Flashlights

It seems that as years go buy thinking of gift ideas for birthdays and holidays gets to be more and more of a challenge. For me the most difficult idea is a birthday present for dad. My dad had worked very hard his entire life. He worked a full time factory job as well as farmed on the side to make bridal jewelry. This did not leave any extra time for developing any hobbies. When he retired from his job and rented out the farm land he did not know what to do with his time. My mother was excited that he was going to have time; however it is not easy to develop hobbies for the first time when you are sixty five.

When he was close to retirement I asked mom for ideas for a birthday present for dad but certainly not groomsmen gifts. She said that I should look for some type of hobby for him to get into. I called one of my sisters and we agreed that we would go to a local hobby shop together to see if we could find a birthday present for dad. There were many interesting hobbies in the shop, but none of them seemed to fit our dad’s interest our personality. My sister thought that he might enjoy putting together models. They did have models of tractors and farm equipment, but I just could not picture our dad sitting and gluing these pieces together. They had a set of whittling tools that were used to carve things out of wood. My dad had whittled willow tree whistles for us when we were kids, so we thought maybe he would do this. We decided that the whittling tools would be our birthday present for dad. The man at the hobby shop suggested buying some nice pieces of wood for dad to start with. He also showed us a book of patterns that could be used for ideas.

On the day of his birthday we had a barbeque at our parent’s house. I had wrapped the birthday present for dad so I carried it in and set it by the cake my mother had made. She immediately asked what we bought. She is worse than a child when it comes to surprises, she cannot stand not knowing what is in a gift. My sister and I told her that she would have to wait to see his wedding cufflinks. My dad gave us a wink because he knew that he would be able to open his gifts sooner if mom did not know what was in them. He was right my mom decided that dad he should open one of his presents before we ate our picnic dinner. My dad has always loved to tease my mom so he said he would open the present that she gave him. This prompted her to have him open all of his presents. He was very excited about the whittling tools. He cut a willow branch and made the grandchildren willow whistles. My sister and I agreed that our birthday present for dad was a great idea.

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