The prompt for this week’s 52 Ancestors Challenge is “Handed Down”. At first, I thought this would be another week where I would struggle to think of something that would even remotely fit the topic. Thanks to my niece, inspiration struck. The other night I was planning what to wear to her university convocation ceremony, which included selecting a pair of cufflinks.
When I was little, cufflinks seemed to ubiquitous and commonplace. To me, it seemed that everyone wearing a suit had a pair of cufflinks for their dress shirts. My father always wore cufflinks in his early days with Woolworths, where he always wore a suit to work. I thought they were very cool. I also liked flipping the toggle around.
As time passed and fashions changed, my father wore cufflinks less and less often. Buttons on the cuffs became the norm. My dad rarely, if ever, wore cufflinks anymore. Then, in the mid-90s, my father had a career change, which did not require him to wear a suit for work anymore.
When I began wearing dress shirts on a regular basis, they all had buttons on the cuffs. However, at some point, my mother gave me a few pairs of my dad’s old cufflinks. I can’t remember why, or what the occasion might have been that I would have worn cufflinks.
Not too long afterward, my father gave me a pair of his old cufflinks that have become my favourite and most treasured. They’re clean, classic, and simple. There’s stamp on the post indicating that they’re 10 karat gold. They’re engraved with my father’s initials and, about five minutes ago, I discovered that “1975” is engraved underneath the face. That must have been the year he received them.
I can’t exactly recall how he came to possess them, although I knew he received them at work. Having discovered “1975” engraved on them, he must have received them to commemorate the opening of the new Woolworths in North Battleford, Saskatchewan. We had moved there the year before, when dad took over as general manager of the old store in the downtown core. The new store was far larger and was an anchor tenant of the new mall in which it was located.
Ever since I received these cufflinks, I have worn them to almost every major occasion at which I’ve had to wear a suit. I wore them at weddings and funerals. I wore them at my law school graduation and my call to the bar. And, of course, I wore them at my wedding.
This week I wore them when I attempted to attend my niece’s commencement ceremony, when she graduated with her Bachelor of Education degree. Unfortunately, I got no closer than 200 meters from the ceremony and was unable to attend. Long and boring story. At least I got to join the family celebration later that evening – sans cufflinks.
A Deck of Ancestors 