He was a farmer and he loved getting dressed up every year for the local fair and exhibiting his prize chickens. My grandmother would spend the entire year searching through thrift shops looking for silly neckties for him to wear, and she loved finding ones with chickens on them.

After a few decades of this, my grandfather had amassed several dozen neckties, each one with cartoonish images of chickens flying around, laying eggs, and doing other chicken things. I always complimented him on the newest addition to his collection.

When he died a couple of years ago, he bequeathed them to me in his will. When my grandmother handed me the bag full of them, my eyes welled with tears and I smiled thinking about my grandfather looking in the mirror and straightening his tie.