But I should have known that it'd be all right. On Bruce's territory, everything's all right. When I rolled through the gates, the first thing I noticed was a white house on the left, with columns and a porch. On the right, a little farther up, was a barn that looked freshly painted and sparkling clean. I knew I couldn't photograph anything, so I was busy memorizing the details when a man, looking and sounding like a native African, asked me to roll down my window. He said he was going to valet park my car. I must've looked dazed. "Don't worry, you'll get it back," he said. "And you don't have a camera, do you?"

I shook my head and handed him the keys. Then I wandered over to mingle with the few other latecomers milling around under a tent by the driveway by the registration table. They all looked cheerful, some were husband/wife couples, some were grandmothers holding little children by the hand, and one was a scowling, unshaven 50-something man with a bandanna around his head, looking like he just went AWOL after some mind-bending combat.

Several organizers of the field day herded us all to the barn and upstairs into the loft, which was acting as the conference room. The loft was approximately 9,000 degrees but decorated with little white Christmas lights and well-stocked with Evian and cans of Coca-Cola products. I was part of the late crowd, so most of the folding chairs that had been set up were full. So I sat on a green leather couch in the very back of the room. It was the nicest couch I have ever sat on in my entire life. I expected someone to walk it at any moment and tell me to get off of it and take my place in a common folding chair.

Next, various agriculture experts showed slides about organic farming techniques. That was the whole point of the day, of course. I learned that organic farming is cheaper and more productive in the long run than any other farming method. I learned that soybeans are the world's most nutritious food. But most of the lecture, I daydreamed. What did Bruce do in this loft? Did he have big, celebrity orgies? Did he hunker down with his guitar on this very couch and compose a few top-40 melodies?

I also wondered why people were here. The general public wasn't told ahead of time that the field day would be at Bruce's farm. But everyone seemed to know about it now. One lecturer casually mentioned that Bruce wanted to be here but was away on tour. Apparently I'd missed the official announcement, if there'd been one.

But I'd found out way in advance by getting very, very lucky. I'd read a New York Times profile that mentioned something about Bruce's farm in New Jersey going organic. So I contacted a farming association in New Jersey for more information. That day I received a panicked phone call from someone at the company where I'm working this summer. She wanted to know how I'd found out. Found out what?

"We're co-sponsoring a field day at that farm," the woman said.

"What farm?" I asked.

"Bruce's farm," she said. The farming association was the other co-sponsor and thought someone on her end had leaked.

Everyone involved sounded relieved that I was just an intern asking some questions for the heck of it. And I got invited to the land of the Boss, on one condition: "No press allowed." Me? The press? Please. I'm just a regular person with a journalism degree.

But I wondered if other people on the tour had also known in advance. No one seemed at all star-struck. In fact, no one even mentioned the farm's owner. One pleasant woman from the USDA, looking much too young and well-dressed to fit my narrow-minded stereotype of The Organic Farmer, said she'd known ahead of time. She knew where the Boss lived. Everyone in New Jersey does, she said, but that's not why she came. I nodded politely. We'd just left the lectures and were wandering around the barn, petting the exquisitely groomed horses and watching a stray cat loll on its back on the pristine tile floor.

"You know, there's air-conditioning in that lounge over there," said a friendly man sweeping the floor.

The USDA woman and I headed down the hall, past the immaculately groomed horses, and opened the door. The small room was crammed with Native American trinkets, bronzed horsehoes, little horse statuettes, ash trays painted in colorful designs, books on riding and farming, and oh yes, a bar. I felt my klepto impulse kick in. I've been known to take forks from restaurants. But no, no, I told myself, no taking Bruce's stuff. Bruce might get mad. And these things are worth quite a bit more than a fork. But I had to wonder…. If I had millions of dollars, would I spend some of it to fill a room with knickknacks like this? I ran my hand across the tan leather couch. And how many leather couches would I put in my barn?

Soon it was time for lunch, which turned out to be veggie-filled sandwich wraps from an organic catering company. The AWOL-looking man, named Tom, tried to talk to me about how food is trucked from all over the country at tremendous financial and environmental cost. I already knew this, and besides, I was eating. So I ignored him.

I met a few other interesting people, too: A guy who just graduated from Ohio State had come with USDA woman, and we talked about Big 10 football. A twenty-something woman from New Jersey wanted to rally her town around organic farming. And a woman who grew her own St. John's Wort also wrote for a small New Jersey paper, so we talked about how I was interning at an organic gardening magazine.

I started hankering for something dessert-like after the super-healthy sandwich wrap, and soon the caterers brought out pieces of watermelon. "We're growing that out in the garden," said the farm's proprietor, Brad, as we munched on the dripping, sugar-sweet wedges. I was eating Bruce's watermelon.

After lunch, Brad gathered us all together for a tour of the farm. I wasn't paying much attention. I was busy craning my neck to see the white house by the entrance, where random people were inexplicably lounging on the porch. They looked too comfortable to be part of the farm tour. Who were they? Did the house have a screen door? Did it slam? But then the group set off, so I stopped spying and followed.

Ironically, while Bruce's new CD is about new life and things rising, many of his crops are dying. Apparently the farm was too busy gearing up for Springsteen's latest tour to properly care for much of what was planted. Brad said they were "testing crops for drought-resistance", which means they barely watered them. The chickens and hens looked happy and healthy, though. They're glossy black and very fat. Chickens, as a rule, usually look confused, bored or sick. But these seemed very content wandering around the henhouse. I wondered if they somehow sensed their eventual fate in a celebrity's stomach.

The huge farm is just in the beginning stages of going organic, so there wasn't much to see besides a crop of wilting sunflowers, an almost-dead pumpkin patch, a small vegetable garden, the chickens and some neglected grape vines. Still it seemed like a ton of work for their four-person staff. As the tour wound down, I approached Karen, the head of the farming association I'd initially spoken to. I asked her why the family was undertaking this enormous project in the first place. "Well," she whispered, "I think it's really because of Sting. He has an organic farm in London and kind of pressured Bruce into it."

Brad suddenly interrupted to talk to Karen, so I couldn't ask any more questions. But the day felt complete. I said good-bye to everyone I'd met (except for Tom), ordered my car from the valet parkers and hopped in. Then I sped off down the winding dirt road just as "The Rising" began to play on the radio.

For more adventures in Bruce-ness, see my trip to St. Louis two years ago