silver dollars

“I don’t recollect a lot of birthdays. Didn’t really celebrate ’em when I was a boy.” Pa turned 70 today. “I’d get a year older and not even know it ’til a month later when one of my uncles’d come around.”

I heard my grandmother in the background. Reminding him of the birthday he does remember.

“Well, I don’t know if it was my birthday,” he told her, “But it was there abouts. My Uncle Newt gave me a brand new silver dollar. If I had to pick one best birthday, and one best present, it’d be that one.” Pa cleared his throat. It was 6am and he was watching Walker Texas Ranger. “That was alot of money back in them days. Even for a grown man. And I was just a boy.”

I flipped through the family photo album in my head. Trying to recall the face of a man named Newt.

“He was my favourite uncle. Uncle Roy was the fiddle man. Uncle Newt was the money man. So he was kinda special.” Pa laughed and I could hear his lungs.

“You know, the Lord just promises us 70 years,” he said.

“That may be,” I told him. “But I reckon if anyone’s got any extra graces saved up, it’s my Pa.”