Dad was not one to hoard receipts and other paperwork from his nearly 91 years. But he did hold on to reminders that brought back good memories.

“You were a cheap date,” he said to me out of the blue when I was still in my teens.

He quickly explained that he’d run across the bill from my birth.

“Our insurance didn’t cover everything,” he said with a sigh. “I had to shell out $14.75 when we brought you home.”

I happened to run across that receipt a few days ago:

Dad may have liked to play Mr. Scrooge but was a generous soul in many ways.

Eighteen years later, Dad tucked away the “college budget” sheet I’d drawn up for him. Frankly, I don’t remember it, but he mentioned it to me every so often. Poor guy, there was one year when there were three of us in college, so any sign of frugality meant a lot to him.

And six years later, in 1982, it was wedding time.

Dad held on to that receipt, too. In fact, he may have taken it to work with him for show and tell. He was tickled at how “cheap” a wedding could be had in southern Indiana versus New York City and environs. (A few of his colleagues tried to bribe their daughters to elope.)

“The cost of your reception wouldn’t even cover paying for wedding flowers out here!” Dad’s inner-Tevye was in full bloom.

There were a few other mementos tucked into the “receipt envelope” I came across recently.

Here’s a birthday card, probably from 1964. Being left-handed, it took me some time to learn to print left-to-right (which was, admittedly, the smearier proposition).

It took me another year to get my signature headed in the right direction.

After all these years, it’s touching to see that Dad held back a reminder or two that for $14.75, he did okay.

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