Everyone hustles something!

Yesterday was my dad's 80th birthday. Nothing special, right? Wrong! He woke up at the usual time and headed straight for his computer. With a cup of coffee in one hand he heads straight to his computer because not much happens in his life until the emails are checked. And then it's off to the Starlight cafe for more coffee and a sweet roll for breakfast. And it was while he was in the cafe that Rhonda brought in this huge plate of cookies and set them down in front of him. "Happy 80th birthday Tom!" Did he ever give her hell! "What are you doing telling everyone here that I'm 80? Can't you see there are 55 year old women here? Couldn't you have said that I was 60 or maybe 65?" My dad is the funniest person I know!

Now let's talk about the cookies. Rhonda brings Dad cookies every week or so. I'm not complaining, since I live here, and that makes me a major beneficiary of her kind acts of baking prowess. But my sister had put his picture in the local paper wishing him a happy birthday. Turns out she used a picture several years old. It was a picture of Dad looking into a mailbox out in the country (people next door to the farm he used to rent) collecting his cookies that they gave him on a regular basis. Now how does he do this? Turns out that my dad is a major cookie hustler. He'll hustle cookies from any woman in town who will bake them for him and I think the number would be much greater than it is except for the fact we can hardly eat the free cookies that come our way now!

And if they're not baking him cookies then they're baking him nasty little panty cakes and delivering them on his birthday! I'm telling you he's the baked sale hustler of the century! You go Dad!

It was wonderful to be able to hang around and watch Dad on his birthday. Cookies, cake, watch, brownies, door mat, a banana cream pie, shirts and candy bars (80 of them which he immediately hid in his room) were all delivered to his house throughout the day by people in the family and in the community who know my dad is simply one of the greatest people around. It was wonderful to see him honored in such a way. Doesn't change the fact that when it comes to cookies the man knows how to put on the hustle! Happy Birthday Dad!