Feature Article June 12, 2002
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Father's Day Gift Giving Guide (Part 2)by Jeff Green Not that I would want to belabor the point, but I haven't noticed two things in the past week that support the two earth shattering observations that I made last week in part 1 of my Father's day meditations. The first point was that Father's day is the junior parents day, a less celebrated event than Mother's Day. Well, the number of establishments in our region who advertised Mother's Day dinners in our paper was quite large, while there are only one or two who have bothered to promote a Father's Day dinner. Now, some restaurants may have chosen to advertise with our erstwhile competitors, there's no accounting for taste, but still it is safe to say Father's day Dinners have never really caught on.
My second observation concerned Soap on a Rope. I conducted a search for Soap on a Rope this week and found it had disappeared. Even major pharmacy chains in large cities do not carry it any more. I considered using this column space to provide a how to make soap on a rope craft recipe, but thought better of it. Any one who is so inclined should find it easy enough to make. A bit of fat and some wood ash, maybe some spring herbs, and a length of rope could be turned into a facsimile of the product, in a Red Green sort of way.
I also talked to my father, and he confessed that, while he used the Soap on a Rope we gave him, it wasn't all that great. If you left it hanging on the faucet it inevitably became unpalatable and squished away rather quickly. He much preferred the soap that he took from hotels on business trips, and one of his few regrets about having retired has to do with having to buy soap again after all these years.
All that I have left to talk about is what father's day actually means to someone who finds themselves on both sides of it. I remember the first year I was a father on father's day. At the time our first born was less than one month old, and when friends and neighbours wished me happy father's day I felt quite important, as if I joined some fraternity of grown up people. Of course, I was still in shock about being a parent then, so I don't think it was really a particularly profound event in retrospect. Still, there is something to being told "happy father's day" by my children, it is worthy to reflect on being a father for a moment or so, since it makes up a large part of what I am. It is a great privilege to be a father.
I remember having to remember to phone my own father on Father's day, and much of a chore that sometimes seemed to be. First, I had to remember, and then I had to find a phone.
Now, it's easy. As long as one of my kids remembers to wish me a happy father's day, I just have to immediately pick up the phone, and my duty is done.
As time passes, the obvious but brutal fact that not everyone I know is privileged to have that obligation strikes home more and more.
That, in the end is what Father's day means to me. It marks the great privilege of being a father, and the great privilege of having a father. I am doubly blessed.
