I had the great fortune this weekend to be able to take Saoirse and Ula to the Revolutionary War reinactment at the Old Stone Fort in the nearby village of Schoharie. This is the second time we have attended one of these reinactments, and each time, I am moved by the service and dedication of these volunteers. They spend their own money (thousands of dollars) to acquire replica clothing, put their hands to work producing replica artifacts, and spend their weekend camping and cooking and living as they might have during the revolutionary war. They devote themselves to a study of history that tells not just what happened, but why and how.

We often think of “community service” in terms of volunteer firemen, EMTs, town council members, hospital volunteers, elected offices. But often, we forget about the community service of our story keepers, the ones who help us to understand who we are, where we came from, how we got here. Yesterday, we watched a reinactment of the burning of the Schoharie Valley. Saoirse, Ula and I, numbed by dry accounts of this historical event in our history books, suddenly found ourselves crying as we watched a battle play out on the farmland that defines Schoharie County’s way of life. For a few moments, we looked back at our past and recognized the same issues, the same fears, the same loves that define our world today.

This morning, I am feeling thankful for the story keepers who tirelessly brought it forward for us.