I don’t keep much on my desk.

That’s not to say my desk is clean, mind you — I’m a believer in the “piles mean I'm organized!” model — but simply that I don’t clutter my work area with an overwhelming number of personal effects. A picture of my wife, a picture of my son, a candy dish full of baseball cards (more fun than Werther’s!), and that’s really about it.

There’s an outlier, though — a black and white Polaroid that sits nestled in the slats of my desk wall. It’s of three people, all in their various iterations of their Sunday best. The woman closest to the camera is carrying her purse; the man in the middle, sporting glasses and a mustache, is carrying a small lunchbox; the woman on the far end has her coat draped over her right arm. They’re all striding past the camera, offering a genuine smile.

On the back of the Polaroid, scribbled in my grandmother’s handwriting, reads “Nov. 1950”. I know it’s my grandmother’s handwriting because A) I’ve spent my entire life trying to decipher her font, a whimsical and looping cyclone of ink that’s equal parts beautiful and eye-straining; and B) because that’s her on the far end, carrying her coat. She’s walking next to my grandfather.

It’s my mom’s parents — Herman and Valaree — and they’re on their way to a football game with a friend. You could often find Herman out at a local high school football game near their Oak Cliff home, with his bride tagging along more for the halftime festivities than the in-game action. Same goes for his alma mater SMU; the photo shows the trio off to watch the Mustangs play at Ownby Stadium under first-year coach H.N. Russell, who guided SMU to a blistering 5-0 start and a national No. 1 overall ranking before eventually finishing the 1950 season at 6-4.

I often find myself sitting at my desk, daydreaming while looking at that photograph. There are so many things I want to know: which game were they going to? What’s in the lunchbox (my mother theorizes it could be sandwiches, or a small bottle of Old Charter, my grandfather’s favorite bourbon)? What was the weather like? How was the halftime show, DeeDee?

I also find myself thinking about that photo when I head into a football game pretty much anywhere in Texas, be it at a tiny 2A stadium or the hulking behemoth of Kyle Field, whether it’s deep in the pines east or in the sands out west. Here I am, making that same walk — for the same reasons — my grandparents did 70 years ago.

That’s the magic. Football is a connective tissue that binds generations of Texans together; a common thread we each wrap around our finger to feel a tug from days gone by; a touchstone we all return to every autumn to feel a part of something bigger.

Over the next 20 weeks, there will be gallons of ink spilled and hours of breath expelled on the players and the games and the coaches and the matchups and the implications and the results, and all of that matters.

But this moment, on the precipice of another season, is an opportunity to acknowledge our place in the great Texas football continuum. It’s our game in the same way it was their game 10 years ago, 50 years ago, 100 years ago. The details and degrees may have changed, but the touchstone of football in Texas remains untouched and undisturbed.

I think a lot about what it would be like to walk with my grandparents on that crisp day in Dallas, to offer to carry my grandmother’s coat, to find out what’s in my grandfather’s lunchbox. Then again, in a way, I’ll walk with them to the stadium this autumn, and every autumn to come.

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Greg Tepper is the managing editor of Dave Campbell's Texas Football and TexasFootball.com. He's entering his seventh season with Fox Sports Southwest as an on-air analyst. Follow him on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram.