Tomorrow Is Father's Day- -If That Means Anything

By CHARLES M. GUTHRIE
of the Minneapolis Tribune editorial page staff
published by the StarTribune
June 19, 1954

Grandpa (Alfred Bertram Guthrie), Mom and Dad

   FATHER'S DAY is a bush league occasion, as holidays go, and save for the stimulus it gives the shirt and necktie trade there seems small excuse for it.
   The first Father's day, my encyclopedia tells me, was observed in Spokane, Wash., in 1910.  Mother's day predates it by three years.  I suppose that mother then figured it was time the old man had some sort of recognition, too, and tossed him this sop to ease her conscience.
   But Father's day never has worked up more than a tired head of steam and if it weren't for the ads in the papers it probably would blush unseen,.  It lacks the hearts-and-flowers appeal of Mother's day and all efforts to build it up to comparable stature have foundered on the shoals of indifference.
   Fathers are great people and many of them have a streak of sentiment as wide as a barn door but in the popular concept they cannot compare in the tenderness department with mothers.  One does not conjure up pictures of pop tucking the little ones into bed or kissing their tears away.

   MOTHER, bless her heart, already knows that tomorrow is Father's day and has planned accordingly.  Her gift to her soul mate--charged to his account--has been wrapped with pretty ribbon and secreted in the closet.
   But if the kids have gone unbriefed, they will not think about dad until an hour before the stores close, when it is too late to shop with anything but abandon and very little of that.  I have known teenage sons, enmeshed in this web of circumstance, to resort to the dodge of pawning off on pater the horrendous Christmas necktie, received from Aunt Hortense, which they never had the courage to wear.

   WHEN YOU pause to think about it, though, wise shopping for father is well nigh impossible and the catch-as-catch-can procedure is about as good as any.  He never knows what he wants--and he usually wants little.  Mom buys his shirts, socks and cravats.  He even likes to have her with him when he buys a suit, list he fetch home something that would delight a sideshow barker.

Chuck, Mom (Florence), Dad, Tom, Carol 

   And even when a fellow does have a definite desire his progeny is disinclined to believe him.  I once told my daughter that I'd like one of those little two-wheeled contraptions used for spreading grass seed and fertilizer.  She burst into laughter.  That wasn't a gift!  I could buy one of those things myself.  So I am still without a grass seed fertilizer cart, though I want one passing sore.
   I once dropped the hint that some new garden hose would delight father on his day.  My wife bought it, but with reluctance.  She said it was like my buying her a mop.

   THE FATHER'S day gift problem grows tougher by the year because the older pop gets the less he wants.  The youthful sire is far easier to honor than he who is in middle age.  The young dad is clothes conscious and active.  He swims, golfs and plays tennis and fancies himself as a delight to womanhood.  Gay apparel pleases him.  So does anything in the sporting goods line.
   The oldster, mayhap with nostalgic sigh, has put aside his illusions about being a charmer.  He has a spare chin.  His chest has slipped down to his middle, and moulting is well along.  New duds can do little for him.  The only sports he goes in for, save fishing and watching the televised fights and ball games, involve little more than lifting a stack of poker chips and holding a cigar in his jaws.

   I HAVE made an agonizing appraisal of my Father's day wants.  They narrow down to one of those gizmos used for stemming the lawn's invasion of the sidewalk.  This is called an edger, my hardware man tells me.
   But if the shirt and socks fit I will rest content.  And if it should come to pass that the necktie is rerouted to me from Aunt Hortense I shall got grieve.  It's nice to be a father and it's nice to be remembered.  And come Christmas I can give the tie to an in-law.


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