Fathers Day

A woman by the name of Sonora Smart Dodd thought of the idea for Father's Day while listening to a Mother's Day sermon in 1909.

Having been raised by her father, William Jackson Smart, after her mother died, Sonora wanted her father to know how special he was to her. It was her father that made all the parental sacrifices and was, in the eyes of his daughter, a courageous, selfless, and loving man. Sonora's father was born in June, so she chose to hold the first Father's Day celebration in Spokane, Washington on the 19th of June, 1910.

In 1926, a National Father's Day Committee was formed in New York City. Father's Day was recognized by a Joint Resolution of Congress in 1956. In 1972, President Richard Nixon established a permanent national observance of Father's Day to be held on the third Sunday of June. So Father's Day was born in memory and gratitude by a daughter who thought that her father and all good fathers should be honored with a special day just like we honor our mothers on Mother's Day.

The idea that the male is only the father is wrong there are so many women who are both the father and mother for their children. An example my own mother rest her soul, portrayed a father while I was growing up. Many woman do this, even lesbian couples because a child needs a father figure. So today we observe this holiday for all the fathers in the world.

Mine is celebrating his b-day and fathers day together, and all my brothers and my brother in law too. I could never father a child nor can I bear any children so this will be another day for me. I was once married and became a step father which was a wonderful gift to me because I love being with children, Thomas was his name grew to be a very good man he is now 22 years old. I haven't seen him for 2 years now, since I came out of the closet. Someday he will understand and accept me for who I was to him but until then it isn't a crisis that needs to be resolved.

Roses are the fathers day flower: red to be worn for a living father and white if the father has died.

Remember when

This is for the man who brought me into this world whether he wanted a daughter or not, he is after all my father. This month he will be celebrating his 75th birthday with my brothers, sister, cousins, aunts and uncles. What a wonderful way to cherish 75 years, but he will not be celebrating it with his twin brother who passed on 5 years ago or his mother who passed 2 years ago. A man who was brought up on tobacco farm with a dirt floor in a cabin with 7 children. No he is in our hearts even though sometimes he can be an ass for not accepting me for me but I think it is finally sinking in that I am his oldest daughter and not the son he perceived.

Growing up was difficult in many ways that it taught me to stand up for myself never rely on anyone because you just don't know who will hurt you next and I can thank my father for that lesson. He taught me so much over the course of 40 years that has me here today typing out a remembered birthday wish to him. I remember fishing with my brothers and father eating spam from a can, exploring the waters in which we fished. Camping and roughing it, dealing with the bugs and snakes. Swimming in water so pure you could drink it as you swam in it, yes those were the good ole days. Before cell phones and electronic games, when a child used their imagination to build and play to all hours until my father would whistle and god forbid you didn't hear the that sound there would be hell to pay.
There were times my father would make us go outside with boxing gloves to settle an argument amongst us and since I was the sis in the family I would get beat up the most. I wasn't a fighter like my father wanted me to be, but he paid for it dearly when my brothers would get unruly and beat him up and anyone that got in their way. So the lesson learned there was never teach someone something that will bite you in the ass in the long run.

So on the 17th of June my father will be 75 years old, three quarters of a century that is quite a milestone. I will be lucky to make that age god usually takes the good people first and then the bad last, he took my mother when she reached 49 and she was the sweetest person in the world not because she was my mother just because of who she was. My father who was brought up in the older days was mean and he drank, he used to beat up my mom when I was a child. He hated her so much 30 years later he brings up the past and how he hated her for the things she did to him but never the beating he gave her.
Funny how I remember all those things and yet I can not remember what I had for dinner the night before.
Happy Birthday Dad, seventy five years is an awful long time to live and still many more years ahead because god doesn't want you and the devil is afraid you will take over.



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