In 1998, my mom, sisters, and I expressed our birthday wishes for Kevin with a
few gifts. We gave him a notepad that
said, “Experience enables us to recognize a mistake when we make it
again.” I gave him a little wooden box
with a star cut out of the lid. I
colored it with markers, put three shiny tugboat stickers below the star, and
filled the box with little papers.
That summer my sisters and I would tell someone to be quiet by saying, “I’ve got a whole box of Shh! with your name on it!” Kevin had heard us use this many times, so I wrote Shh! on several pieces of notebook paper, cut them up, wrote his name on the decorated wooden box, and gave it to him. He was very amused.
That summer my sisters and I would tell someone to be quiet by saying, “I’ve got a whole box of Shh! with your name on it!” Kevin had heard us use this many times, so I wrote Shh! on several pieces of notebook paper, cut them up, wrote his name on the decorated wooden box, and gave it to him. He was very amused.
Our useful gift, or one that at least appeared to have
practical value, was a magnet with the numbers of the Coast Guard. We told him we’d included it so he could call
and get the coordinates of the sunken tugboat he still claimed existed. He’d been disappointed by the Coast Guard in
the past, and we’d joked about how much time they spend at local donut
shops. Later we confessed that the phone
number on the magnet was really for Dunkin Donuts, not the Coast Guard. He thought that was even funnier.
We also gave him a set of ballpoint pens with his name on
them. He took this as an indication that
he should be writing me. This was a
message I wanted to convey, but I’m sure wasn’t what my mom was thinking when
she bought them. He apologized numerous
times for not writing me back. He
explained he didn’t know what to say. I
forgave Kevin and told him his father had written me one of the nicest letters
I’d ever received in response to the one I’d sent him. Of course, this didn’t make Kevin think he
was off the hook.
