Entry dated February 2005.
"Growing up on the farm was great. I'm sure it was the only thing that kept mom sane. The fact that she could send us outside to play with the whole of the farm at our disposal, yielded some tranquillity from the otherwise wild chaos that erupted with young children about the house. We had fields, pastures, orchards, gardens, avenues of grass, mysteries untold, and adventures to be wrought -all that a young boy could conjure up to do in such a landscape.
On one beautiful day Steve and I had been playing out near the barn. The barn contained all sorts of mysterious devices. Then there were stacks of hay, the ultimate fort building material. After playing for sometime atop of the haystack we decided that we were tired of if and that we wanted to play elsewhere in our vast playground. The funny nature of children is that they can't do anything without making a game of it. They play while they eat, while they do chores. They dilly dally as they make there way home from the school bus, and they even make games while they travel from playground to playground. And thus it was with us. It would be no fun to leave the haystack directly, so we made a game of it. We were to race. Steve thought to take the gentle slope, while I was sure that I could win if I climbed down the steep face. On your mark, get set, go... I sprinted one way, and Steve the other, but just as I neared the drop my foot caught on a bailing wire and I found myself flying over the edge. In that instant time slowed as my weightless body drifted into the ether. It felt like I was truly flying, and in that moment I thought that I was superman. But as it always does, reality catches up with time, and gravity remembers its role in the universe. The ground below me quickly change to blue sky as momentum carried me onward. My moment of freedom from Earth's laments came to an end as I landed flat on my back. I found myself regarding the heavens with its pillowy white clouds staring back at me. Coincidently my sister Melanie and her friends had been talking by the foot of the haystack. It must have been quite queer to see her kid brother drop out of the sky, landing before her feet. In shock she, somewhat foolishly, scooped me up in her arms and carried me back to the house to mother dearest. I don't remember much after that, but this much I can say, I won the race.."
