Gift Ideas

I've written before about my dad's monikered cows and his expertise with the flipper. What I've not mentioned is how gracious he was about gifts I gave him over the years.

Once as a kid, short on creativity, I asked my mother for a gift idea for Dad. She suggested handkerchiefs or carpenter pencils. Cowboys called them neckerchiefs. Motorcycle riders called them bandanas. Farmers called them handkerchiefs, and Dad was surely a farmer.

For probably ten years in a row my dad got either a blue or red handkerchief or a carpenter pencil from me for his birthday and Christmas, sometimes both. I remember wrapping the pencil inside a handkerchief even.  He always acted so surprised and so delighted, like he didn't have a stache of them all over the house and like he actually needed one that very day! Handkerchiefs lasted quite a long time even through weekly washing and ironing of the laundry. Sometimes they were even starched, though I can't think now why.

BUT, even if somebody went crazy with the knife used to sharpen those carpenter pencils by hand, they must have lasted virtually forever to a farmer. He might have found ways to use them twice a month tops. No doubt more time was spent sharpening them than using them to mark lines.  If he'd had time to think about it, he would probably have designed a small picket fence out of them.

Sorry, Dad, but thanks for being such a good sport.