Memory Cards is a journey down a dusty rural road, but also back in time to where as late as the 1980s, neighbors still used mules for transportation and outhouses for other necessities. There is plenty to see, hear and smell, from the oppressive heat and pungent smell of row upon row of tobacco, to the mobile library that brought air conditioning and the aroma of paper, glue and binding each week of the summer. The author grew up in a functional family, but with different interests than his siblings, particularly ones that offered unknown prospects.

As the road from the farm widens,...