I first began keeping a journal when I was ten years old. My older sister had given me her old battered notebook that she had used for her math problems, and I had decided to take it and jot down my thoughts in the remaining blank pages. I was not a good speller and I found myself illustrating my point — in the most literal sense of the word — more often than actually writing it out. I had an ache to write about what was happening around me — perhaps I was a bit of a busybody when I was ten, but I found the actions and conversations of other people most entertaining, and I enjoyed the surreptitious delight of recording them in secret and with my own perspective on the subject. As I matured, I became a better speller and less of a busybody. When I was fourteen, my family started calling me the “Family Chronicler” because I recorded so many details on current local events that you could ask me what Mrs. Blackburn served for dessert three years ago at her son’s friend’s high...
A depository for the literary efforts of Barrys, Former Barrys, and Those Who Wish They Were Barrys