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Unexpected Gifts – Sons
Today is my middle son’s 33rd birthday, the one I call Pipeliner because he is a pipeline engineer. I have three sons, born four and a half years apart. All of them are unexpected gifts. They were not unexpected in the sense of their arrival, we wanted all three. Rather, the unexpected gifts are the delightful surprises all three have provided.
My oldest is a genius, literally, he tested as such (it runs in the family, my two brothers are geniuses. I am not. That makes me the dumb one in the family.) He is even smart enough to understand the limitations of genius. (Too many smart people treat genius the way a bandit treats a firearm. They act as if all you have to do is wave it around and you get what you want, even when you do not use it.) It was an unexpected gift to have someone with whom I could engage intellectually over the dinner table.
His finest moment came one day when I got a speeding ticket for going 46 mph, when my speedometer said I was traveling under 25 mph. I grumped about it over the dinner table. He piped up, “Dad – wasn’t that was the speed of the top of your tire?” Sure enough, that was the solution. I was traveling 23 mph – under 25 mph. The top of your tire goes two times the speed you are traveling relative to a stationary observer. (It has to. Otherwise the bottom of the tire is either skidding or slipping.) I was clocked at 46. Speed radars in the 1990s had high-pass filters, catching the highest speed they detected. The cop was at the bottom of the hill; I was at the top, and he caught my spinning tire. No fine and no points on my driving record is just one unexpected gift I received from that son.
(He is an engineer with Raytheon today – working with sensor systems.)
My middle son is not a genius. But he is smart, and outgoing, and personable. He is the one I peg to become the CEO of an engineering company someday. That is not his unexpected gift. Rather it is the stuff we share together. He is the one who as a teen helped me when I was doing on-site research for one or another of my writing projects. He would tag along on trips, and carry excess equipment, voluntarily because he thought it was fun.
As an adult he ended up as a volunteer on Elissa, a sailing barque in Galveston. That was the result of his coming with me when I had an invitation to sail on it and bring a guest. (Janet did not do ships, so I asked this son.) This made him the fifth generation of my family with a love for sailing ships. (My grandfather grew up on his family’s sailing barque in the Aegean. He loved sailing ships, as did my dad, as do I.)
He also pursues photography as a serious hobby. When I wrote Texas Shipwrecks I asked him if he would do photography for it. He agreed and we rambled up and down the Texas coast, photographing artifacts. (This included a trip into the belfry of a church to photograph a 150+-year-old bell which had once been on Black Cloud, a Trinity River steamboat.) When we finished, I thought “Well, I don’t have to bother him again.” Three weeks later he called me up and asked me “What’s next?” So we did The Battleship Texas. (And several other books since.) Working on serious projects in collaboration with a son is truly an unexpected gift.
My youngest son is the maker. He makes models like I do. Or rather not like I make. I do ships and spacecraft. He makes Gundam. He is the hands-on one, the Eagle Scout whose project was to make shelf ends for the local public library. (They are slotted boards, so hangers for books or audio can be placed on them.) He is (you guessed it) The third engineer of the boys, he is a design engineer. He draws up plans for HVAC systems, coolers and freezers for commercial buildings. He designed the walk-in coolers for the Costco built last year a few miles from my house. (Truly an unexpected gift.) His idea of fun is to install things. When I got a new dishwasher two years back, he installed it for me. Plus fixing things around the house.
He is also into 3D printing, an early adapter. When a piece broke on a kit I had given him, he made a new one on his 3D printer – then duplicated the whole kit with the 3D printer to make another one that worked better. Most of his Christmas gifts come from that printer. He has also taught me about 3D printing, something that as a model-maker interest me. He even gave a talk about 3D printing to the ship modeling club to which I belong. Another unexpected. Gift.
I believed having sons would be rewarding. What no one told me was how much fun they would be – and how much fun they would continue to be. Truly unexpected gifts.
Happy birthday, Pipeliner. (He normally comes over for dinner Sunday night. This week, because it is his birthday, he wants to make dinner. I have to provide the birthday cake and clean up afterward. What a deal. What another unexpected gift.)
Published in Group Writing
You are blessed!
Truly.
My heart is swelling for you! Not only wonderful sons, but a father who dearly loves and admires them. What a gift you all are for each other. Thanks for telling us more about them!
Same as above for me.
Good for you, Seawriter. Not only for the unexpected gifts your sons provided you, but because it sounds like you raised those sons to be fine men.
Sadly, it seems like today, finding a man to be a good father too is an “unexpected gift.”
It shouldn’t be.
If you are ever in the area, I’ll introduce you to my oldest son. He has become a great father. Middle son gets married next month. My bet is he will be a great one, too.
Today is MY middle son’s birthday too! Happy birthday to our guys!
Cherish the moments – and it sounds like you do. Congratulations on such a great group of sons. I had my two boys with me this weekend (31 and 23) and the weather was nice enough where we spent about an hour where I threw batting practice to one and then turned to watch the other try to catch the hit. Praise be to God that I can still get out there and do that.
Great post – thanks for sharing.
Well done, sir. Knowing that your progeny will leave the world a better place than they found it assures that you have achieved the same goal.
Also my son’s birthday. He is the second of six siblings, and the second oldest of four boys.
In my opinion your analogy between a gun and a genius puts you in the genius class. Happy birthday Pipeliner.
@seawriter calls us to consider the unexpected gifts of family.
This conversation is part of our Group Writing Series under the March 2019 Group Writing Theme: Unexpected Gifts. There are plenty of dates still available. Tell us about anything from a hidden talent to a white elephant. Share a great surprise or memorable failure (oh, you shouldn’t have!). Our schedule and sign-up sheet awaits.
April’s theme will be posted after the Ides of March.
Beautiful. All children are blessings, even if they are not successful. Just to sit with one of your children and have a conversation is way more enjoyable than someone who is not. There is a special bond between the two that can’t be matched. Thanks for a wonderful post.
The Talmud says there are three components of life that depend on luck: financial prosperity, how many years you live, and how your children turn out. Mazel tov on your special sons.
I want children like yours. Can we make a deal?
@seawriter I will swap my 2 girls for your 3 boys, and time.
You two will have to ask them. They are all adults now and in charge of their own lives.
Rent-a-kid?