When he was an adolescent, a tractor rolled over my grandad. He spent the better part of a year in a body cast and, throughout his very full life, would make many a visit to the surgery that, over time, I suspect, made him the bionic man. In all my memories he walked with cane, [...]

Growing up I lived in an earth-bermed house built into a hill. Beyond the hill lay a creek that, on good winter days with the right combination of snow and ice, could be cleared by a well placed sled and an intuitive sense of physics. Along the creek were cottonwood trees, beech trees, and pine. [...]