If This Old Jar Could Talk

We have two peach trees, so recently bottled some peaches.  I was intrigued by this old canning jar that was among our bottles, so I got online to find out more about it. Wow!  That opened a whole world to me that I didn't even know existed.  People pay big bucks for vintage jars!  This one is especially rare, as the Drey glass company didn't exist for too long.  Drey was purchased by Ball.  They just used the same glass stamping machines, but added their "PERFECT MASON"  stamp. There is a whole culture out there of people who buy and sell vintage canning jars.  Who knew?

But to me, the  value of this old jar is who's shelf it has been on, who's hands have held it and popped it's lid to feed hungry little one it's store of cherries or peaches or pears or applesauce.  Ken's family have been bottlers from way back, so who knows?  I do know that Ken's dad had an orchard, and his grandfather made a living by peddling fruit.  In our early marriage, we spent many a day in Hurricane, bottling with the extended family.  Grandpa would build a big bonfire and we'd sit outside at tables and peel and bottle fruit.  Grandpa would put our filled bottles in huge washtubs filled with water and process the fruit over the bonfire.  It was hard, but unifying work.  Those bottling parties were just part of the Hinton family culture.  Ken can remember the juice running down to his elbows as he helped as just a tiny child.  Wouldn't it be fun to know this bottle's history? I wonder if Ken's mom dumped and strained peaches from it to make her famous peach cobbler to feed her seven hungry boys.  She'd make two huge pans of it at once, and it would all be gone at the end of the meal.   I wish it could talk and tell me where it's been and who it's seen.
  I wasn't even surprised that it sealed just fine and it now sits on a shelf in my basement storage room.  I think I'll save it until my grandkids are visiting so I can tell them about this special bottle while they consume it's contents.  I hope Nathan will visit because he loves canned peaches and slurps them down so fast, you can't believe it.  He definitely has Hinton blood and my mom's blood- she also loved canned peaches.  I'll pass on the tradition of peaches and bottling and sharing and family.  I think that's what canning is all about.