My dad had this habit of collecting business cards. He would say, “You never know when you will need to call them up again.”  I’d roll my eyes and think about how fat his wallet was getting. Every time that episode of Seinfeld would come on, the one with George and his wallet, I’d tell my dad to watch it. He didn’t think it was that funny.
Dad really did know everybody and could find just about anybody to fix anything. Business card or not, my dad knew where to do business. His last day of what we thought was good health, three days before he died, he and my mom were driving our older neighbor’s car to a shade-tree mechanic to get the brakes fixed. I mean, who else would be helping people do business on their last days on earth. My dad!
He would take neighbors or friends to apply for social security, for VA benefits, to look for work. He would take people to their court appointments and made so many referrals to his lawyer that I think he might have been getting some kind of commission. My dad believed in giving someone the shirt off his back if he needed to. I miss him so much.
I had been carrying his wallet with me since he died. I kept in my purse and then in my car. I didn’t go through it for a while. I could hear my dad’s voice telling me to “STAY OUT OF MY WALLET!”  Since I was a kid, I had been so curious about that wallet. I wondered what he had in there. Pictures? Money? What?! Sometimes, I’d try to sneak a peek, but I’d get as far as the driver’s license and he’d catch me and tell me to stay out of his wallet. What I came to find out when I looked in his wallet was all that I already knew about my dad. His most important pieces of information, what he valued and believed in were all right there, in his wallet.
He had an assortment of business cards. They were the essentials—social worker, attorney, doctor, and of course, his car man, TV man, tree man and air condition guy. He had his life insurance card, ATM card, one credit card and his 2.00 bill. That was dad in a nutshell. Nothing more, nothing less. His life was wrapped up between two pieces of leather. There was no big mystery. All his advice was right there, in his wallet. He would say to always keep 2.00 in your pocket, to have at least one emergency credit card, to plan for the future with life insurance and to have people you could call if you needed them for services. At the very back of his wallet, I found my own business card. What a collection!