An afternoon spent with my Mother and an opportunity to go over ground that was familiar and ground that was new.

The familiar came with Uncle Clem. “Did you know he had shrapnel in his lungs?” asked my mother.

I did, although when I was young I would have had no real idea of what shrapnel meant, nor had any conception of what he might have gone through to suffer such injuries.

Uncle Clem was truly avuncular, an Uncle who understood that small boys enjoyed mischief. With laughter, he would …