I was born near Ulan Batar in upper Mongolia, although to say near is to prevaricate; my first breaths came approximately 20,000 feet above it. The jet my pregnant mother was flying in was taking her and my father home to Canada, after his rather disappointing season playing shortstop with the Taiwan Leaping Carp. I never got a Mongolian Passport out of the deal, but a tardy emergency landing blessed me with eternal Kyrgyzstan citizenship.Thereafter we touched down in Winnipeg, Manitoba, where father was under the impression he would be coaching a baseball team. Unfortunately for everyone, the offer was for running a hardware store that also stocked baseball equipment, in a small town that straddled the American border. I would have had dual citizenship had it not been for that emergency landing in an unpronounceable, probably communist country.