The fields were lined with rows of bright green shoots, corn or soybeans or whatever, just starting to emerge. A sign by the highway said Dubuque, 14 miles —my birthplace, supposedly. I remember passing the same sign when I was eleven and on my way to summer camp. It was my first time away from home, and I was excited about that. I was leaving the boring town of Lost Nation and moving on to bigger, better things. To my kid brain, a city like Dubuque qualified as bigger and better. But the camp turned out to be a disappointment, except for one day, when they loaded us onto a bus pulling a trailer full of bikes. They took us to a trail that had been converted from an old railbed, and they gave each of us a bicycle and a helmet. We rode the gravel trail through pastures and wooded hills, past limestone bluffs. It was exhilarating to zip along under the trees, the wind on my face. I sped up and started passing the other kids. I pulled ahead of everyone, and the counselor called out t...
reflections and whimsies on literary fiction