Is the Earth the Most Special Planet in the Universe, After All?

As a small boy, I thought the earth was flat...and it ended ten miles away behind the tall wooden fence at Sticky's Drive-in. The fence, of course, was to keep people from falling off the edge of the world. No one had put this idea in my head; it was simply the way I perceived the world before anyone told me differently.

A dirt road ran between our farmyard and a large forest that provided endless possibilities for my imagination. Though I was not permitted to enter it as a preschooler, my p...