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A short essay/story/memoir/??? BLINK Blink. I'm a carefree 10-year-old, riding a pony through our alfalfa fields, unknowing of any evil in the world and oblivious to the good fortune I have to be raised on this farm by loving parents. I'm just enjoying the sunshine, and then in the middle of the night, it's exciting to get up and help my mother and older sister open the irrigation gates to water the crops. On Sunday, I sneak off to attend church with my friend, where I'm the only white person in attendance. The passion in the gospel singing speaks to me. Blink. Carefree childhood vanishes and is replaced by the seriousness of a religious cult. I'm trying to do the right thing to please God but I'm constantly told I'm unworthy. Is this really true? I begin to lose the ability to laugh. The world is in the midst of the Vietnam War, and a couple of the men in our church who were drafted come back... different, shell-shocked. What happened to them? Is...
