Tag Archives: Fathers Day

Fathers

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I’m going to tell you something that I think will astound you.

Father’s Day wasn’t officially recognized until 1972, when President Richard Nixon (himself a father of two girls, if you’ll remember) signed a proclamation naming the third Sunday of June Father’s Day. Tricia and Julie Nixon probably groaned. Daddy, you just did this to get a present.

But seriously? All those years in my youth when I would gather my money and head down to the Rexall Drug Store to buy my father some Brut after shave, and it wasn’t even an official holiday. That money could have been better spent on wax lips and pixie sticks.

I remember that it used to annoy my father to no end that the priests (according to him) at Mass on Father’s Day would barely recognize them, while on Mother’s Day, they were applauded and honored with special prayers. He claimed, in fact, that one year the priest reminded them that they wouldn’t be fathers if it wasn’t for their wives being mothers. Little did he know that it was lucky he was getting any recognition (not to mention Brut) at all because Father’s Day was simply a word-of-mouth celebration.

Mother’s Day became a holiday early in the 20th century, after Anna Jarvis successfully lobbied Congress and the president to officially honor mothers with a special day. Apparently Catholics in Europe had been unofficially celebrating Father’s Day since the Middle Ages on March 19, the feast day of St. Joseph. But efforts to replicate this official honoring of fatherhood just never found legs, especially after Mother’s Day became so commercialized.

So leave it to Tricky Dick to finally make the whole thing official. I hope his daughters gave him a good present that year.

As for Bill, this year he had kind of a quiet Father’s Day, as half of his children are not around. Heather and her family live in Vermont, and Dave and his family are driving around in an RV. Court and his family returned yesterday morning from a week-long trip to Disney World. He stopped by on his way home from the airport to give Bill a hug, and Cole happily wished him a happy Father’s Day from the back seat, while his sisters slept. He got a Face Time call from Heather, and Father’s Day wishes from Joseph and Micah. Dave called to wish him a happy day as well.

Allen (Bill’s eldest) and Emma came over for dinner and a celebration featuring barbecued ribs, baked beans, southern-styled green beans and banana splits for dessert. You can’t get much more American than that, and Tricky Dick would have been proud. The highlight of the meal was watching everyone make their own banana splits…..

I offered vanilla ice cream with caramel, hot fudge, and strawberry toppings, in addition to bananas. On the side were maraschino cherries, nuts, and squirt whipped cream. As we made our banana splits, Allen asked Emma — who was born and lived most of her life in Paris, France — if she had ever had a banana split. She admitted there was something similar in France, but with only one scoop of ice cream rather than three. Welcome to the U. S. of A, where we would never have one when we could have three. And I must admit the squirt whipped cream threw her a bit, but not for long…..

As a Father’s Day gift from God, we got a nice rainfall in the afternoon. Bill and I spent a bit of time on our patio enjoying the cool weather following our week of temperatures in the upper 90s……

I think that Bill would call this a nice celebration of fatherhood. What more could a guy want than hugs, phone calls, and visits from all of your kids. Oh, and banana splits.

Thursday Thoughts

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Better Not Be in a Hurry
My blog post yesterday in which I waxed eloquently about train travel might have been somewhat premature. When Bill checked the status of our train yesterday morning, he learned that it was going to be nearly four hours late getting into Glenwood. The good news is we weren’t in a hurry. We whiled away the day doing this and that. Looking at the flowers, for example…..

 

Our hotel – located directly across the street from the train station and, as such, used to working with stranded passengers — couldn’t have been nicer. They had to kick us out of our room, but they were helpful in every other way, providing water and use of bathrooms and comfortable places to sit and charge up our electronic equipment. We boarded at 4 o’clock and arrived Union Station in Denver at 11:30 p.m. instead of 6:38 as planned. We walked into our house at 12:30 this morning. Train travel doesn’t seem quite as romantic when you’re hours and hours late.

Flying High
One of the things we did to kill time was to take the tram up to the top of a mountain where there is a very fun Adventure Park….

Fun, that is, if you’re NUTS! There is a roller coaster up there that juts out over the canyon and a rocking swing that not only flies you into the air, but flies you into the air over the canyon. We watched but we’re not even remotely tempted…..

Brave Hearts
Our grandkids, however, are much braver than are we, as they actually did fly over Glenwood Canyon on those self same amusement park rides last year, and lived to tell about it. And I got an email from Kaiya while we were in Glenwood Springs after they returned from their California trip. She sent me this photo of Kaiya, Mylee, and her father on some sort of death defying ride at Sea World…..

I would no sooner choose this attraction than I would choose to feed the whales out of my hand. Have they all lost their minds?

Father’s Day
We had a kind of low key Father’s Day, but cooked burgers on the grill for Bill’s two sons and their families. The weather was perfect and the food tasted good. The kids were momentarily discombobulated when the sprinklers went on about 8 o’clock, but quickly recovered and were soon soaking wet but happy. Here is a photo of Bill with two of his three kids and four of his nine grandkids….

 

Ciao!

Thursday Thoughts

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Hallmark Holidays
I have mixed feelings about both Mothers’ Day and Fathers’ Day. I, of course, am so happy to be a mother, but I must admit that each Mothers’ Day when the priest at Mass asks mothers to stand for a blessing, I get a bit sad for the women who don’t stand who wish they could be (or could have been) mothers. Perhaps they should just give the blessing without having us stand. Having said all of that, we had a wonderful Fathers’ Day spent with two of the three people who call Bill Dad. The third lives in Vermont, and would undoubtedly have been there if she were a millionaire and could afford to fly to Denver at a whim. He got a much-desired baseball glove and a card signed by his grandkids. Later on in the day, Court, Kaiya and Mylee Facetimed him to wish him a happy Fathers’ Day. All-in-all, a good day…..

Bill, McLains card

 

Fathers Day 2016 (2)

Fresh Paint
I’ve written on this blog that we have gone more than 23 years without painting much of our house. This summer we are determined to paint all of the rooms that are so desperately in need of sprucing up. So this past weekend, I picked out my color, and Bill and I painted the room which I use as my office…..

Bill painting

I actually did some of the painting too, though Bill admittedly did the bulk of the work, as usual. But I did some of the rolling, which took a lot more strength than I had anticipated. For the most part, my life is not challenged by the arthritis I have in my hands and wrists, but I will admit that it impacted my ability to paint a whole bunch. I love the way it turned out. Next, our guest room.

Scooting
I won’t lie. One of the best things about summer for me is that I can ride my scooter. It’s one of the first things I ask Bill to do when we get back to Denver and the temperatures are warming up – get my scooter started. He’s got it down to a science these days. He charges up the battery, and then has some kind of spray something-or-other that results in the scooter starting after only a few attempts. I used to drive my scooter all the way to my office downtown, but now I mostly scoot around the neighborhood. I almost always take it to the grocery store. The box on back fits more than you would think, but I must admit I occasionally have the need to put something between my feet. Once I had a case of Corona between my feet on the scooter. Luckily, I don’t have far to drive. I’m pretty sure the police wouldn’t have been thrilled for all sorts of reasons.

Kris scooter 2016

 Camping
All four of Dave’s and Jll’s kids are up at camp this week. It’s pretty quiet around the neighborhood, and exceptionally quiet at their house. Alastair has been gone since school got out. He literally got on a plane the afternoon of his last school day and flew to Montana, where he went RV camping with his Aunt Julie for a week. He got home, slept in his bed one night, and then left for Boy Scout camp. He got home from that, spent another night in his own bed, and left for this camp on the afternoon of Fathers’ Day. I asked him that morning how he felt about leaving again and spending another week sleeping in a tent. “I love it,” he said. That made me happy, but I will tell you that I would have missed my mommy when I was little. Golly, I was such a mommy’s girl.

Ciao.