Dad's boots.

Silas turned one on Saturday.

We had a small get together at the house. Mostly family and really close friends just getting together to eat cake and ice cream. Although Ellie was excited for the birthday party, Silas doesn't quite "get it" yet.

He was just happy to have cake, and seemed to think it was weird that everyone crowded in the kitchen to watch him eat.

Anyhoo... Although Silas got waaaayyyy too much for Christmas, and his birthday get together was specifically advertised as "no gifts please"... He got some anyway...

One gift in particular though needs to be mentioned...

From his Great-Papaw Ruggles ( my Dad's dad ) Silas got a pair of black cowboy boots.

Here they are...



Some pretty snazzy kicks for a guy who can't even walk on his own yet... They're a little big for him, but at the rate he is growing he'll be running around in them in no time...

The boots themselves are a nice gift, but what makes these boots special is that Papaw Ruggles gave them to me, more than twenty-five years ago.

This is me, wearing them. I would guess myself to be between two and three in this photo.



After I outgrew the boots, Papaw made sure they got passed on to my brother. Then he made sure they got passed on to our cousins Kristopher and Matthew who each wore them until they wouldn't fit anymore.

I probably hadn't given the boots a second thought from the time I was two, until Silas pulled them out of the bag on Saturday, and here Papaw had re-claimed them when Matthew grew out of them and polished them up, and put them away, and waited until he had a great-grandson to pass them on to... And now, more than twenty five years after his daddy wore them Silas will be stomping around the house in them.

How cool is that.

Oh... in that photo of me I had just received a fancy new farm tractor to peddle around on. My brother and sister and I played on that tractor inside and out until we were all too big for it, and then it dissapeared.

Well... Here is a photo of Ellie playing on the tractor at Papaw's house when she was about a year-and-a-half old...



It won't be much longer and I suspect that Silas will be inheriting another one of Dad's old toys.

I just hope that we can take as good care of them as my my Papaw did, so that one of these days when I'm Papaw-Ruggles I can pass on to my Ellie & Silas's kids and grand-kids toys that belonged to their mom and dad when they were that age.