Harold's Ties

In the last post, I alluded to the fact that my dad has a LOT of ties. Tons of ties. TOO many ties. But he is well aware of what he has (and for the life of me, I have NO idea HOW he can keep track of them all!)

Back in 1999 we attended a family wedding in Pennsylvania. As soon as we got the invitation, I knew what was going to happen. Ted does not wear good clothes to work. He wears jeans and pocket t-shirts, along with sweatshirts and hoodies when it gets cold out. Ted is also a pretty big guy, so "normal" size clothing doesn't work for him. He wears extra tall t-shirts, and sometimes has a little trouble finding pants that fit quite right.

In preparing for the wedding, he knew he was going to have to get some new clothes. He went off to the local men's shop the week before our weekend trip to PA. He came home with a pair of nice pants, a dress shirt, a jacket, and a pair of shoes. Okay, so this wedding was going to cost us a little more than what I originally budgeted, but that's just the way it goes sometimes. Let's just say that he never says a word when I spend money on clothes for work, so I sure wasn't going to get all worked up about him spending over $300 (EIGHT YEARS AGO) on some clothes.

The boys were not going to the wedding, but would be staying with A.P. and U.T. and we would leave Saturday morning, attend the wedding, spend the night, have dinner on Sunday with the extended family, then come home late Sunday afternoon.

When Ted got home from the men's store and showed me everything he purchased, he commented that he didn't buy a tie because he figured he could just borrow one from my dad. No problem. I called my mom and we arranged for a time for Ted to take his pants, shirt, and jacket to their house and she would help him pick out a tie, all while my dad was at work.

*Sometimes it's just best not to let Dad know everything*

When Ted came home from this secret meeting, he had two ties with him. We ended up taking both ties along and would make the decision as to which tie to wear at the last minute.

When Saturday came, we drove over to the hotel we would be staying at and met my parents in the lobby, along with a few cousins, and an aunt. We all had reservations and just happened to arrive around the same time. Everyone else was changing clothes and getting ready to go to the wedding. It just so happened that I had a work project that I needed to spend a lot of time on and Ted was really tired, so we decided that we would be going to the reception only.

Several hours later we walked in to the reception hall and sat down with everyone. The place was starting to fill up and we were sitting there talking and having a great time.

My dad kept glancing over at Ted. Finally...he said something.

"Hey Ted, looks like you got yourself some new clothes."

"Yes, I did...this past week. I couldn't wear my pocket t-shirt or they would throw me out."

We all had a big chuckle over that one.

Then dad said, "Where'd you get that tie?"

Ted looked at me, I looked at my mom, she looked at Ted, and then we all looked at dad.

Then dad said, "That's my tie, isn't it?"

We all laughed.

You have to hand it to him....the man knows his ties.