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Her love, her time and her patience

I got a Walkman when I was 6. Best thing ever. Influenced my music choices for my entire lifetime.

A palomino named Sugar that I used to ride but couldnt accept

I was running out of money, and had to sell my car to pay my tuition. One of the doctors found out, and gave me one of his old cars, so I didn't have to ride my motorcycle through the winter and wind up freezing my butt off, not to mention likely have an accident in the snow.

His generosity made a long term difference; once out of school, I have given away every car, instead of selling it or trading it in. As the time to get my new car got closer, I would carefully ask around to see who really needed one, but couldn't afford it. Oh, I'd ask if they 'won' a car, could they afford the upkeep and insurance, to make sure I wasn't causing a hardship on them. Once I was sure, I would just give them the keys, and the title. And tell them to transfer the title and do all the paperwork when they could.... and to pay it forward some day if they could, and help someone else that needed something that they didn't have.

I've always received (for lack of a better term) generic guy gifts, sporting good gift card kind of things. Appreciated every one of them, but nothing crazy. I met a gal a couple weeks before my birthday and we hung out a bit getting to know each other. B-day comes around and in that short time, she had picked up on all the little things that casual conversation bring and put together an amazing day. A trip to the city hitting a natural history exhibit I had talked briefly about. She cut me loose at a second hand music shop I used to frequent as a kid and put up with 4 hours of me thumbing through every damned album in the place. Ended it all with a night cap at quiet pub, cold brews, pool and an absurd amount of money stuffed into the jukebox. First and only real birthday celebration I've ever had and by far the most thoughtful gifts I've ever recieved.