This post is to give a shout-out the ad team at POST Shredded Wheat. Arguably one of the best advertizing campains I have ever seen. Truly funny.
Frank Druffle (I am a fan on Facebook) is the president of POST Shredded Wheat and telling his group at POST that this is the day and age of a reversal of progress. It is hiliarious.
Here is the link:
http://www.thepalaceoflight.com/
Here are some of the best lines:
Progress is overrated, Progress is a menace. Progress has turned rainwater into foul water, rainforest into landfill and the sun, the source of all life, into a weapon of mass destruction.
Civilizations are destroyed by achievement.
The Mayans fell on their spears striving for it.
The Romans took a bad turn on their road to ever onward
No sooner had the Pharaohs built those freakish triangles and giant cement cats they flushed themselves down the Nile.
We can’t even find comfort in our food anymore. Progress has pushed molecules ahead meals, hormones over homegrown and our cattle into clones.
Henry Perking created Shredded Wheat in 1892. Soon after the automobile was invented. Since 1892 Shredded wheat has done nothing to reinvent itself while the automobile has reinvented itself over and over to become the menace to society that it is today.
You don’t see Shredded Wheat putting holes in the Ozone layer do you?
Nor will you ever see POST beg the government for a bailout.
Our reckless pursuit of progress is absurd.
The foundation of our economic structure is reliant on one thing an endless supply of resources, you combine that with population growth, well you just have global foolishness. We at POST are doing something right…..nothing.
Here is another
Advertising
Advertising
Advertising is why everyone is broke. Advertizing shows good looking, happy successful people with stuff we can’t afford so we borrow money from the banks to buy these ‘happy makers’ only to find ourselves less happy because now we are in debt and despair because of the car that didn’t get us respect or the second story that didn’t make the neighbors jealous or the meal that just really didn’t bring the family together.
Advertising confuses affluence. Affluence in some countries is two cows and a really big wife. Here, affluence is two sports cars and a wife so thin she just blows over in a 20 knot gust. How the hell did our society get to the point where being malnourished was a goal? I’ll tell you…..advertising.
This is why I got into marketing in the first place. Truly entertaining advertizing. This is the reason people don't get up and get another cold one from the fridge, they WANT to see this.
If you watch these and don't see the absolute truth and hilarity in them, you are broken. Whatever is wrong with you, it is no small thing.
Sunday, May 31, 2009
Tuesday, May 26, 2009
Stories of my youth...I should have died.
It has been weeks since I have really blogged....just a lot of life going on and not a lot of living going on.
**Update**
Dog - About to have puppies any minute. I hope I am home when she does.
Kids - All still alive with appropriate apendages attached. (Wow...check out the alliteration on that line....didn't plan it either.)
Wife - Awesome, greatest ever....
Work - Still working.
I have something that I thought I would share. My Dad sent this to me and reading this....I not only remember doing some (if not all) of these but I can see a couple of my kids doing them and my heart sank. (I added some of my own experiences at the end.)
Things That Could Have Killed Me
It's amazing any of us survived childhood.
By ROBIN HEMLEY
Friends and acquaintances sometimes remark that the world is more dangerous now for kids than "when we were growing up." Cut to images of happy kids frolicking through fields of sunflowers.
Not in my childhood. I don't think the world has ever been a particularly safe place for anyone, certainly not kids. I spent large swaths of my childhood unsupervised and getting into whatever trouble I could find. I seem to remember coming home for meals, at least breakfast and dinner. For lunch, I ducked into whatever friend's house I could find. There were certain obligations between parents and children when I was a kid, but more in line with a treaty observance by two wary nations than an actual desire to spend time together.
A brief catalogue of "things that could have killed me" while trotting around unsupervised when I was a kid:
- There was a 30-foot bluff at the end of my street in Athens, Ohio. A wire (not electric apparently) of some sort went from the bluff's ledge to the roof of a liquor store below. When I was five, my neighbor friend, a girl named Vonnie, and I decided to suspend ourselves over this bluff by the wire. We hung over the liquor store's parking lot for a minute or so before tiring and deciding to find some other deadly amusement.
- I built a bomb when I was nine. I rooted around under the sink and poured every chemical I could find (this was the 1960s, chemicals were never in short supply) and poured them into a Windex bottle and made a fuse out of a shoelace. Then I went outside and placed the bottle in a field full of dry brush. I didn't think it would work. It did. I set the field on fire, but luckily I was able to stamp it out before it spread and burned down the neighborhood. My sneakers melted.
- I bought a lot of illegal fireworks. I used to spend part of my summer at my grandmother Ida's beach house in Long Beach, N.Y. One summer, my friends Vince Tucci, Tommy Alfazy, and I became addicted to illegal fireworks that we bought from a woman whose basement was stuffed with fireworks. We called her The Firecracker Lady. Everyday, we would go down to the beach and blow up our plastic soldiers. That stopped when the Firecracker Lady was arrested and our supply dried up.
- I liked to disappear into the apartments of strangers. There was an apartment building near our house called the Athens Apartments. I used to go trick or treating there. A lot of students from Ohio University lived in the apartments, including a couple of guys I called The Rat People. These guys bred lab rats and their apartment was full of rats in cages.
I thought they were cool and I used to hang out at their apartment for hours playing with the rats. Then I'd go dumpster diving in the large trash bins outside the apartment complex, looking for cool things. My mother had no idea about any of this.
I could go on, but the point is that childhood was dangerous. Maybe not as dangerous as Dickens-era London, but still, I'm lucky I survived it. Some of my friends didn't, including poor Tommy Alfazy. One day, shortly after I had returned to Athens from Long Beach, he and Vince built a fort in the sand covered with boards and more sand. It collapsed, smothering him. I wish I could reach back now and tell Tommy and Vince not to build that fort, but would they listen to me, a grown-up?
Perhaps that's why I can be forgiven for being a little on the overprotective side when it comes to raising my four daughters. My wife Margie makes fun of me when we're at the airport and one of my older daughters (ages 15 and 17) excuses herself to find the restroom. It's all I can do to stop myself from following and posting guard at the door. Most often, I squirm for a bit while Margie cuts me sideways glances and then bursts out laughing when she sees my discomfort.
Generally, I give in to my paranoia, despite my wife's ridicule. My worry, of course, is absurd. But it's hard for me to accept the notion that, really, no one is safe and no one ever has been. Instead, I fall back on easy falsehoods. "You don't understand," I have told Margie, much to my discredit. "The world isn't like it was when we were kids."
Mr. Hemley is the author, most recently, of "Do-Over!: In which a forty-eight-year-old father of three returns to kindergarten, summer camp, the prom, and other embarrassments," just published by Little, Brown.
I don't have to tell anyone who knows much about us that I am over protective, very cautious with my kids...and I am the reason why. I know the crazy crap I did as a kid and it scares me to death. Shall I elaborate?...sure why not.
- Shawn S.(major troublemaker) Chris (never trouble) and I decide (I don't know why) to go behind our local grocery store, shimmy up the drain pipe to the roof. Once on top of the roof, we found a whole box of OREO's that someone left up there. What to do on top of a store with a box of OREO's....why.....throw them at people of course. We even made a couple into some sunroofs of a couple cars until the jig was up. Someone spotted us and we knew we were dead. We ran to the edge and I followed Chris down the drainpipe. Shawn (being the idiot we all knew him to be) just jumped off the top of the building. I think it was about a 15-20 ft drop but he took it in stride, grabbed his bike and bolted. Chris and I just hid behind the hills watching people decend on the roof and behind the store. We layed on the ground, panting, swearing we would never do something like that again. We waited until the coast was clear, mounted the bikes and disappeared.
- LAX (aka Los Angeles International Airport) I was in High School and a bunch of friends and I were just ready to get on a flight to go home. We had spent the last few days in Southern CA at a choir competition (Disneyland, Phantom of the Opera, Beach, Knotts Berry Farm). We had a few hours to kill at the airport so what do we do? We grabbed a golf cart and started driving around the airport. We ducked down a tunnel to "see where it goes" and ended up driving around on the Tar-Mac. We only drove out on the runway for about 10 min until security started chasing us. We quickly drove back into the airport 'secret tunnel', left the cart at the entrance and ran back to the gate. We were not found. I think about that with today security they would have 'shot first and asked questions later'.
- Jumping off the wood shed. When I was a kid growing up on good ol' Woodchuck Way...we had a shed out back. It was built into a natural hill in our backyard. From the top of the shed to the basketball court below was about 8-10'. We would run and jump off the top (up in the air adding a few feet to the fall) and land on cement. When we decided to show our parents they freaked out. I do remember telling them "aw, it doesn't hurt...it makes my legs tingle when I land though...."
- The 'T' jump. I loved jumping my bike...off curbs or any man-made launch ramp. I built a bike jump once that was about 3' off the ground. I made a letter 'T' with bricks that I wanted to jump over. It was no small jump. Chris was there, sitting and watching me on my front lawn. I took off from up the hill, picked up speed and hit the jump. The construction of the ramp was particle board and many bricks stacked on each other. I hit the jump and it fell apart as it sent me flying through the air. I cleared the 'T', crashed hard. Scraped up both knees, smashed my elbow and skinned my chin. Chris hopped up and said "YOU MADE IT!!....I gotta go home." He left me there in a bloody heap. I remember being in a lot of pain...but the satisfaciton of clearing the 'T' overrode the pain.
- Lake Powell is a HUGE lake in Southern Utah. My cousin Eric (another trouble maker....yes you were Eric, you can't deny it)and I decided to go climbing. We were parked in a canyon where there was a natural 'horse-shoe' bend in the lake. At the bend there was an overhang (a cliff wall about a hundred feet up...literally....not making this up) and Eric talked me into hiking up there to throw rocks off to the lake below. Of course being the dummy I was...I agreed. We hiked all the way up to the top (took about 15 maybe 20 min) and then started thowing rocks off to the lake below. Just to set the stage a bit....the ground was not flat to the edge so throwing rocks off were more like rolling them down then off the edge. To set the stage even more (and to add validitiy to the actual height) when a rock would disappear over the edge it would fall about 5 seconds before impact. The impact sounded cool echoing off the canyon walls so of course we wanted bigger and bigger effects...the rocks got bigger and bigger. Eric wanted to roll this boulder off the edge so he got behind it and started pushing with his legs. The boulder broke free....and so did Eric. The boulder took off and Eric with it. I watched in horror as he slid toward the edge knowing if I went after him, I would be lost too. By the grace of the Allmighty he stopped before the edge. He clammered back up and said "I'm done...lets go". I really thought I was going to watch him die. (I could write a whole blog on the 'Adventures of Aaron watching Eric and then Aaron gets in trouble.'
There you go folks. I have hundreded more where those came from.
**Update**
Dog - About to have puppies any minute. I hope I am home when she does.
Kids - All still alive with appropriate apendages attached. (Wow...check out the alliteration on that line....didn't plan it either.)
Wife - Awesome, greatest ever....
Work - Still working.
I have something that I thought I would share. My Dad sent this to me and reading this....I not only remember doing some (if not all) of these but I can see a couple of my kids doing them and my heart sank. (I added some of my own experiences at the end.)
Things That Could Have Killed Me
It's amazing any of us survived childhood.
By ROBIN HEMLEY
Friends and acquaintances sometimes remark that the world is more dangerous now for kids than "when we were growing up." Cut to images of happy kids frolicking through fields of sunflowers.
Not in my childhood. I don't think the world has ever been a particularly safe place for anyone, certainly not kids. I spent large swaths of my childhood unsupervised and getting into whatever trouble I could find. I seem to remember coming home for meals, at least breakfast and dinner. For lunch, I ducked into whatever friend's house I could find. There were certain obligations between parents and children when I was a kid, but more in line with a treaty observance by two wary nations than an actual desire to spend time together.
A brief catalogue of "things that could have killed me" while trotting around unsupervised when I was a kid:
- There was a 30-foot bluff at the end of my street in Athens, Ohio. A wire (not electric apparently) of some sort went from the bluff's ledge to the roof of a liquor store below. When I was five, my neighbor friend, a girl named Vonnie, and I decided to suspend ourselves over this bluff by the wire. We hung over the liquor store's parking lot for a minute or so before tiring and deciding to find some other deadly amusement.
- I built a bomb when I was nine. I rooted around under the sink and poured every chemical I could find (this was the 1960s, chemicals were never in short supply) and poured them into a Windex bottle and made a fuse out of a shoelace. Then I went outside and placed the bottle in a field full of dry brush. I didn't think it would work. It did. I set the field on fire, but luckily I was able to stamp it out before it spread and burned down the neighborhood. My sneakers melted.
- I bought a lot of illegal fireworks. I used to spend part of my summer at my grandmother Ida's beach house in Long Beach, N.Y. One summer, my friends Vince Tucci, Tommy Alfazy, and I became addicted to illegal fireworks that we bought from a woman whose basement was stuffed with fireworks. We called her The Firecracker Lady. Everyday, we would go down to the beach and blow up our plastic soldiers. That stopped when the Firecracker Lady was arrested and our supply dried up.
- I liked to disappear into the apartments of strangers. There was an apartment building near our house called the Athens Apartments. I used to go trick or treating there. A lot of students from Ohio University lived in the apartments, including a couple of guys I called The Rat People. These guys bred lab rats and their apartment was full of rats in cages.
I thought they were cool and I used to hang out at their apartment for hours playing with the rats. Then I'd go dumpster diving in the large trash bins outside the apartment complex, looking for cool things. My mother had no idea about any of this.
I could go on, but the point is that childhood was dangerous. Maybe not as dangerous as Dickens-era London, but still, I'm lucky I survived it. Some of my friends didn't, including poor Tommy Alfazy. One day, shortly after I had returned to Athens from Long Beach, he and Vince built a fort in the sand covered with boards and more sand. It collapsed, smothering him. I wish I could reach back now and tell Tommy and Vince not to build that fort, but would they listen to me, a grown-up?
Perhaps that's why I can be forgiven for being a little on the overprotective side when it comes to raising my four daughters. My wife Margie makes fun of me when we're at the airport and one of my older daughters (ages 15 and 17) excuses herself to find the restroom. It's all I can do to stop myself from following and posting guard at the door. Most often, I squirm for a bit while Margie cuts me sideways glances and then bursts out laughing when she sees my discomfort.
Generally, I give in to my paranoia, despite my wife's ridicule. My worry, of course, is absurd. But it's hard for me to accept the notion that, really, no one is safe and no one ever has been. Instead, I fall back on easy falsehoods. "You don't understand," I have told Margie, much to my discredit. "The world isn't like it was when we were kids."
Mr. Hemley is the author, most recently, of "Do-Over!: In which a forty-eight-year-old father of three returns to kindergarten, summer camp, the prom, and other embarrassments," just published by Little, Brown.
I don't have to tell anyone who knows much about us that I am over protective, very cautious with my kids...and I am the reason why. I know the crazy crap I did as a kid and it scares me to death. Shall I elaborate?...sure why not.
- Shawn S.(major troublemaker) Chris (never trouble) and I decide (I don't know why) to go behind our local grocery store, shimmy up the drain pipe to the roof. Once on top of the roof, we found a whole box of OREO's that someone left up there. What to do on top of a store with a box of OREO's....why.....throw them at people of course. We even made a couple into some sunroofs of a couple cars until the jig was up. Someone spotted us and we knew we were dead. We ran to the edge and I followed Chris down the drainpipe. Shawn (being the idiot we all knew him to be) just jumped off the top of the building. I think it was about a 15-20 ft drop but he took it in stride, grabbed his bike and bolted. Chris and I just hid behind the hills watching people decend on the roof and behind the store. We layed on the ground, panting, swearing we would never do something like that again. We waited until the coast was clear, mounted the bikes and disappeared.
- LAX (aka Los Angeles International Airport) I was in High School and a bunch of friends and I were just ready to get on a flight to go home. We had spent the last few days in Southern CA at a choir competition (Disneyland, Phantom of the Opera, Beach, Knotts Berry Farm). We had a few hours to kill at the airport so what do we do? We grabbed a golf cart and started driving around the airport. We ducked down a tunnel to "see where it goes" and ended up driving around on the Tar-Mac. We only drove out on the runway for about 10 min until security started chasing us. We quickly drove back into the airport 'secret tunnel', left the cart at the entrance and ran back to the gate. We were not found. I think about that with today security they would have 'shot first and asked questions later'.
- Jumping off the wood shed. When I was a kid growing up on good ol' Woodchuck Way...we had a shed out back. It was built into a natural hill in our backyard. From the top of the shed to the basketball court below was about 8-10'. We would run and jump off the top (up in the air adding a few feet to the fall) and land on cement. When we decided to show our parents they freaked out. I do remember telling them "aw, it doesn't hurt...it makes my legs tingle when I land though...."
- The 'T' jump. I loved jumping my bike...off curbs or any man-made launch ramp. I built a bike jump once that was about 3' off the ground. I made a letter 'T' with bricks that I wanted to jump over. It was no small jump. Chris was there, sitting and watching me on my front lawn. I took off from up the hill, picked up speed and hit the jump. The construction of the ramp was particle board and many bricks stacked on each other. I hit the jump and it fell apart as it sent me flying through the air. I cleared the 'T', crashed hard. Scraped up both knees, smashed my elbow and skinned my chin. Chris hopped up and said "YOU MADE IT!!....I gotta go home." He left me there in a bloody heap. I remember being in a lot of pain...but the satisfaciton of clearing the 'T' overrode the pain.
- Lake Powell is a HUGE lake in Southern Utah. My cousin Eric (another trouble maker....yes you were Eric, you can't deny it)and I decided to go climbing. We were parked in a canyon where there was a natural 'horse-shoe' bend in the lake. At the bend there was an overhang (a cliff wall about a hundred feet up...literally....not making this up) and Eric talked me into hiking up there to throw rocks off to the lake below. Of course being the dummy I was...I agreed. We hiked all the way up to the top (took about 15 maybe 20 min) and then started thowing rocks off to the lake below. Just to set the stage a bit....the ground was not flat to the edge so throwing rocks off were more like rolling them down then off the edge. To set the stage even more (and to add validitiy to the actual height) when a rock would disappear over the edge it would fall about 5 seconds before impact. The impact sounded cool echoing off the canyon walls so of course we wanted bigger and bigger effects...the rocks got bigger and bigger. Eric wanted to roll this boulder off the edge so he got behind it and started pushing with his legs. The boulder broke free....and so did Eric. The boulder took off and Eric with it. I watched in horror as he slid toward the edge knowing if I went after him, I would be lost too. By the grace of the Allmighty he stopped before the edge. He clammered back up and said "I'm done...lets go". I really thought I was going to watch him die. (I could write a whole blog on the 'Adventures of Aaron watching Eric and then Aaron gets in trouble.'
There you go folks. I have hundreded more where those came from.
Friday, May 22, 2009
Video of the week
I have been a bad blogger lately. I will blog twice today. Here is the video of the week.
I never saw this episode of "Boston Legal" but this was funny.
-Aaron
I never saw this episode of "Boston Legal" but this was funny.
-Aaron
Thursday, May 14, 2009
Video of the week
Time for another video of the week. You gotta love Thursday....Friday Eve is awesome....unless you are these two.
I hope they did this on a Monday....this is more of a Monday deal.
I hope they did this on a Monday....this is more of a Monday deal.
Thursday, May 7, 2009
Video of the week
Since I have so many funny videos I thought I would start sharing them....one a week until I share them all.
Meet Achmed the Dead Terrorist:
Meet Achmed the Dead Terrorist:
Wednesday, May 6, 2009
Mathmatical proof that girls are evil
I don't believe girls are evil....well there are one or two that qualify, but for the most part they are great.
I have had this for years and thought I would share.
Proof that girls are evil
I have had this for years and thought I would share.
Proof that girls are evil
Tuesday, May 5, 2009
Stuck in a meeting
So I am stuck in a meeting....very boring. Thought I would just list 10 inside jokes I have with people....you know who you are:
1 - Unce' to pork
2 - Aloha.....Aloha Hard
3 - Ya'll hear what mama said?
4 - PIVOT!
5 - SOaB must pay
6 - Happy Monday
7 - You look like a monkey
8 - peek-a-boo
9 - I like pie
10 - I'm a soup nut
There....make of it what you will....I'll never tell.
1 - Unce' to pork
2 - Aloha.....Aloha Hard
3 - Ya'll hear what mama said?
4 - PIVOT!
5 - SOaB must pay
6 - Happy Monday
7 - You look like a monkey
8 - peek-a-boo
9 - I like pie
10 - I'm a soup nut
There....make of it what you will....I'll never tell.
Saturday, May 2, 2009
Dad's Tools...
Earlier this week my Dad and his brother Art took a very emotionally painful trip up to WA. Most of you are aware that my Dad is still trying to recover from a very painful divorce. My Dad's ex (I have stronger names for her) had sent our family (Me, Daniel, my Uncles and my Aunt) a letter telling us that his items were to be removed immediately or she would son sell or donate them as she seemed fit. We had 30 days to comply.
I told my Dad I would go because I wanted his tools.
Sounds kinda selfish, my Dad is going through this horrific trial in his life and I say..."OOOOH I WANT THE TOOLS!!!"....but it really isn't like that. My Dad and I didn't have much of anything we did together while I was growing up. He wasn't into sports although he supported me on every team on which I played. I was not an academic or an intellectual...I was a kid, something, at times, I wondered if my Dad ever was.
I was extroverted, he was introverted.
I was full of life, fun and friends and he wasn't for rocking the boat or being noticed.
We didn't get along....we had nothing in common.
There were only two things we did together during my youth....
#1 - Camping
#2 - Fixing things.
#1 - I loved Camping in my youth. Most of our family vacations were camping. Those are the only real memories of my childhood while my family was all still together....going camping. This is a love I hope to pass on to my kids.
#2 - Fixing things was my Dad's speciality in life. When I was very young some of my earliest memories of my Dad was always fixing everything. We were always over to someones house and my Dad had his silver grey toolbox and we were working on something. A car, TV, furniture..seemed like there was nothing my Dad couldn't fix or at least make better. I lost a helium balloon when I was 3 (I think) and everyone thought I was going to be upset and I turned and said "It's ok...Daddy fik it". It was probably the first time he couldn't fix something for me.
So back to his tools, I wanted those because if there is anything in the world that reminds me most of my Dad is his tools. He didn't really let me DO anything but watch and hand him stuff. Like a nurse working for a doctor in surgery he would say what he needed and hold out his hand and it was my job to find it hand it to him...it got very boring the older I got.
He got most of his tools when he decided to restore a 1969 Mercury Cougar. Convertible, black leather, 351 Windsor, three speed automatic...great car. It sat in our garage for years and he decided to fix it up....and like any of us males, he decided to get the tools he would need to do the job right. Socket sets, combination wrenches, screwdrivers, pliers...he had them all.
As a kid I was not allowed to touch his tools...they were a big deal. Over the years he has amassed more and more and his tool box got bigger and bigger. Now I am the one that seems to be fixing stuff all the time. I guess all those hours of watching actually paid off.
Things are different now. We are best friends. Years of our misunderstanding each other have faded away into a mutual understanding of the roads on which we travel. We talk, and really listen to what each other brings to the relationship. It has been fun for me to rediscover my Dad.
When he showed up with the tool box he had a bunch of other tools with him. Power tools, sawzall, skill saw, router, air compressor....and just yesterday he told me that he wants me to have his table saw as well. He said that my cousins are using it right now but that when they are done I could go pick it up.....Christmas in April!
As I poured over the tool box, cleaning the tools, wiping them down, rearranging them, years of forgotten memories came flooding back. I remember him showing me the universal joints, socket sets, how to use a combination wrench, showing me all the different sizes of screwdrivers, wrenches and what they were for. The tools are worn now, dings and scratches all over them....kinda like my Dad. Gratefully my Dad, like the tools, have lots of years left to be useful.....
Thanks Dad. If you ever want them back....I will wrestle you for them. :)
-Aaron
I told my Dad I would go because I wanted his tools.
Sounds kinda selfish, my Dad is going through this horrific trial in his life and I say..."OOOOH I WANT THE TOOLS!!!"....but it really isn't like that. My Dad and I didn't have much of anything we did together while I was growing up. He wasn't into sports although he supported me on every team on which I played. I was not an academic or an intellectual...I was a kid, something, at times, I wondered if my Dad ever was.
I was extroverted, he was introverted.
I was full of life, fun and friends and he wasn't for rocking the boat or being noticed.
We didn't get along....we had nothing in common.
There were only two things we did together during my youth....
#1 - Camping
#2 - Fixing things.
#1 - I loved Camping in my youth. Most of our family vacations were camping. Those are the only real memories of my childhood while my family was all still together....going camping. This is a love I hope to pass on to my kids.
#2 - Fixing things was my Dad's speciality in life. When I was very young some of my earliest memories of my Dad was always fixing everything. We were always over to someones house and my Dad had his silver grey toolbox and we were working on something. A car, TV, furniture..seemed like there was nothing my Dad couldn't fix or at least make better. I lost a helium balloon when I was 3 (I think) and everyone thought I was going to be upset and I turned and said "It's ok...Daddy fik it". It was probably the first time he couldn't fix something for me.
So back to his tools, I wanted those because if there is anything in the world that reminds me most of my Dad is his tools. He didn't really let me DO anything but watch and hand him stuff. Like a nurse working for a doctor in surgery he would say what he needed and hold out his hand and it was my job to find it hand it to him...it got very boring the older I got.
He got most of his tools when he decided to restore a 1969 Mercury Cougar. Convertible, black leather, 351 Windsor, three speed automatic...great car. It sat in our garage for years and he decided to fix it up....and like any of us males, he decided to get the tools he would need to do the job right. Socket sets, combination wrenches, screwdrivers, pliers...he had them all.
As a kid I was not allowed to touch his tools...they were a big deal. Over the years he has amassed more and more and his tool box got bigger and bigger. Now I am the one that seems to be fixing stuff all the time. I guess all those hours of watching actually paid off.
Things are different now. We are best friends. Years of our misunderstanding each other have faded away into a mutual understanding of the roads on which we travel. We talk, and really listen to what each other brings to the relationship. It has been fun for me to rediscover my Dad.
When he showed up with the tool box he had a bunch of other tools with him. Power tools, sawzall, skill saw, router, air compressor....and just yesterday he told me that he wants me to have his table saw as well. He said that my cousins are using it right now but that when they are done I could go pick it up.....Christmas in April!
As I poured over the tool box, cleaning the tools, wiping them down, rearranging them, years of forgotten memories came flooding back. I remember him showing me the universal joints, socket sets, how to use a combination wrench, showing me all the different sizes of screwdrivers, wrenches and what they were for. The tools are worn now, dings and scratches all over them....kinda like my Dad. Gratefully my Dad, like the tools, have lots of years left to be useful.....
Thanks Dad. If you ever want them back....I will wrestle you for them. :)
-Aaron
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)