A series of pictures and factoids for Create's NaJoPoMo Challenge.

In the early 1970s, my dad announced that he, my mother, and my youngest sister were moving to Elmira, New York. It was a work transfer. He and my mom had to fly up there to look at housing. I warned him to be careful of the real estate up there: most people didn't know that part of the town was built over the site of a Civil War prison camp, in which almost 3,000 Confederate soldiers had died.

When they got back from house hunting, my mother was disgusted with both of us. 'Why did you have to tell him that?' she demanded. 'Guess what he told the real estate lady, first thing?' I groaned. I should have known to beware of my dad's reaction to historical titbits.

It's true, though. Elmira had a massive POW camp during the Civil War. Like all Civil War camps, North or South, the place was a scene of unimaginable misery. 12,000 soldiers endured cold, sickness, and bad (or scarce) food. In the 1860s, nobody had figured out the logistics, and the Geneva Convention hadn't been heard of yet. It was a tragic time.

Elmira today is better known as the sometime residence of Mr Mark Twain, who gave his study – a fancy gazebo shaped like a pilot house – to Elmira College. And the place where one of the Beechers used to preach. It's a hop, skip, and a jump from Corning, where they make the pretty glass.

I don't know whether my advice had anything to do with it (probably not), but my parents ended up buying their house in the nearby locality with the euphonious n ame of Horseheads.

So, for the next ten years, I had to admit to friends that my parents lived in Horseheads, New York. It could have been worse. They could have moved to Big Flats.