Fishing for Ideas

It’s not that my father is the man who has everything. He’s just the man who buys anything he wants.

Dad delivers a one-two punch this time of year, with his birthday less than a month before Christmas. If I am lucky, I will find a good gift for one of these occasions. I have never nailed them both.

The reason is simple. My dad has no self-control. He is an impulse buyer, the type who walks into a car dealership to look around and leaves with the V-8 with leather seats and “gold package.” He orders things from TV ads, and I have the Ginsu knives to prove it.

Most frustrating, however, is his inability to stop buying himself things around the holidays. That the latest Dick Francis mystery might make a good birthday gift never pierces his consciousness. So I not only have to find a gift he will like, but also one he doesn’t know about.

For his birthday last month I floated the biography of Learned Hand, a renowned figure in American jurisprudence. My father, the lawyer and book reader, said nothing until I asked if the package had arrived. Oh, yes, he said, the book on Learned Hand--a very interesting man.

Buzz. Thanks for playing.

Still, we try, my mother, my sister and I. The payoff for getting it right is tremendous. With the right gadget in his hand, he is like a child thrilled with a Tickle Me Elmo, only more articulate. His eyes light up. He will pull out every blade of his omnitool, push each button on his digital-watch-pager-planner. “This is so neat!” he will exclaim with sincere glee.

Over the years, our only hope has been that he would take up a new hobby or renew interest in an old one. Preferably, it would be a hobby that demands many gadgets. Photography. Model trains. I’d settle for stamp collecting.

So you can imagine our collective relief--my mother, my sister and me--when, after asking and asking what he wanted for Christmas, my father said, simply. . .

“Fly-fishing.”