A few months ago I was trying to think of what to get my dad for Father’s Day. I try to come up with good things to get him. Things that are heartfelt and don’t come on a plastic card with a predetermined amount you can spend. I always end up defaulting and getting him a gift card from Dick’s. He truly has everything. I never know what to get him, though if he had his way, I wouldn’t get him anything. Ever.

I read in a magazine that the one thing you can give your dad is something you can’t buy. It’s something that, in the long run, means more than any tie. It means more than any book. It means more than anything else you could think of to buy him. The problem with store bought gifts is that they are never unique. No company makes ONE of something for you to buy. They make thousands, or millions of whatever it is you bought and people all over the world give them to their dads. What I gave my Dad, is my time.

Time for us to sit and talk. Tell stories that neither of us have heard.....or ones we have heard a million times. Time to complain about our days. Time to talk about our mutual dislike of Nancy Grace. Time to sit silently. Just time. Time to spend so that 30 or forty years from now I can sit back and remember the time I spent with my dad.

The time I bought came in this bottle. I couldn’t find it in Ohio, so I ordered it from a store in PA. There is only one rule with this bottle. This is OUR stuff. Nobody else’s. It can’t be drank alone and it can’t be drank with anyone but us. This is our stuff to drink while we talk about whatever we want to talk about.

Admittedly, I don’t know a lot about good whiskey. My dad does and he says it’s great. I think it’s great too, though probably for different reasons than he does. When I look at this bottle, it means something to me. It is full of memories that haven’t been made yet. Full of things that I don’t know about my dad because I haven’t asked. Full of life’s history and things yet to come.

That’s what I see at least. I think it tastes better because of all of that stuff that’s inside. If I have my way, I’ll leave this bottle with a little left in the bottom. Just enough that I can sip in 30 years and be transported to our time together. The time when we sat and talked.......or said nothing at all.

This is our stuff. Nobody else can drink it. Just me and him.