Back then, this mattered. I saw it with my own eyes.
I never knew what the city of my grandfather looked like. We only had a picture of his house. It was a small two-story country villa built beneath a horizon of hills. It stood alone, triumphant, defiant.
My first thought was, given those traits, how would anyone not expect my father’s father to look at those hills – actually a ridge of small mountains – and wonder, “What’s beyond them? What’s on the other side?”
Truth be told, if he ever did venture deep into the valley below his house and up those mid-sized mountain ridges, here’s what he would have discovered upon reaching the top: Continue Reading “He Who Controls The Gate Controls The City”
The Layers Beyond The Image Reveal Mesmerizing Rabbit Holes
They say a picture is worth a thousand words, but those thousand words often represent just the start of a great story. Here are the thousand words (and beyond) prompted by this picture.
First, just the facts. I took this picture in August of 1988. It’s just outside the medieval village of Fontecchio in the Province of Abruzzo, Italy. That’s the hometown of my father’s father. I was the first of his descendants to visit there. (My father and his sister wouldn’t get there until a year or so later.)
But it’s not like we didn’t have family there. It’s just that I didn’t know any of them, and I assumed they had no idea who I was. Indeed, during a scouting trip to Fontecchio the day before, it certainly seemed that way. After all, despite my pedigree, I felt I looked a lot less Continue Reading “The Layers Beyond The Image Reveal Mesmerizing Rabbit Holes”