.bodytext {float: left; } .floatimg-left-hort { float:left; margin-top:10px; margin-right: 10px; width:300px; clear:left;} .floatimg-left-caption-hort { float:left; margin-bottom:10px; width:300px; margin-right:10px; clear:left;} .floatimg-left-vert { float:left; margin-top:10px; margin-right:15px; width:200px;} .floatimg-left-caption-vert { float:left; margin-right:10px; margin-bottom:10px; font-size: 10px; width:200px;} .floatimg-right-hort { float:right; margin-top:10px; margin-left:10px; margin-bottom:10px; width: 300px;} .floatimg-right-caption-hort { float:left; margin-right:10px; margin-bottom:10px; width: 300px; font-size: 10px; } .floatimg-right-vert { float:right; margin-top:10px; margin-left:10px; margin-bottom:10px; width: 200px;} .floatimg-right-caption-vert { float:left; margin-right:10px; margin-bottom:10px; width: 200px; font-size: 10px; } .floatimgright-sidebar { float:right; margin-top:10px; margin-left:10px; margin-bottom:10px; width: 200px; border-top-style: double; border-top-color: black; border-bottom-style: double; border-bottom-color: black;} .floatimgright-sidebar p { line-height: 115%; text-indent: 10px; } .floatimgright-sidebar h4 { font-variant:small-caps; } .pullquote { float:right; margin-top:10px; margin-left:10px; margin-bottom:10px; width: 150px; background: url(http://www.dmbusinessdaily.com/DAILY/editorial/extras/closequote.gif) no-repeat bottom right !important ; line-height: 150%; font-size: 125%; border-top: 1px solid; border-bottom: 1px solid;} .floatvidleft { float:left; margin-bottom:10px; width:325px; margin-right:10px; clear:left;} .floatvidright { float:right; margin-bottom:10px; width:325px; margin-right:10px; clear:left;} We never knew what to buy for our dad for Christmas. I guess we didn’t know what to buy for our mother, either, but that universe of choices was a lot more densely populated. We could always grab some perfume or another little horse figurine for her collection or, in my case, a fairly hideous jewelry box that she gamely used for the rest of her life.

Buying for Dad, however, was like the opposite of buying for Warren Buffett. The Oracle of Omaha can buy anything he wants and probably the company that manufactures it, too, so why should you bother?

My dad couldn’t afford to buy much at all, but he didn’t seem to want much. So what would make him happy?

Men today, from the Baby Boomers on down, have lots of potential possessions in mind: digital cameras, BlackBerrys, audio and video equipment, sports gear, cars, clothes. They’re walking around thinking about these things, and some are even working hard so they can afford them.

In small-town Iowa of the 1950s and ’60s, a man’s life was more basic.

The way I remember it, my dad had one suit, and it lasted a long, long time. He bought a table saw and a drill press when World War II ended, and his workshop was complete. When he splurged and bought a brand-new pickup for the first and only time, he ordered it without a radio; probably saved fifty or sixty bucks right there.

In his world, men didn’t have expensive hobbies, or really much in the way of hobbies at all. Golf after work? Boating on the weekend? Uh, no, not exactly.

They had work and then they had time to rest up. They had things to get done around the house, because they certainly weren’t going to hire anyone to do what they could do for themselves. They had places to drop by – the gas station to see what was going on, the café for a cup of coffee.

Not a lifestyle that inspired many gift ideas.

When I trailed along behind my dad on family shopping trips, the only things that caught his eye were the tools of the carpenter’s trade. He didn’t buy, of course. He just looked.

I suppose we could have given him a new hammer every December, but hammers really don’t wear out that quickly.

One year, I think we bought him a device that would heat up shaving cream. Never saw it again. When we were very young, it almost seems like we bought some gadget that could cut the tops off glass bottles to turn them into useful and attractive drinking glasses. Can that be true? Must have been my sister’s idea.

As a dad, I’m not much fun to shop for either. No hunting, no fishing, no craving for electronics. My kids are more imaginative than we were, though.

When my oldest son was 10 or 12, he gave me a plastic aircraft carrier with two helicopters that you could launch into the air for several seconds of flight. We had more fun with that simple thing than with any other Christmas present I can remember.

Maybe that’s what we should have done – bought the old man something fun.

I don’t know, though. They did an extremely thorough job of growing up and putting away childish things back in those days. A toy might have seemed like an insult. Or worse, a waste of money.

We were not a money-wasting family, and the reason for that was pretty clear. My parents were young adults during the Great Depression, and their generation never stopped looking over its shoulder.

Every so often, my mom would mention the days when she worked as a waitress for $5 a week and the time they scavenged a lawn mower from a truck that was headed for the dump.

There was no equal and opposite reaction to that experience. I never heard my dad talk about what he would really, really like to have someday, no sailboat or motorcycle that would transform his life. I never heard him mention any dream that was waiting on the other side of retirement.

As the Christmas season winds down, after the barrage of ads and the scenes from the malls and the steady analysis of whether we’re spending enough money, I wonder what he would think about all this.

I suspect that Dad and 21st-century America just would not have gotten along.