Presents

Presents were odd things.

First of all, sometimes they were hand-me-downs. If Mother and Daddy got a replacement, Ann and I knew that the old would show up as a gift.

Second of all, we didn't get taken shopping. One year we made net hangers for gifts and Daddy asked what I was going to get Mother for Christmas. Why he asked I didn't know. I'd made her a set of net hangers and told him so.

"How do you think that will make her feel? That's what y'all made everyone else."

There was no offer to take me shopping. I didn't make an allowance anyway. I rewrote a poem I'd written for school and scrounged around and found a frame. It was the only gift I remember giving.