When I was a kid, I never really knew what my dad did.  All I knew was that he used to put on a pager, put on a suit, and I wasn't allowed to call him.  Every year for Father's Day or his birthday or sometimes Chanukah, my siblings and I would buy him a new tie.  Every year.

Do you know how many ties you accumulate when you've received at least one tie from your children every year?  

They'd hang on little golden pegs with rubber caps on a lazy susan-like contraption in his closet.  Blue ties, red ties, plaid ties, striped ties, ties with cartoon Halloween cats on them and some with cartoon characters from books we liked or movies we'd seen (these were usually towards the back).  My dad had a tie for every day of the year.  But he usually only wore about nine or ten of them, when I think about it.  

One of my favorite morning rituals was helping him prepare his white-collar uniform for work: wristwatch, suit, tie, shined shoes, pager.  While my mom cooked sausage or biscuits or scrambled eggs or whatever breakfast dishes she made time for as a dedicated stay at home mom, I scurried into my dad's spacious closet and twirled his merry-go-rounds of ties until I landed on one I liked. Sometimes, if I knew mom was making a special breakfast that demanded a competition between my siblings and I to see who could make it to the kitchen first, I'd pick out his tie the night before.  I remember running my fingers along the silky ties, feeling the methodical stitching of stripes and spots and words and characters.  

I had no idea what my dad did for a living, but oh I loved his neckties.

During preschool, when the other kids would say that their dad was a firefighter or a doctor or he worked at the pet store--interesting how I'm sure he wasn't too proud of this profession, but he was the absolute envy of every peer of his child on the playground--I would scramble for what to say when it was my turn.  He wore a suit?  He made money?  He fired people?  That was usually the one I went with to accrue the most laughs.  

Once, my dad took my brother with him to work for one of those bring-your-kid-to-work-days where I'm sure the manager shells out a few extra bucks to keep a round of stale cookies on the conference room table and the secretaries are tempted to call in sick so that they're not succumbed to giving the tour of the offices, the vending machines, the water cooler and the thrilling mail room ten times.  I don't actually know if that's what happens on the annual holiday that a rather scant number of people enjoy.  My brother never told me what happened when he came back from work with Dad.  I don't remember why.  Maybe he was too distracted with baseball practice or asking Mom what was for dinner or maybe I just forgot to ask him.

Maybe I was sitting in my dad's dim closet.  Maybe I was too busy looking at his ties and wondering.

And the next morning, I helped him pick out a tie.  I watched him button the plastic fastens of his suit.  I handed him the pager--careful not to push any buttons, Hannah--that he clipped to his belt.  And I wasn't allowed to call him.