Of the two things I vowed never to do again, one was to play golf. I’d golfed as a kid; my skills honed enough to place me in junior tournaments. My gratification of the sport at that time was more on par with the ice-cold Seven-Up and Old Dutch potato chips in a red plastic basket at the end of nine holes. Over the years my country club membership went in the same direction as golf. Competitive long distance running became my game of choice. Over the decades I trained and competed until my name began to appear in rankings listed in running magazines. At the height of my running career, I was hobbled in this order: a hip replacement, two broken legs, foot surgery and, most recently, a stress fracture.

Mike Filbin, standing, keeps watch at the gate to a pen where calves await their turn in the arena for branding, tagging and inoculations while J.L. Schaffner prepares to rope the front legs of the next calf in line for services in order to render it immobile.