in a weedy moment, might consider a Faustian pact.

Irish citizens faced a critical choice early this month and they bolstered the country's status in the European Union with a resounding vote in favor of accepting the "Lisbon Treaty" amendments to the European Union Charter just 16 months after rejecting the proposition and putting that status in peril.

It wasn't supposed to happen. It was by accident, or maybe providence. Truth be told, I never liked children all that much. Or, more to the point, they never liked me. But it all started with something I like enormously: a holiday.