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John is a regular contributor for SportsIllustrated.com and TexAgs.com, as well as co-host of CBS Houston's morning sports talk show, Vandermeer & Lopez. John also has written for the Bryan Eagle, San Antonio Express-News and the Houston Chronicle. He has been named Texas' best sports columnist and earned national recognition from the Associated Press Managing Editors and Associated Press Sports Editors. He has appeared on The Today Show, ESPN Sports Center, Dateline NBC, CNN Sports at Night, CBS This Morning and ESPN's Outside The Lines. He has been a Baseball Hall of Fame voter since 1999 and a Heisman Trophy voter since 1985. In 1997, John co-authored Landing On My Feet - A Diary Of Dreams, with 1996 Olympic gold medalist Kerri Strug. He has three children - Jacob, BG and Leah - and lives in Humble, Tx, with his wife, Jan, and loyal dog, Gibson.

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TAKING FLAK

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Chapter One

In the early-fall of 1948, my dad had a hunting accident. My family lived on a beautiful ten acres along Highway 49, near Yosemite Junction, at the foot of the California Sierra Nevada Mountains. Dante Pastorini Sr. sank his life savings into those ten acres, chasing the American dream. On those rare days when dad could get away from working as a butcher, school bus driver, part-time carpenter and one hustling, horse-trading S.O.B., it was hunting that was his passion. Deer hunting, hog hunting, bird hunting. Dad and mom, Dorothy, earned every dollar they made. They busted their asses, bought everything they could with cash, lived modestly and saved the rest. When they finally saved enough to buy a piece of land where they could raise their family near Sonora, Calif., my dad and grandfather, Lou, who immigrated from Tuscany, built a house along a creek at the back of a 10-acre parcel at the foot of the Sierra Nevadas. They built the house by hand, clearing trees, dragging away shale and river rocks, cutting and framing the lumber and running plumbing and electricity lines.

Dad's love for the outdoors probably was the biggest reason he chose to settle his family along that tucked-away piece of Tuolumne County that once was the heart of the California Gold Rush. By 1948 the Gold Rush had long been dead and Highway 49 was well off the beaten path, but dad still had big dreams. He wanted to build and open a restaurant along the front of the property near the highway. A lot of Italian-Americans settled in Tuolumne County after the Gold Rush, which lured my grandfather's family. My Grandmother Irma's family also was from the old country, emigrating from Genoa. Just about every family in Tuolumne County had some kind of roots to the Gold Rush. About $600 million worth of gold eventually was mined from the area between the Sierra Nevadas, Sonora Pass and Tioga Pass. And right in the middle of it all were those ten acres. The Sierra Nevadas literally were at the back door and old, abandoned gold mines, railroad tracks and passes cut in and out of the landscape all around. It was called Yosemite Junction for a reason. It was the pass tourists took to get to Yosemite National Park.

Mom and dad figured tourists and local families needed a good restaurant, where they could stop, get a good meal and enjoy the amazing views. The land was lush, with plenty of wildlife, creeks, brush and all kinds of different trees—oak, pine, maple, dogwood. Sonora may not have been what it once was, but tourists kept it alive. One thing about my dad, he always was thinking. He always had a plan. Mom's biggest hope was the restaurant would keep the family together and living in the country would be perfect for the family to spend a lot of time together. Dorothy, the oldest, was twelve in 1948 and was named after my mother. Annette was seven. And then there was Lou, who everybody called Butch, and was five. It wasn't until my dad finished his hunting trip that day in 1948 that I came into the picture. When dad got home, he realized he spent most of the afternoon sitting in poison oak. He was covered in oil residue from the Poison Oak. It would be just a matter of hours until most of his body would be covered with a rash and he'd be quite uncomfortable for a long time. Those were the days when Poison Oak could last two weeks or maybe even a month or more. It was treated mostly with home remedies—things like oatmeal and baking soda. So my dad brainstormed, as always, and decided to make the most of the situation. He decided he should get amorous with mom before he broke out in the rash, because it might be a while before he could again.

Surprise. Nine months later, I was born Dante Anthony Pastorini Jr. I was the hunting accident, the youngest of four, and five years younger than my nearest sibling. Barely six months after I was born, with an extra mouth to feed that they did not expect or plan, my parents opened Pastorini's Longhorn Club and Café. They came up with the name because dad was kind of a cowboy. He loved horses, always had horses and of course, loved the outdoors. Dad, along with my grandfather and some friends built the restaurant at the front of our property. It was wood-framed, with hardwood floors and great scenery all-around. There was a big dining room, with a bar in front and a club and banquet room in back. Dad was the butcher, wheeler-dealer and cook. Mom was hostess, ran the kitchen and did some cooking. The kids pitched in busing tables, cleaning the restaurant and helping in the kitchen. I learned to walk in that restaurant and did a little bit of everything as I grew up. I learned to hustle for everything just like my dad, who took pride in being meticulous about everything he did. His knives were like treasures. He sharpened them to the point they sliced through loins of beef like butter. Dad cut a loin of beef so closely there wouldn't be enough meat left on the bone for a dog. He was a master butcher. And none of us could ever touch his knives. Ever. He was crazy obsessive about them. He'd yell at us, telling us we were going to dull the edges. Dad had all the connections for restaurant supplies and equipment, too. He drove into town in his truck, with a tarp over the bed. He came back with crates of produce, supplies for the restaurant and sides of beef that he would cut himself. He traded crates of this for crates of that. He was a horse-trading son of a gun. He also always found a way to get people into the restaurant. He was proud of his food and it was always good, but he always was thinking of ways to make the place a destination. There were some lean times, especially early when the club at the back of the restaurant was closed just three months after the restaurant opened. The Feds came in and shut it down, because all clubs were getting licensed and were under scrutiny because of changing gambling laws.

Even though some times were tougher than others, we never lacked. We did learn the value of a dollar, certainly. When dad realized neither the seasonal tourism nor just 1,300 people living in Sonora was enough to sustain the restaurant, he cleared a piece of our property and put in a small rodeo arena. It fit in perfectly with the cowboy theme of the restaurant. He bulldozed an oval, cleared the land and put up a fence. We always had horses anyway, so dad began having rodeos on Saturdays and Sundays. By the time I was six, Butch and I would spend Saturdays sitting on the fence, roping calves after events, corralling animals and getting people to stop by the restaurant for a steak, some home-style meals or Italian food.

I always looked up to Butch. I thought he was the best athlete in the world, too. We probably were the closest among the kids. Mom had a constant dream of us becoming a certain type of family. She always wanted us to do everything together and be a close family that loved each other unconditionally. But we never were what she dreamed about. We all went to church, worked together and mom made sure we were good Catholics, but we really all started going our own ways at an early age. No one ever really showed a lot of affection in our house, except for mom. Dad never told any of us that he loved us and dad's big shortcoming was his temper. When something didn't go right at the restaurant or there'd be some other problem, he'd scream at my...