I am pretty sentimental and find it almost impossible to give some things away. I tend to keep old letters and pictures. Yesterday, I was cleaning the storage shed of the articles left behind by the people who sold the house. The sons are now in their fifties but their mother had saved the most precious of their toys. There was a boy doll with a cloth body, a battered teddy bear and a few other stuffed toys. They must have meant so much to her.

It is sad to think that what we have treasured will for the most part end up in estate sales. It makes hunters and gatherers like me stop and think how little substance there is to material things.

One of the best things handed down to us has been my great grandfather's letters. He wrote them to my great grandmother when he was traveling to Oklahoma to homestead. We are so fortunate that my great gran saved them. He tells of all the hardships he and his oldest son endured on the way, the price of things he was going to get for their new home, (5.00 for a wood burning cook stove) and the price of new shoes. A lot of things have been lost such as his Civil War diary. He joined the Confederate army at sixteen and was one of the early Texas Rangers. One of
my great Aunts died and her children haven't gone through her stuff, they just left it packed up in the basement. She
had the sense to save a lot of history.

Maybe we should learn from that and write our stories for those that come after us. They won't end up in an estate sale or in someone's old shed to be carelessly tossed away.