Recently I lost one of my grandparents, my grandfather. The first thing I did when I heard was remember all of the amazing lessons he taught me. My mind flashed back to childhood and the many times we spent together. The moment that stands out the most, over the years, has been the one at the Calico Ghost Town. My grandparents took me there when I was young, along with my mother. I always loved the Old West and cowboys and Indians growing up. And I always loved ghosts and ghost stories.
When we first arrived, I was amazed and in awe that all that I had seen in movies and on TV was true! This is what an Old West town looked like, and indeed was abandoned so the fact that it was a ghost town was even more intriguing!
While we were there, taking the tour, I got to try Sarsaparilla for the first time. It was so much better than Root beer and tasted like the Old West. While we walked around, I found a horseshoe in the dirt. I immediately bent down and picked it up. “Souvenir!” I exclaimed. It was old and rustic, obviously left behind by the inhabitants when they abandoned the town. But then my grandfather weighed in…
“You can’t take that,” he said to me, “otherwise people who visit here won’t get to see it. That is part of the history and culture of this place, the people who lived here, a hundred years ago, the things they left behind.”
But I cried and pleaded with my mother to be able to keep it. She insisted, as did grandfather, that I leave it. So after much deliberation and reluctantly, I put it back in the dirt where I found it. My grandfather had taught me a valuable lesson about selflessness.
That Christmas, I was rewarded for listening to my grandfather. I received a horseshoe from grandfather. It was brand new. I cherished it and the lesson he taught me.
eddietheauthor 