Excerpt No. 0015
Leave Better Notes
Every generation inherits something.
Sometimes it's a ranch.
Sometimes it's a mortgage.
Sometimes it's a watch.
Sometimes it's a last name.
But the most valuable things I've inherited couldn't be held in my hands.
They were conversations.
Observations.
Habits.
Stories told while fixing a fence.
Lessons shared from the passenger seat of an old pickup.
Most of them were never written down.
There are things my father taught me that I'll never forget.
Not because he sat me down for a lecture.
Because he lived them.
I watched.
I listened.
I paid attention.
That's how most knowledge has always been passed from one generation to the next.
Not in classrooms.
In fields.
In workshops.
At kitchen tables.
Side by side.
But every generation loses something.
A phrase nobody says anymore.
A trick that only Grandpa knew.
The reason a gate was built where it was.
The story behind an old oak tree.
One day, someone realizes the only person who knew the answer is no longer here to ask.
That's how knowledge disappears.
Not all at once.
One forgotten story at a time.
I've thought about that more than I'd like to admit.
Not because I'm afraid of getting older.
Because I'm afraid of forgetting something that mattered.
Something that could have helped someone fifty years from now.
A lesson that took twenty harvests to learn shouldn't have to be learned all over again.
That's why these pages exist.
Not because I think my life is extraordinary.
Because ordinary days are where the best lessons usually hide.
A note about frost.
A sentence my dad said.
A mistake I made.
A morning that changed the way I looked at a vineyard.
Those are the things worth preserving.
I hope one day my children add their own pages.
I hope they disagree with me once in a while.
I hope they discover things I never noticed.
That won't diminish this Almanac.
It will prove it's alive.
Knowledge shouldn't be frozen.
It should grow, just like a vineyard.
If you're reading this and you're not a Saarloos, I hope you do the same thing for your family.
Write things down.
Tell the stories.
Label the old photographs.
Ask your parents the questions you've been meaning to ask.
Save the recipe.
Record the joke your grandfather always told.
Don't wait until the voice is gone to wish you had listened more carefully.
Because one day, someone you haven't met yet will wonder what life was like.
What you believed.
What mattered to you.
How you solved problems.
How you loved your family.
What you learned from your work.
Leave them better notes than the ones you inherited.
Filed Away
Legacy isn't measured by what you leave behind.
It's measured by how much of yourself others can still learn from after you're gone.
Keith Saarloos
Farmer
Saarloos & Sons
