directions to the road taken

Listen. Get in your car. That's important.

Head due east for a mile until you see the tree with double trunks. Take that left there and follow straight ahead to the fenced-in pasture, then right, to the large boulder just beyond the Ford sprouting weeds. That was my grandfathers. He parked it there one day and walked away forgetting. Swing back right along the frontage road by the lake. The road will rise slightly in front of you and the gravel will become an abandoned pasture lane.

At the top it'll curve back to left and dead end. Get out. You'll walk the rest of the way. Just follow along the sun-bleached stone wall, then climb over the collapsed crumbling part up to where the mounded earth is shaped like a fresh grave as far as the eye can see.

That's it. I hope you are not lost. You'll be standing next to where the tracks used to run. The sunken rail line that took Lincoln home one last time.