On the road again, me and an old codger, he a spry octogenarian.

We were following e-mail leads from Conway readers commenting on last week’s column about my visit to Conway’s first cellar hole, that of Cyrus Rice, circa 1763, now hidden in a manicured 350-acre wood lot. The tips led me to Shirkshire, to Poland, then a return to the Rice site for a guided tour by the owners, pleasant academics with warm affection for their land. And what is there not to love about it: cellar holes; a classic well; a spring hole nestled into a depression between two hemlock spines; discontinued 18th-century roads, likely former indigenous trails; even a stately, stone Seven-Mile-Line bound buried deep in the woods behind the old Otto Farm, which started its decline around 1960? That’s when owners Bill and Helena, and son Bill, started to fade. By 1965, both Bills were gone; Helena eight years later. Soon the big dairy barn and silos were gone and the farmhouse had melted into the background, along a well-traveled road, like so many before and after it. Some call it progress. I call it sad. Slow death by industrial revolution; the final days of family farming aimed at subsistence. Once prevalent in the valley and its rolling hills, family farms kept the countryside fresh and fertile, the meats and produce salubrious; organic, no preservatives or poisons. No wonder our ancestors worked so hard and lived so long before we discovered a ”better way,” one that polluted the earth, air and water in a greedy race to riches. But let’s not digress; back to my recent tips and trips, 87-year-old Harry Stafursky in tow, soaking it all in.

Harry grew up on Stafursky Farm, once a square, dual-chimney, hipped-roofed, colonial tavern that served North Shirkshire residents and passersby alike. The building is long gone, burned to the ground in the Sixties or early Seventies. The image in the minds of those who remember it is two massive chimneys standing sentry over the site. The few who remember the whole spread are getting fewer, soon to vanish like the buildings. But Harry remembers it well, lived it, cherishes the memories. So it was interesting to bring him along to view the remains of a large, early farm and mill site on the property of a neighboring landowner, a reader of this space, by chance a distant cousin of mine through the 1749 union of Jonathan Edson and Mehetable Lillie. Yes, a small world indeed, this Pioneer Valley; kinfolk up the ying-yang if you pay attention to such things. I do. Can’t get enough of it. If you don’t know who you are, what’s the sense of living? That’s the outlook that fills my sails.

But, back to the Shirkshire dwelling’s cellar hole, massive hearthstone capping a pile of rubble that once served as the footing for a large, walk-in colonial fireplace; nearby, the stone-clad remains of a significant barn; still farther down the discontinued road, remains of a major dam and millpond, presumably a sawmill and impoundment that provided lumber for construction, ice and sawdust for the milk house. The brook feeds Bear River. Know it well. Often fished the outflow by the bridge as a young man; productive. Who knows who lived there and built this dam? I’d like to piece it all together. The information is at the Registry of Deeds. Another day. No time now.

The next day, Sunday afternoon, we traveled to another part of town, unannounced, me and Harry, in search of the e-mailer whose husband had turned up a derringer in an uprooted tree near his North Poland home; entertainment for both of us, Harry and me. Uplifting.

We arrived at the intersection of Bullitt Road and North Poland and I looked around, trying to figure out which house it was. Then I remembered my dogs, three of them, cooped-up in their porta-kennels since Greenfield, anxious for a hilltown romp, maybe a swim. So we headed up Bullitt Road, toward a reservation, and followed a farm road into a mature hayfield, where we parked and released the animals, eager to scope out the area, figure out what critters had passed through. The dogs sprang through the field, noses on full alert, frolicking, as Harry and I remarked on the beautiful landscape and pleasant change in the air following a deluge.

As we spoke, I noticed chartreuse on the dirt road, then a capped horseback rider trotting up the road. She passed and I whistled the dogs into their crates before heading down the trail toward the road, where we bumped into the rider, doubling back. I stopped and asked if she knew anything about a derringer. She asked if I was Gary. We chatted briefly. She described where she lived, said she’d be along shortly. Harry was amused, tickled by the developments, the method to my madness, how it all seemed to come together on a wing and a prayer. I too was amused in a playful manner. I love hunting, finding things.

We pulled into the woman’s yard, got out of the car and waited. Soon the chartreuse was headed up the long U-shaped driveway. She pulled into the stable at the bend and put her Arabian horse up for the night before walking our way. She invited us in and showed us photos of the derringer, said she was expecting her husband, in the upper meadow, only he could open the safe. We went out on the deck to chat, then heard a tractor approaching. It was him, returning home. We exchanged pleasantries as he approached and he went inside to retrieve the rusty derringer, wooden handles rotted off, circa 1865, Springfield Armory, interesting relic. Who knows? Maybe the corpse was nearby.

When he returned with the pistol, we engaged in lively chat, dancing from one subject to another, Harry right in the middle of it, visibly pleased with the chatter. Then, when he started praising me and my interests, I stopped him, told him it was time to go, didn’t want to wear out our welcome or stir up my wife waiting at home, always a convenient excuse.

We hit the road and I drove Harry back to his place in Greenfield, a meandering route through Conway and Deerfield. In his parking lot, I declined a friendly invitation upstairs. He wanted to show me something. There would be another day. Maybe another Shirkshire jaunt, perhaps Cricket Hill, home of Conway historian Deane Lee, Harry’s late schoolmate, maybe even a visit to Cy’s cellar, South Part, Henhawk Trail. Who knows where our whims will take us? Who cares? It’s never boring, can be invigorating, often providing impetus for new journeys that keep life interesting, the mind active.

It’s all about discovery, equally satisfying for young and old. First, though, you must embrace it, and it you.

Harry knows.

Me too.