Old Times

At the last minute, I found out about a "Pioneer Day" Festival that was going on Saturday.  So we spontaneously decided to table our previous plans and go.  I'm glad we did.  

They had an Indian Dancing demonstration....

Amber wanted to see the show too.

 An old fashion gun fight....

Civil War reenactments and artisans demonstrating skills/trades of the past i.e. medical amputation procedures and sewing.  They sort-of "tied" together (bad pun I know).

Most of the people in the reenactments were from my parents or grandparents generation.  It got me to thinking.

Last month Chris lost his grandmother at 101 and my last grandparent passed last January.  With these generations passing on, I wonder who is going to help my children remember and appreciate the way life used to be?  When all they know is "the good life", never knowing real work or hardship, will they still be able to appreciate all they have?  Will they honor and appreciate the sacrifices of those who went before us to allow us to live in freedom and plenty?  I don't know, but I am certainly going to try to impart that appreciation on them.  I think festivals like this are a good way to start.  I wish my grandparents were still around to share their stories, but I do have some of them written down and hope to collect more.  It's a start.

If you have a chance to attend one of these festivals I highly suggest making the time.  The boys had fun and they learned a little too.  Maybe some day they can apprentice to learn some of these old skills.

Our day Saturday tied in a strange way to our visitor on Sunday, in that we ended up talking about the "good old days".  My Aunt Diane came for a welcomed visit.  We had not seen her since our wedding sixteen years ago.  I like to harass her about being my children's "Great Aunt", the humor comes from the fact she's only three years older than I am.  Don't feel bad for her though, she dishes it out just fine, she still calls me "Squirt" even though I've been taller than her most of my life :-)  We had a lot of fun reminiscing over our childhood antics and catching up on the happenings since.  Hopefully, it won't be as long before her next visit.