I once asked my grandfather, Fannin Shaw, if the stories he told us from the past, those about his dad, A.V. Shaw, his own experiences, and those of family, friends, and the surrounding community were true. His response always held a certain gravity in my mind about the power of stories and their place in our efforts to share and understand what has come before us in our history, what will come after, and where we fit within it all.

"They are, even if they aren't," he said. Good old grandfather wisdom: just enough to confuse you as a kid, but leave an indelible mark for the rest of your life, only to be understood more completely the further you progress through it as an adult.

At Lost Cannon Stories the approach to presenting history and its stories encompasses two parallel running efforts: learning about and sharing the historical facts that can be researched, verified and referenced by sources, and collecting and sharing the stories told about such occurrences that convey personal emotions, individual experiences, and even lessons of life.

In the research and collecting of historical facts we are able to lay a stable foundation to stand upon for a clear and concise understanding and teaching of what occurred; and in our stories we can find a spark of significance that compels us to share and pass on these certain moments of the human experience.

Individually both approaches may not paint the most perfect picture of the past, but together they can support one another in the places where they both inevitably form gaps due to time, events, and the imaginative tendencies of the human mind.

I think my grandfather understood all too well that even though the stories he and others told of the past sometimes veered towards the unbelievable and dubious, that there was still always more than a grain of truth to every tale; and an essence that serves as an entry point beckoning the listener to venture off into the past for knowledge and lessons, to dig up and fill in the gaps of the existing parts of it all, and maybe even along the way create a few stories of their own.