Winston Churchill’s quote about the exhilaration of being shot at without result is verifiably true. I was reminded of an old Ray Bradbury story, “The Lost City of Mars,” in which a man finds a miraculous machine that enables him to experience his own violent death over and over again, as many times as he likes — in locomotive collisions, race car crashes, exploding rockets — until he emerges flayed of all his free-floating guilt and unconscious longing for death, forgiven and free, finally alive. I started brewing my own dandelion wine in a big Amish crock. I listened to old pop songs too stupid to name in print.