What I Got For Christmas

 

 

 

 

 

I know it’s a bit(?) late, but I wanted to give credit where credit is firmly due.  I took the photos for this post, and thought I’d composed it.  Since I apparently didn’t, there was nothing to remind me, until I started checking photos for a different post.

As my ‘We’re Not Quite Hoarders’ and ‘Autumn Housecleaning’ posts have shown, I/we have been slowly getting rid of no-longer-needed, accumulated stuff.  I am not the most difficult old codger to buy presents for, but, barring a big lottery win by someone who wants to present me with a new house, a new car, and a new motorcycle, I have pretty much everything I need, including a fantastic family.

Almost two years ago, my ingenious grandson, flush with paychecks from his welding apprentice work placement, presented me for my birthday with the ‘En Garde Coupon’ shown above, good for $500 toward any knife I’d like to purchase.

Highly grateful, but ever the pragmatist, I didn’t feel I wanted to bring more stuff into the house at this point in my life.  I can look at beautiful knives, and even handle them, but I had a thought about using a trip through Pennsylvania, Ohio and Michigan to attend a knife show, and meet a couple of fellow-bloggers.  He generously agreed to co-sponsor the trip.

For any who haven’t read them, the antics and adventures of that trip are available in The Fellowship Of The Blog series, beginning with the Prologue.

The trip occurred in October, 2014, but Government bureaucracy stupidity delayed the grant check for his college tuition and texts, forcing him to raid his savings account until it finally arrived.  By Christmas, he still hadn’t said or done anything about the promised amount.  I knew of his problems, didn’t mind about it, and had almost forgotten.

 

 

 

 

 

Then came Christmas!  When it came time to distribute presents, he handed me the above box.  It wasn’t very heavy.  Perhaps it was another of the always-handy, and much-appreciated, Chapters Bookstore gift cards.

 

 

 

 

 

When I opened the box and looked inside, I realized how ingenious and devious he was.  Aided and abetted by his devious and ingenious mother (Can I take any credit for this??), they had carefully rolled up and inserted two new $50 bills, and twenty new $20 bills – the full $500, as promised.

    

 

 

The new Canadian polymer plastic bills do not take kindly to being rolled up – or anything else – quickly flattening back out.  The daughter got out her bag of clip-type clothespins.  They would roll up a bill, clip it to hold it, and insert it in the box.  Clip, insert, clip, insert, until all 22 bills were in, and the box was full(?).  Then they carefully removed the clips.  To a guy whose idea of presentation was to leave some suckers in the paper bag I got them in from an old Mennonite, this just awed me!  (And I’m odd enough.)

Ladies and gentlemen, let’s have a round of applause and appreciation for ‘Thorn’ Smith!  I already profusely thanked him at Christmas, but feel he deserves a digital acknowledgement and congratulation also.  ‘As the twig is bent, so grows the tree’, and this tree is growing strong and true.

He is a kind and thoughtful young man, who treats his Poppa (and everyone else) well.

Thanx again, Kid!  Feel free to show this off on your smart phone till the battery dies.   😀