Thanks again, Dad

Welcome company warmed my house for a couple of days, so I took the liberty of not writing. That meant I missed taking public notice of my father's birthday yesterday.  May 8, 1916-February 13, 2004.

Turgenev. Fathers and Sons. Their mutual awkwardness and conflicts both tempered and made more melancholy for the lucky ones whose personalities are welded in love, however much the affection may go undemonstrated.

It was and is too easy to define Dad by his fears. His boyhood was the horror of Depression poverty in rural isolation. From those ugly years he took away a vast prudence. We always had toys. We were never hungry. But I always lived with stern fatherly reminders that many things were not possible for "people like us."

From time to time the strictures of the latter would nearly sever us. That always moved us to look for a way to repair the bonds.  Often enough, that meant a gift, preferably hand made, from our personal work shops. Once, in his 70s, the result was:

A box. Quite a nice one, but still just a box? Not quite, and it must be understood that my father held a monumental  indifference to firearms and shooting. He found my weapons interests somewhat silly, and certainly a poor use of money. Nevertheless:

From no plans, no patterns. Like most of Dad's projects, it was a work of pure thought, at most aided by a glance at a magazine picture.

It still goes afield with me, Partner. Thanks again.