Best Things You Were Ever Given

What are sum of the best things you were ever given? Memories, skills, knowledge, an other non-touchable things excluded.

When I was 12 my Great Uncle who had a small booth at a Flea Market gave me my first pocket knife. The cheap plastic sides soon fell off. I still have the knife, carried it for over a decade after I got it.

When I was about 14 or 15 My mom knew this old man at work she'd known for years. She took me over to his house. I liked a pot of sum odd purple flowers and his Wife gave them to me. I still have them, though the wooden pot they was originally in long since disintegrated. She called them "Monkeyfaces" though I've never been able to find them online nor learn what they really called. Every couple years I go thru the pots getting out all the pillbug looking seeds & repot them. Sumtimes giving the extra seeds away, sumtimes not. I always keep at least 2-3 pots worth though.

About a decade ago, an old friend of my mom's lived in Florida & had a store sorta like a Big Lots. She sent a few things to my mother from time to time. She sent me what I call a Fuzzy Blanket. Its done in shades of blue mainly with sum white, & a very lil bit of brown, with a black border. Its has a picture of a Wolf, a Bobcat, & an Eagle on it. Its been on my bed ever since.

 

My Buck knife from my Dad and the fact he went 50 /50 on buying my Rem 700 30.06 my first Centerfire rifle.

I really miss hunting with my Dad...the memories of those hunts make me laugh ( my Dad screaming " Damn Gun !!! " when his 7mm BAR jammed in Colorado ) till I cry and also make me proud as hell. The day he announced he wasn't going hunting that year was when I started my 1 year countdown till he was gone. Sure enough it was 8 months later...

I'm sure he is sitting around a campfire in heaven talking about the huge elk he just shot and tilting back a beer

 

The sense of family,country, and personal responsibility passed to me from my father.

 

The love of my parents and especially from my mother. Growing up on a self sustaining farm(dirt poor) she would eat the wings/necks of the chickens we raised so us kids could have the meaty pieces. Her resourcefulness was awesome. We were plowing a field and broke a piece. She build a furnace from an old can, rigged a blower, heated the piece red hot, and beat it back to workable shape.

 

The love of my parents also , but the strict upbringing as it came across. With that came a multitude of other (as I hope they are) good traits .

I also have trinkets of family pass-downs that invoke memory's of them.

Great Thread Idea.

Sloth

 

very good sloth, i also appreciate the responsibility my parents drilled into me. Also i love how my wife just bought me a ruger sr1911 over the weekend

 

My folks did without (well, so did the family) so I could attend a Parochial (Catholic-run) school. From that, I got a good basic education. Priceless.

From my folks and extended family, I learned that honesty really is the best, even if it hurts.

From my wife, I learned what real love was all about.

Some of the most important 'things' that you can get cannot be held in the hand.... just the heart.

 

The strength to wake up every morning and continue in my sobriety...

...given to me by my creator.

 

I'm still waiting...

I'm a greedy s.o.b....That's how i roll...

ccc...

 

Guessing Gunny was only one to read the entire first two sentences of my original post. Well, besides RH.

 

Watching my parents go through life showing me that you don't need money to be happy

All you need is great friends to share your life with. <3

 

Deoxyribonucleic acid I got from my ancestors. I've passed it along to my children. It was the least I could do.

 

A bunch of photos from my parents depicting ancestors from both sides along with a family tree tracing one of my lineages back to a Swede born in 1604.

 

OK, Mine was a 1908? Savage in 32acp given to me by my Dad.It has since been passed on to my oldest son.

 

Myself also STANGF150.
When I said trinkets , Grandfathers eye magnifier for stamps and such , (three legged magnifying glass to slide over envelope to view) .. great to see items like a very small table that improves close inspection.
Some older tools that my father has used as an apprentice to tradesman that Im just getting the hang of.

They are valuable only in my eyes for how they make me remember .

Since the other olddawg fessed up

Sloth

 

The best thing that I was given was.....

The best thing that I was given was life. All else stems from that.