“You can close your eyes to reality but not to memories.”

– Stanislaw Jerzy Lec, Polish poet and aphorist

“I have this childhood memory,” said Rick. “And I need to know if it’s real.”

With his wife Elsie in tow, Rick had set off on the long drive to his grandparents’ original farm – abandoned nearly 50 years prior. Though scarcely more than a toddler at the time, Rick could clearly recall the small red house and a hip-roofed barn nearby. In his mind, he could see his grandmother picking apples from a tree near the end of the driveway bordered by a white picket fence. He could still hear the distinctive squawk of the old green hand pump as grandfather worked it to fill galvanized water pails. The scene was idyl...

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