Sunday, October 07, 2007

What is that exactly?

During the celebration honoring my Dad this weekend, my sister's husband sang a song that my sister wrote about my Dad. She knew it needed to be light so we didn't all in up in tears during the whole thing. Besides, all that crying would have made it hard to hear and appreciate the words....Anyway, it was a song sung to the tune of Johnny Cash's "I Walk the Line." Some of you may recall that Johnny was one of my Dad's favorites.

My sister's version was called, "It Should be Mine," and was about his love of getting a great deal on something and turning it over for a profit. It ended with a nod to the fact that now all this stuff that my Dad had gotten great deals on over the years, and did not turn over, is now ours to figure out what to do with. He has a few good tools, nothing fancy like a plasma cutting device, but useful none-the-less. However, the vast majority of it is either mostly junk, or so obscure that no one knows what it is, even though it might be valuable. My Dad was a junk collector, a bargain hunter, and a pack rat. I mean all that in the most loving way possible. I admire that he could talk someone out of a $500 piece of equipment for $35. The problem was, he often did not need the piece of equipment, he just saw the potential and set about bargaining. He was an interesting character, my Dad.

2 comments:

Lynilu said...

Your dad sounds like my late hub. He had the wildest collection of tools and, well, indefinable junk! It certainly made for a fun yard sale recently, because some things were simply topics of discussion until another man would decide to buy "it" for $3 and take it home to figure out! Good luck to you all on wading through it!!

Monogram Queen said...

I think that is wonderful singing a song and I am a Cash fan also. The phrase "it's not a bargain if ya can't use it" does NOT apply to me (or your late Dad either)