Hey, honey, want to feel real old?

Yesterday morning at about 6:00 am I talked to the old man at work. After asking him how his night went (graveyard shift supervisor par excellence), I asked him the above question. Needless to say, he sounded really thrilled and said, okay, go ahead. I reminded him of the fact he had long forgotten, that 33 years ago that very day we had our first date together. I think he sometimes wonders why I can remember things like this and can't remember that he told me to call and schedule an oil change for his car. This I can remember because he took me to see some really odd foreign movies. I also tend to remember the date because it occurred three days after he asked me out. And he did that on Halloween. I should have known right then and there...

For those with enquiring minds, yes, I have knitted for him. I made him a scarf once. Maybe he even remembers it, but I doubt it. After all, he never wore it. He's just not a scarf kind of guy. And I made him a vest. We were still dating at the time, or maybe we were engaged by then. It was a basketweave patterned vest that I found in a booklet called "Fashions for Men and Boys by Columbia Minerva". The only problem was that it called for a sport/fingering weight type yarn and I, being the ignorant genius that I still was, bought regular worsted weight yarn. The vest came out really nice. In fact, it won a blue ribbon that year at the Michigan State Fair. I was really proud of myself. There were a lot of really nice men's knitted things and I won!!! It should have been a really huge boost for my ego, except...it would have fit about three of him inside it. And he would't wear it. (It was about here in my knitting career that I started to suspect that gauge was an operative imperative.) In a fit of desperation, I stitched up the sides to make it skinnier. And then he did wear it. Once. He never again has asked me to make him anything. In fact, he's been rather firm about that. Even though he knew he was marrying a knitter. (He has no excuse. When he got introduced to me, I was sitting in an old office at college, knitting.)

The vest hung around in the closet for about 20 years and then finally went to Goodwill. Maybe it still has a life out there. Maybe some high school linebacker is wearing a blue ribbon basketweave vest somewhere.

Look at it this way, honey. I gave away the vest. I kept you. Happy anniversary.