Dear Zoe,

I’ve just returned from a visit to my hometown, where your grandparents lived, where they raised your Mom and me. It has only been a few months, maybe five, six at most, since I was last there. But, for whatever reason, it seemed like I was visiting a new town, or one that I hadn’t seen for 20 years. I saw so many changes during this visit, changes that I know didn’t happen in six months. the avalanche of slow change must have finally overtaken me, because yesterday it seemed like I became aware of the 20 years of change all at one time.

Your grandparent’s store is now a restaurant, tobacco warehouses are now breweries, other once utilitarian structures now cater to tourist scavengers looking for the new art in old tools and everyday goods.

The funny thing is that I remember the old tools, and the original uses of the buildings (which were well-established, hundred-year-old vital organs of commerce when I was your age) but yesterday I realized that the building with the built-in “Tandy Hardware” name an integral part of the facade will soon only be known as a place to buy an expensive hamburger and a beer with a quaint name. Soon, there will be no one to remember the central woodstove with the farmers talking about crop prices while warming their hands after the long ride to town for supplies. No one will know about the two children that ran those aisles, comfortable in their playhouse that smelled of creosote, tarred hemp rope and cigar smoke.

In only a few short years, no one will “know”, few will have heard, fewer will believe. And the stories, the times and all of us who have lived them will be dead. We record only the bricks of history, the mortar, the everyday living we all do is usually ignored. All I ask is that you remember us all, through your memory, so much more will retain life.

Missing you dearly,
Love,

Uncle Roy