I remember being eight.
Traveling down Silver Mine Road in the heat and humidity of a Brookfield, Connecticut summer. My world was small then. I played, rode a bike with no helmet, and stayed outside from morning to past dark. Going to Scott and Peter Brittingham’s home on Silver Mine Road, I never wondered why the road was called Silver Mine. It was simply the name of the path that led to playing, scraping knees and palms, and building stick forts in the woods.
As a child, I accepted my world as it was given, as if names simply are selected with no intent and simply land where they belong. It never occurred to me that Silver Mine Road triggered a mysterious prevarication, like tin treasure buried just beneath the pavement…