From KCRW and KCRW.com, I'm Bob Carlson, and this is Unfictional.

Unfictional is KCRW's program of stories and original documentaries from KCRW's independent

producer project, a laboratory for independent radio producers, writers, and performers.

And today on the program, there are mysteries to solve.

Sudden appearances and unexpected disappearances.

Two stories about searching for something that doesn't exist anymore, but then kind of finding it anyway.

You ever see one of those embroidered pillows that say,

home is where the heart is?

Well, for most of her life, writer Margie Rocklin

has kept a piece of her heart on a patch of desert land

500 miles from her house.

And then comes the day when something incredible happens there.

Is it supernatural or just Earth Science?

My father was born in 1922 in a three bedroom red brick house on a hill about three miles outside of Nogales, a tiny town on the Arizona-Mexico border.

He lived in that same house on that same hill until he was

18 years old. After that he went to college, then he enlisted in the Air Force,

then he went back to college again, which is where he met my mother.

When he was 26 he and my mother moved to Los Angeles and they started a family

and eventually Los Angeles became home but no galle, it was our emotional center.

Today people hear Nogales and they think drug smuggling

and border fences and human trafficking.

But back then, with my my family it was Mecca.

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