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My father, James C. Holt, worked at Lorillard on East Market Street in Greensboro for 30 years. During that time, as I was growing up, the plant always closed during the second week of July. This meant that he had his birthday off every year as it fell during that week.

The summer after I graduated from high school, my parents decided to drive to West Virginia to visit my Aunt Francis and Uncle Irwin before driving on to Canada to visit Niagara Falls.

I remember thinking it was a bit odd that I was tagging along with my parents to Niagara Falls, a place also known as the Honeymoon Capital of the World.

Those thoughts were short-lived as I knew it would be fun to see my aunt and uncle, and I looked forward to spending time with my parents as we continued along to Canada to take in the breathtaking view of the falls.

The original plan was that we would be returning late in the day on my father's birthday. I bought him a new wallet that year and decided to wrap it and tuck it in my suitcase to give him the morning of his birthday.

I then hatched the idea to switch out his old wallet with the new one rather than to just hand him a wrapped gift. I made play money and a play driver's license out of construction paper to place inside the wallet. I got my mother's OK to pull this prank on my father, the king of harmless jokes in our household.

My father, mother and I made the trip north. We enjoyed visiting my aunt and uncle and viewing the falls. We stayed one night in each place. We planned to drive part of the way home, making a stop in either West Virginia or Pennsylvania overnight. This would be the night that I would execute my plan.

My father's birthday was the next day. I wanted to do the wallet switch in the hotel room while he was getting ready the next morning. He would obviously discover the switch before we left the room and we'd enjoy the joke together. It didn't quite work out that way.

We drove into West Virginia late. My father tried a couple of times to find a hotel room. Either the places he tried were booked up or too pricey for his tastes. He kept driving.

I'm not really sure when or where it was that my mother and I realized that my father was not going to stop anywhere. He had made the decision to continue driving all the way home, no matter how late it was going to be when we got home. There was no stopping him now.

My mother wanted to rest, so she took the back seat and I moved to the front. She told me to keep an eye on my father to make sure that he stayed awake.

I remember this time fondly because it was just my dad and I awake now driving through the night. For whatever reason, he let me switch the radio station to something I would like. Maybe the rock and roll kept him awake, I don't know.

We stopped a time or two for breaks at some highway rest stops along the highway before finally making it home at 2 a.m.

The next morning, it was his birthday. I had an invitation to go swimming with some friends around lunchtime. My father was still sleeping, so before I went swimming, I carried out my improvised plan to switch the wallets here at home. Originally I figured I'd be there when he discovered the switched wallet, but now I would probably still be out of the house when he found it. I told my mother what I did and where his old wallet was in case he woke up before I returned.

I came home from the pool to find my dad sitting at the kitchen table. He had a funny look on his face. He began to describe to me how he freaked as he discovered his wallet, full of those important things like driver's licenses, money and credit cards, was replaced with one with play money.

He told me at first he thought that at one of the rest stops someone had stolen his wallet, replacing it with this newer one with fake stuff inside.

He then told me that my mother had told him what I had done. He broke into a full grin. I did too, glad he enjoyed being on the receiving end of the prank this time.

This July 11, my father would have turned 76 years old. He died in 1988 when I was 21. Every year as I remember my father on his birthday a smile comes to my face as I also remember that one time I was able to finally say "Gotcha" to him in return for all the jokes he had played on me.

Happy Birthday, Daddy, you are missed, you are loved.

Linda Vestal is a wife, mother, daughter, sister and friend living in Gibsonville. Contact her with comments or story ideas at lindavestal@triad.rr.com.