Some memories are permanently seared into our childhood brains with a hot iron of adrenaline and fear. For five-year-old Greg, it was the memory of his ma walking back to the house after confronting his stepdad with a splintered, bloodied baseball bat in her hand.
Greg Stier was raised in a family of bodybuilding, tobacco-chewing, fist-fighting thugs. He never knew his biological father because his mom had met his dad at a party; she...