I cannot remember a single birthday gift that I gave my dad. I know I gave him gifts, and I didn’t give him ties because he didn’t have that kind of job \u2013 he was a plumber.<\/p>\n
I know there were some years when I didn’t give him anything, because he insisted he didn’t need anything. Same with Mom.<\/p>\n
If Dad was still alive, he would have turned 95 today. It’s delightful to imagine that, and I know I would’ve had a difficult time figuring out a birthday gift for him.<\/p>\n
I chose a bright and lovely 1995 penny to say Happy Birthday Dad.<\/p>\n
In terms of material goods, he was a very simple man. About the only luxury item I ever saw him really relish was a set of custom-made golf clubs that he splurged on when he won the lottery in 1976.<\/p>\n
My parents grew up during the Great Depression, and so they knew what it was like to go without. They told stories about getting one orange as a Christmas present. One year dad’s whole family, all eight children, got a single present: a sled.<\/p>\n
As adults, it was luxury enough for them to live in a simple house with no mortgage, have plenty of food to eat, wear clothes that weren’t threadbare hand-me-downs, drive a dependable car.<\/p>\n
When they said, “I don’t need anything,” they really meant it.<\/p>\n
This is one of the biggest gifts that they gave me: the ability to appreciate all that I have, and not lust after expensive goods.<\/p>\n
Seeing the debt that so many Americans have, I estimate that the value of this gift from my parents is several hundred thousand dollars.<\/p>\n
They knew that I was extremely grateful for this gift. And I hope that seeing my lifestyle echo their own was a gift for them in return.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I cannot remember a single birthday gift that I gave my dad. I know I gave him gifts, and I didn’t give him ties because he didn’t have that kind of job \u2013 he was a plumber. I know there were some years when I didn’t give him anything, because he insisted he didn’t need … read more Day 36: Birthday gifts<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":5206,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[319],"tags":[76,66,121,8,123,122,9],"class_list":["post-5200","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-inheritance","tag-76","tag-birthday","tag-christmas","tag-dad","tag-gift","tag-luxury","tag-mom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lisaschnellinger.com\/pennies\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5200","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lisaschnellinger.com\/pennies\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lisaschnellinger.com\/pennies\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lisaschnellinger.com\/pennies\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lisaschnellinger.com\/pennies\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5200"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/www.lisaschnellinger.com\/pennies\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5200\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5207,"href":"https:\/\/www.lisaschnellinger.com\/pennies\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5200\/revisions\/5207"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lisaschnellinger.com\/pennies\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/5206"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lisaschnellinger.com\/pennies\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5200"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lisaschnellinger.com\/pennies\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5200"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lisaschnellinger.com\/pennies\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5200"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}