Muzings From The Edge: Father’s Day Special

Like many men who have grown up with the traditional rituals of American penchant for granting days to persons based on their status in life, in business, in politics, or in regard to family I tended to go with flow of what others thought each day meant. You all know how it is. We have a day to honor presidents who have served their office which makes little sense because they spent enormous amounts of cash and time convincing us they were the absolute best person for the job and practically begging us to vote them into office. If anything they should be honoring us for giving them the chance to prove just how wrong they were. Then we have mother’s day where we honor our mothers who gave us birth and manged to get us to a reasonable age without feeding us to wolves or some other creature. Moms are indeed special and should be honored with a day off for all the discomfort and pain for carrying us around and getting our screaming butts into the world. Coming up shortly we have father’s day when we are supposed to tell our father’s how much we appreciate how much he did for us by rearing us from childhood without trying to teach us to swim a river inside a burlap sack during the dead of winter. But as I have grown older, and hopefully a bit more thoughtful and introspective, I have concluded that maybe I have misconstrued the whole idea of Fathers Day.

Growing up the idea on Father’s Day was to get my step father a gift and make sure that day was an especially nice one for him, maybe even take him out to lunch or dinner. As my own two children come along they had similar notions. Well Tonya and Shannon are all grown up now and they still call and wish me Happy Father’s Day and offer to take me out to eat and so forth but a few years back I began to rethink the whole concept. In fact, I briefly addressed it on MMA’s old Blog. When I stop to think about what gifts a father should, or would, receive of Fathers Day it dawned on me that I already had received the greatest gifts that any father could possibly ever get. The most immediate proof of that was two really great people who managed, despite any and all mistakes I may have made, turned out to be truly wonderful adults living great adult lives. To fully enjoy all of my gifts all I have to do is to sit back and let my mind drift and remember the great times I had with them as they were growing up and how proud they made me every step of the way. I know that I probably never told them enough at the time and I wish I could rewind the clock just enough to let them know how I felt. But, assuming that there is some validity to the old saying that, “it is never to late,” this my way of saying thanks for the gifts you have given me throughout all these years just by being who you are.

I don’t need a new shirt since I probably have more now than I will ever wear and I only wear ties when someone forces me to at the point of a gun. Socks are always optional unless I am working and even then I am probably lucky if I remember to put them on. I already own as many electronic gadgets as I can possibly master before I croak. I am well supplied with various other trinkets that are supposed to assure me that I am loved, wanted, and appreciated. I have a great Father’s Day every day of the year. So kids, don’t worry about shopping trips this year for Father’s Day. Your list of gifts to me was completed many years ago.

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