Well another Father’s Day has come and gone, and every year we go through the same routine of making my dad a nice dinner and spending the day with him. Almost every year we get him a boring gift of some sort like a shirt, or a book with a funny card. It was looking like it was going to be another typical Father’s Day when June had come around and of course my sister and I had no idea what we wanted to get for my dad. He was not an easy buy to say the least. He never gave any hints and always gave the same old excuse when asked what he would like, “I don’t need anything, I just want to spend the day with my family.” Well this year I was determined to make it different.
Last Father’s Day my sister wasn’t able to spend Father’s Day with us because she was at school. This year I was going to be in school right up to the weekend of Father’s Day and my sister was going to still be in school till the end of July. My parents wanted to go see my sister the weekend of to spend time with her but seeing that my roommates and I would be moving into our new apartment that weekend it was going to be difficult. I wanted to go and spend the weekend with my family but seeing that I had such a big task at hand of moving, I knew the smart decision was to stay home.
I had called my sister the week before asking her what she had in mind for dad, and of course it was a dead end of the “I don’t know” and “well I helped pick out mom’s gift why don’t you do dad’s.” What to get the old man is a head scratching, and mind numbing task. I didn’t want to get him some ordinary gift. I wanted to make it something different, something he wouldn’t expect and something I knew he would want. I decided to take advantage of being home the weekend before FD to look around the house and see what he had and what he didn’t have. We had countless number of movies, several different sport nicknacks, too many tools to count, what is something that my dad needed and would be different from any other gift he had received from us?
As I walked around the house scanning the rooms for some sort of clue, it hit me. It had slapped me in the face and stared me right in the eye and told me this what the “ideal gift” for my dad, a record player. My dad is a big fan of the “oldies” music. He has almost every CD of Bruce Springsteen, Bob Seger, Billy Joel, Huey Lewis… you name an artist I am sure my dad has at least one CD, tape or record by them. I grew up listening to the several different artists in the car with him and have now adapted his taste in music. If there is one thing my dad and I enjoy more then watching a good sports game on tv is jamming out to the “oldies” in the car.
His old record player had broken a few years ago and decided to put the old records on the shelf and stick with the radio and the occasional CD. I decided to do some research on some record players and lets just say there are numerous kinds. Small ones, big ones, complex ones, wooden ones, colorful ones… all types. After going through the various types and several different price ranges I had narrowed it down to two. I couldn’t decide between one really nice wooden one that played just records with speakers or one around the same price, not as nice that played not only records, but tapes and the radio. After contemplating between the two I decided that it was either go big or go home. I got the 3 in 1 deal and knew that it was the right choice. I showed it to my sister and mom and told them that this was the gift and that I hope they liked it. Both were totally on board and agreed that it was perfect for dad.
The gift had finally came in the mail just a few days before Father’s Day and I was beyond excited. Thank god my parents were both out of town when it arrived so of course I opened up the package to give it a listen. I pulled off a few records from the shelf and decided to test out the machine to see if it was worth every cent that went into it. I carefully read the instructions, placed the record on the turntable, dropped the needle, and turned the volume up. Beautiful sound exploded from the speakers with several different instruments and voices of the artists from the past. I smiled and knew this was the right gift.
Father’s Day rolled around and my mom and dad had come home from visiting my sister. I hid the player in the basement and waited until they were all unpacked and settled in. I then gave my dad his card. He looked at me like “what the hell is this?” He opened it and laughed at the cover staring at it saying the guy looked like him on the cover and read the “oh so touchy feely” message. On the bottom it said to pull the records off the shelf and celebrate. He looked at me confused and I asked him to follow me downstairs. I sat him down on the couch and asked him if he saw anything that was different about the basement. He looked around for about 10 seconds and saw it. His eyes grew wide and laughed and asked “How did you know that’s exactly what I wanted?” A tear may have been brought to my eye and a smile grew on both of our faces as we hugged. I pulled a record from behind the table and told him Happy Father’s Day.
Father’s Day is a time to celebrate the one guy in your life who helped raise you. To me my dad is the guy who taught to me be the woman I am today and always reminded me that no matter what he will always be there for me and that he will always be the number one guy in my life. Happy Father’s Day.
Girl On Kenmore 