Those photos taken and handled by relatives are a tactile connection to the past, along with old news clippings and articles. One is about my great-grandfather, a muleskinner who hit the mother lode on a Cripple Creek mining claim before being shot dead in a barroom gambling dispute. The picture of him bleeding out on the saloon floor is a dark family heirloom of sorts. But there were other less dramatic stories, including one about a different great-grandfather, a man named Charles White, who moved to Prescott, Arizona, in 1928.

The news clipping describes him as “a dapper, warm and witty man whose eyes smiled with his lips; a specialist in livestock banking.” At the time, Arizona ranches faced tough times, “with depression at the door and drought crossing the fence line,” as the Prescott paper put it. Local banks saved many a ranch back then, and part of Mr. White’s job was to assess ranches requesting loans in order to discover their “problems and potential.”

If he were alive today I imagine he’d struggle to assess the viability of livestock operations, due to the tremendous uncertainty wrought by climate change. A challenging climate is not unique to the arid West, of course, where drought always lurked. Recently I met a Wisconsin farmer dealing with too much water: A summer storm dropped 9 inches of rain, leaving cars and trucks afloat and crops ruined. As sublimely fascinating as such extremes are in the abstract, these are not just news stories. Behind them are real people and real consequences.

Old photos can be few and far between. Back in the day I’d think twice about taking one, because buying and developing film was expensive. A family trip might be documented with just a dozen images, maybe less with a Polaroid. With 10 photos per $8 cartridge (about $30 today), deciding to take a Polaroid was similar to the thinking going into long-distance landline telephone calls. Get out the egg timer and turn it over: Three minutes and you’d better be done with the call by then–or until the quarters ran out in the phone booth! If you wanted to talk to some romantic interest for an hour, they better be local. No lying on the sofa, twisting that rubbery, coiled handset cord around your finger during a lengthy long-distance chat with someone miles away.

In the late 1980s and early ’90s, Kodak was still betting the farm on selling and processing film, amidst the gathering digital revolution. In 1991, Bill Gates famously said, “Kodak is toast,” in a meeting with Warren Buffett. Gates was right, and I wonder if future generations will spend time scrolling through online albums. Maybe. Younger generations seem happy reading, shopping and hanging out with friends online. So maybe there’s no cause for concern. Future family historians will be digital unless there’s a scrapbooker in the mix.

Still, the casual, noncurated nature of photographs and clippings scattered on a countertop invites reflection. That faded news clipping about great-grandfather White describes him visiting the ranch of a good bank customer, a Mexican-American whose ancestors drove their cattle overland from California in territorial times. Mr. White felt the family had a well-run ranch, and was inclined to approve the loan, familiar as he was with the signs of overgrazing or inflated calf tallies less well-managed ranches might try to hide. Heading back to his car he said, “Mr. Chavez, you have a good, well-run ranch here, all you really need is a little more dependable water supply.” As the story goes, the old vaquero smiled. “Mr. White,” he said, “all hell needs is water.”

This laconic Old West response is worth keeping in mind as Utah’s drought continues. Lake Powell is now at 31% of capacity and hydrologists think we’re two decades into a megadrought cycle. Further declines mean the level will be below the water intakes for power generation and releasing water into the Grand Canyon. Here in northern Utah, the Great Salt Lake teeters on the edge of becoming Zion’s Dust Bowl.

Maybe there’s a water pipeline from Wisconsin in our future. Maybe temperatures will moderate. Maybe the snow and rain will return and fill the lakes, north and south. Maybe it’s helpful to keep in mind the droughts of a century ago, realizing droughts are part of life in the West. But more likely is the notion that “all hell needs is water” will hit uncomfortably close to home.

Save those photos and news clippings in your wicker baskets. Save them in the electronic version of a wicker basket. Break them out from time to time and share them with your family. They are a way to ponder the past and wonder about our future.

Hal Crimmel is a Brady Presidential Distinguished Professor of English who served for nine years as chair of the English department at Weber State University. This commentary is provided through a partnership with Weber State. The views expressed by the author do not necessarily represent the institutional values or positions of the university.