Father's Day Bag
Contemplating the Father's Day post after watching the Spinners UnSung I was thinking are there any good songs, positive songs about dads? The first song that came to my head was Papa Was a Rolling Stone -- um yeah we know what that's about and likely don't need to bring out any skeletons for folks whose papa's were rolling stones or for those papas who are now... Next was Big Poppa - makes my head nod, love Biggie to this day but wildly inappropriate. Then the Godfather starting ringing in my ear, Papa's Got a Brand New Bag.
Brother Thorns has always been on the leading edge of everything. In marketing speak he's an "early adopter". When other family's were rocking those wooden cabinet stereos, my pops was rocking the component systems. In fact we never had one of those all-in-one systems. He was a believer in building his system to his liking. When all his buddies were hitting the middle age spread and going to the house (or the tavern to drink away the pain) my pops (thanks to mama) hit the road. Yes he busted out the headband, the short shorts and the shoes and started running at a time when there were NO brothers in my hometown doing such a thing. As for technology, he left everyone behind. While folks were still beating on typewriters, my pops said "you jokers are going to learn how to use a computer" and an Apple IIe arrived for us to learn how to use by his guidance and our own discovery. This man had routers and laptops and smartphones and tablets before I ever touched one. In fact I STILL don't own a tablet and (you should guess from my most recent post) he bought his DSLR camera when they first hit the market. My dad is Mr. Cutting Edge.
but more than that...
My father was never really about being the first to get the shiny new gadget. What he's really about is learning and discovery. His interest in discovering new things always tied back to things that he loved and how to enjoy those things in new ways. He doesn't stray from his values, nor allow what he has to get in the way of who he is.
Although papa always had a brand new bag. The bag was full of good stuff, that was meant to be shared and enjoyed, not worshiped. That's what I got from Papa's bag and I'm thankful to him for sharing it with me.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v= hWdY2t5U5iQ
