Lest you forget, next Sunday is Father’s Day in the U.S.
This public service reminder comes too late for a friend of mine, whose apparently calendar-challenged wife celebrated the big day a week early, making this truly a Father’s Day he will long remember.
For me, this will be the first time in many years that I will be unable to spend the day with my Dad. Travel restrictions due to recent surgery have clipped my wings a bit, but I hope to be able to spend some time with him soon.
Almost since its inception, Father’s Day has had a dubious history. Moms are easy to shop for. Dads are not, as witness the perpetual jokes about gaudy ties and flowery shirts. If you truly want to rise above the pack in the gift department, consider giving Dad the gift of an organized life. His life, that is.
For most of us, the record of our lives is scattered in drawers, stuffed in closets, boxed in basements or tucked under beds in shoeboxes. How much more sensible it is to bring it all together where the fullness of a life can be viewed from one spot.
This doesn’t mean giving Dad a few bigger boxes and dumping things inside. As Philip Brewer writes at the Wisebread blog, more stuff doesn’t help you organize stuff. The real trick is to organize what you have first. Then you can decide how you want to store it.
So, why not offer to help Dad brings his life back into order this Father’s Day? Start by gathering all his stuff in one place, then start organizing. Don’t forget to record his stories as you go along. There will be many. This is the kind of gift that keeps on giving – for the gift-giver as well as the recipient.
Writing prompt of the day: See the above? Just do it!
Author Larry Lehmer's book about Dick Clark and American Bandstand -- Bandstandland: How Dancing Teenagers Took Over America and Dick Clark Took Over Rock & Roll --is available from Sunbury Press. His book about the last tour of Buddy Holly, the Big Bopper and Ritchie Valens -- The Day the Music Died -- is available at Amazon.
Flickr photo courtesy of pipitdapo (popping in in slow installments).
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