When it comes to presents, what do you get somebody that has pretty much everything or most everything that they realistically want.
That is a question that I often ponder when it comes time to buy presents for certain people like my dad, Mike White.
He is retired so he doesn’t need work clothing.
While he still plays golf some, he has enough golf balls at this point to do him for a couple of lifetimes.
His favorite baseball team is the Detroit Tigers, and his favorite football team is the Detroit Lions, but there is only so much team paraphernalia that a person needs.
You can also only wear so many U.K. shirts and ball caps.
One of the solutions that I started coming up with a few years ago was to give him experiences. In 2011, we got tickets to the Senior PGA Open when it was played at Valhalla Golf Club in Louisville (My wonderful wife, Cecelia, found a Groupon for it and mentioned it to me as a possible present for dad). It was a fun day that saw Tom Watson, whom we followed around on the back nine, win in a playoff.
Last year I bought dad tickets to see an Eagles tribute band, The Eagles Project, that performed at Renfro Valley in Mount Vernon. (It was a great concert by the way.)
This year for Father’s Day, I bought dad tickets for another experience. This time it was for Revisiting Creedence, which is a Creedence Clearwater Revival (CCR) tribute band. I saw them about 18 months ago when Cecelia and I took a trip to Bowling Green. When I mentioned it to dad afterwards, he noted this was a band he wouldn’t mind seeing as he used to enjoy listening to CCR when he was younger.
I bought the tickets in-person a few months ago when Cecelia and I were in Lexington to see another show at the Lexington Opera House, which was an experience that I had gotten her as a Christmas present.
(Tip: If you go to the venue in-person to buy tickets at the box office, then you can save yourself a small fortune on Ticketmaster fees whether it is the Lexington Opera House or The Corbin Arena.)
At any rate the Revisiting Creedence show was Sunday night, and dad and I made the trek to Lexington to see it. We left early and stopped by Skyline to enjoy some Cincinnati-style chili for supper as neither of our wives like it.
We got to the venue about 20 minutes early and enjoyed chit chatting with some other folks in line about past concerts we had seen.
As it turned out, we ended up seated next to a couple from Corbin, whose names escape me now. The lady and I talked about travel for quite some time.
The Revisiting Creedence show was great with the only minor issue being that seats at the Lexington Opera House are not real comfortable and there isn’t much legroom, but that is a small complaint. (I guess people used to be shorter than they are now…LOL.)
At the ripe old age of 54, I was one of the younger people in attendance, but not the youngest. There was a young girl in the front row, who was probably about six years old that got attention at various times. She appeared to be there with perhaps her grandmother, mother and aunt.
The lead singer of the band offered the little girl some advice, which was that if she stayed in school and avoided musicians, then she should turn out pretty good. (The singer’s words, not mine…LOL.)
In closing, if you are looking for something to get that person in your life, who seemingly has everything that you can think of, then experiences can make a pretty good present for you and them. Just a thought as we prepare to enter Christmas shopping season.
Also, if the powers that be at Nibroc or the Corbin Arena ever decide to book a tribute band, Revisiting Creedence is a pretty good one, especially for fans of CCR’s music. It seemed like everyone at last night’s show had a real good time.
The Eagles Project would be another good tribute band to book.
