The idea — or maybe more accurately, the hope — was to take the all-boy bundle of energy and tire him out. Run him like you would a golden retriever puppy. And so Ava Mashia would pack everything she could get her hands on — football, basketball, tennis racket, baseball and bat — and grab hold of her nephew and head to the park. They would play for hours, feasting on a sports smorgasbord where neither deference for your elders nor charity to a child was allowed.
