Friday, November 03, 2006

The Perfect Gift

My dad's birthday was this week, and I finally got him what I believe to be the perfect gift. He's not the easiest person in the world to buy for (whose father is?), but this year I nailed it.

A little background: I was born nearly 38 years ago on January 12, 1969. Any sports nut worth his or her weight will know that one of the greatest upsets in American sports history happened on this date. On January 12, 1969, Joe Namath delivered on his guarantee of victory as he and his upstart New York Jets defeated the heavily favored Baltimore Colts, 16-7, in Super Bowl III. The victory gave much-needed credibility to the AFL, whose teams had been blown out by the "superior" teams of the NFL in the previous two Super Bowls. My dad never saw a minute of the game. Not a huddle. Not a snap. Instead, he waited for his precious baby boy, his first child, to be born. And nearly every year of my 37 years, he has reminded me of this.

Until now.

The idea came to me last year as I looked for my dad's birthday present, "I wonder if there's a DVD of Super Bowl III?" So I jumped on the internet and searched. I came up empty in my DVD search of Super Bowl III, but I did find something in a format called V-H-S...it's a video tape played through a V-C-R. They seem vaguely familiar. Anyway, I stumbled across a video series called "The NFL's Greatest Games", one of which was Super Bowl III. SCORE!! IN YOUR FACE! IN YOUR FACE!! Except the series had gone out of print (or whatever videos "go out" of) and retailers wanted $1 million for the tape. Abort. Abort. I bought him a hat. I'm not cruel...he collects them.

This year in my quest for a birthday present I returned to my search for the NFL's greatest game to see if it had come down to a respectable price. It had. SCORE!! IN YOUR FACE!! IN YOUR FACE!! So I purchased it along with a couple of hats, Jets and Colts, of course, and sent them along to my dear ol' dad.


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I talked to him a couple of days ago and he told me he just laughed as he opened up his gift. "Guess I can't tell you that I've never seen the game anymore, can I?" he said.

Nope, I reckon not. But I'm looking forward to the day when we can watch it together.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

This was all my fault, you know. I had gone to the doctor on Jan 9, two weeks before my due date, and he said I would probably deliver a couple of weeks late. Ha! I showed him! I don't think your Dad ever forgave me.

batteredham said...

Don't be so hard on yourself...I just couldn't wait to make a public appearance. And what better appearance to make than to upstage the Super Bowl.