Here’s a thing I didn’t know: Father’s Day was first celebrated in 1910 in my hometown of Spokane, Washington! Of course, it followed the inauguration of Mother’s Day back in 1908, but I can’t help thinking that’s the right order. Turns out a young lady named Sonora Smart Dodd heard a sermon about Mother’s Day in 1909 and managed to get enough support to get it celebrated first on June 19, 1910. That’s roughly 113 years of barbecues, coffee mugs that say “World’s Greatest Dad!”, ugly ties and homemade cards. So, to all the fathers I know out there, be they two father homes, step-fathers, fathers with kids at home or kids out and about living their lives, let me wish you all a hearty Happy Father’s Day!
We celebrated, at least as far as I’m concerned, Father’s Day yesterday. Years ago a friend and mentor told me about a grange up outside Portland called the Dixie Mountain Grange. Every year on Father’s Day weekend they host a Strawberry Shortcake Festival. He talked about how his family would drive up there and eat strawberry shortcake on Father’s Day weekend as part of his celebration.
This combines two things of which I’m a big fan:
- Strawberries (Oregon has some of the best in the WORLD)
- Shortcake – because, really, who doesn’t like shortcake
That doesn’t even touch on the other part of it which is pretty great and that’s the homemade whipped cream piled on top.
Oh, yeah, and the part where we spend time together as a family. But, did I mention the Strawberry Shortcake!
We’ve done this probably four times in the last 10 years and I’ve enjoyed it every time.
This year both my son and daughter were available which is a rare combination as my son has been working many weekends and my daughter has been out of town going to school. So, I definitely wanted to take advantage of the opportunity to get some time with them.
As they get older (they’re 21 and 24 now) I know they’re going to be more focused on their own lives – as they should – so I try to appreciate the opportunities to be together with them when I can.
The four of us (me, Christina, Brian and Laurel) made the drive and I enjoyed the conversation on the way up. Laurel is just graduating with her Psychology degree and Brian has just completed a speech class, Philosophy class and Chemistry class at the local community college so the conversational topics wandered all over the place and it was wonderful to talk to them and be able to see the changes in them as they continue to grow while still seeing the connections back the kids they were when they were younger.
When we got there we wandered around outside the Grange for a little while checking out the booths with handcrafts and handmade soaps and pottery for sale. Christina got a beautiful fused glass pendant that’s a bright blue and looks great on her. Laurel got her face painted for $2. She was shooting for a duck wearing a graduation cap to celebrate her upcoming graduation from the University of Oregon (Go Ducks!). Something was either lost in translation or execution because when we saw her again later it looked more like a white goose wearing a green beret.
Brian and I wandered around and just looked at the various things. One of my favorites was a couple selling hand made soap with various scents like licorice and sandalwood and Monkey Farts. Yes, Monkey Farts. Well, with a name like that, you have to at least smell it. It was very fruity smelling so then I had to ask the obvious question: “Why Monkey Farts?” The man smiled and explained that it was a mixture of tropical fruit smells so they decided that if a monkey ate all those fruits and farted, this is what it would smell like! I passed on the Monkey Farts soap, but I appreciated the name!
And then came my favorite part of the trip. We bought a family portion which is enormous but we did our best to destroy it. They give you the choice of either a biscuit or a shortcake for the bottom so I chose half and half because I know Christina likes the biscuit. I was behind a man in line who was arguing fairly convincingly that a biscuit was blasphemous because it’s called “Strawberry Shortcake”, not “Strawberry Biscuits!”
Nevertheless, we got our family portion and did our level best to destroy what we could of it. In the end, though, the dessert got the best of us and we were forced to stop while there were still strawberries in the dish.
Afterwards, we went back home and were joined by Zach and Zoe, my step-kids for a late lunch/early dinner. I was very happy because all the kids are busy, so getting them together at one time is no small feat and it had been some time since we had all been together in one place.
Zoe is very busy with school and all her activities and her boyfriend and Zach is only home for a couple of months from West Point, so I was very appreciative that they made the time to come over and share the meal with us.
So, I grilled some sausages and Christina made her award-winning baked beans – they are at least first place in my heart – and stomach! Add in some macaroni salad, some chips and soda and we had a great meal.
My favorite part was just getting to listen to all the kids talk about what was going on in their lives and the other kids listening and asking questions of each other. Just the general sound of them being, at least for a little while, a part of each other’s lives.
I’m a father and a step-father and they’re both very tough jobs. I wanted to be a father and it’s a job I really enjoy. Being a step-father is tough and I have a tremendous amount of respect for those who do it well because there are a huge numbers of land mines to be navigated in that job.
Being a father, whether step- or other, is probably one of the toughest jobs I’ve ever taken on. We enter in to it with no manual and sometimes just the most bare notion of what we’re getting ourselves in to. Our training for the position is likely limited to what we saw modeled by our own parents. We take part in helping to form and guide the life of someone who is actively trying to find their own place in the world and that’s a terrific and terrifying prospect. I know my Dad tried his best with me and I continue to try to do my best by my own kids and I hope that if they grow up and choose to become parents, they’ll be able to look back at our time together and find more things to choose to emulate than things they choose to do differently. In either case, I will support them and I will help when I can and I will thank them for being good kids and remind them they have the capacity to be amazing parents.
Bill Cosby famously tells of a “curse” his mother put on him: “I hope, when you get married, you have some children who act exactly the same way that you act.” He said it was a curse that all mothers put on their children. It’s a funny bit, but here’s the thing: I also wish that my kids have children who act like they acted because for all the headaches my kids gave me and sometimes still give me (and I’m talking about ALL my kids), they’re great kids and if they should be so lucky as to have kids like that, they’ll have the opportunity to be wonderful parents.
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