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Amie C.
True Blue Farmgirl
2099 Posts
Finger Lakes Region
NY
2099 Posts |
 Posted - Dec 26 2007 : 6:20:38 PM
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This regifting story is pretty long (sorry) but I think the ending is worth it. The story starts in July of 2006, when my dad was attacked on the street by a gang and was badly injured. It was a shocking thing and it cast a cloud over everything for the rest of the year, as he was not well enough to go back to work until January of 2007. But some very nice things came out of it in the responses of friends and strangers alike, and some very amusing things too.
The mechanic on the corner gave my dad a big break on a car repair and he pressed him to accept the gift of a handgun to carry for protection. My dad is totally the nonviolent type (from his hippie days on!) besides not wanting to have a weapon around his 3 young grandchildren. When we visited friends out of state for Thanksgiving, we repeated that story to them and the husband went off and dug out...a sword! He said, "Give this to your dad to carry around for protection, if he doesn't want to carry a gun." Well, we weren't sure how much he was serious and how much he was joking (and how much his wife had been pressuring him to unload the sharp thing now that they had a baby). But we knew for sure that my dad was not going to use that sword anymore than he would a gun.
So the sword has been kicking around our house for the past year. What could we do with it? We looked it up online and learned that it was a reproduction Civil War artillery sword. Some re-enactor out there would like it for sure. But we would have felt funny about selling it on ebay or craigslist because it was a gift, after all. Just last week it occurred to me that my parents' next door neighbor is a re-enactor and his unit is...an artillery unit! So on Christmas Eve, I got out the sword, reminded my dad where it came from, and asked him if he would show it to the neighbor. I figured he probably had his whole outfit of Civil War gear, but maybe a new guy just joining the unit would like it.
Well, my dad called tonight to tell me that he had seen his neighbor and given him the sword. Before he even got over to him, the guy was saying, "Hey, that's an artillery sword! Where did you get that?" Turns out, he did not have one yet and he was thrilled. And my dad was very pleased to give it to him because, although I had never heard this before, the neighbor had helped him out with his yardwork quite a lot last summer while he was laid up. Isn't it great when things work out so perfectly? Sorry to ramble on so long, but i just wanted to share! |
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Regifting that really worked! (Long story, sorry!)
