I’ve been going through old papers, finding papers 100 years old to the day…

This is a warranty deed, this a homestead filing, that a mortgage.

No stories.

Just names we’ve heard for years.

Signatures in ink… real ink… dipped, bold to fading…

Surprised that the man I pictured as rough and tumble had great handwriting… the ones that had scribbled signatures reflected age and a shaky hand… tiny printing that is still a trait of the Greet males…

It is fun

and enlightening

and historically significant for us, at least.

And then the pictures.

Not one hundred years old, but old.

I look at boots,

and saddles,

and hats,

and horses,

and dogs.

But more, the background.  I can walk over and stand in this place in a couple of minutes.  I think more than anything… it is *that* the connects us to those people and their stories from before.  That any essence that was theirs might linger in that spot… and I can walk to it… and breathe in… and share those old tales.