Today is Sunday, June 19 and there are only 189 days until Christmas.   I have already started getting the CD’s ready and have “It’s A Wonderful Life” all set to go.  Today we remember the birthdays of Dame May Whitty, Guy Lombardo and Pier Angeli.  On this day in 240 BC Eratosthenes estimated the circumference of Earth, in 1778 Washington’s troops finally left Valley Forge and in 1934 the Federal Communications Commission was created.  In Kuwait it is Independence Day, in Texas in is Juneteenth Day/Emancipation Day and in the US it is Father’s Day and National Martini Day.

Time to open the useless information file for Father’s Day.  The holiday was first created in 1910 by Sonora Smart Dodd.  She heard a sermon about Mother’s Day and felt that fathers should have a similar holiday.  In particular she wanted to honor her father, Civil War veteran William Jackson Smart, a single parent who raised six children.  She initially suggested June 5, her father’s birthday, but pastors did not have enough time to prepare their sermons and the celebration was deferred to the third Sunday of June.  The first Father’s Day was held on June 19, 1910.

A bill to accord national recognition of the holiday was introduced to Congress in 1913.  It did not pass.  In 1916 President Woodrow Wilson went to Spokane to speak at a Father’s Day celebration.  He wanted to make it official, but Congress resisted, fearing it would become commercialized.  President Calvin Coolidge recommended in 1924 that the day be observed by the nation, but stopped short of issuing a national proclamation.  Two earlier attempts to formally recognize the holiday had been defeated by Comgress.  

In 1957, Maine Senator Margaret Chase Smith wrote a proposal accusing Congress of ignoring fathers for 40 years while honoring mothers thus “singling out just one of our two parents.”  In 1966, President Lyndon Johnson issued the first presidential proclamation honoring fathers designating the third Sunday in June as Father’s Day.  The day was made a permanent national holiday when President Richard Nixon signed it into law in 1972.  So now, between this year and the past couple years, you should know more than you ever wanted to about this holiday.  If you are lucky, next year I may just mention it in passing.

I have been wondering about our language again.  I was sitting in my car the other day waiting for my younger grandson to get out of school and I happened to look at the cruise control levers.  I noticed that there was a button to accelerate and one to decelerate.  Several questions popped into my mind.  One was that if accelerate increases speed and decelerate decreases speed, does that mean if our speed remains the same we are celerating?  This question brings up another.  Why do we increase and decrease, but we accelerate and decelerate?  Why not accrease or incelerate?  And then I wondered if we are not increasing or decreasing are we simply creasing?  And how do we differentiate the creasing of staying the same from the creasing of ironing pants?

“You know dear, I was thinking of increasing the budget for wine, but I decided that for now we will just crease it.”

“You are going to iron the budget?”

 “No I am going to keep the wine budget the same.  I am going to crease it.” 

“Why would you bother to fold the budget?  Won’t that make it hard to read?” 

“You know, I may just increase the wine budget after all.”

I am writing this next part to show that I am not always complaining and to share something interesting.

My younger grandson gets somewhat emotional at the end of the school year.  He has been going through school with a great group of kids.  They all get along well and like each other.  So, when the end of the year comes and they realize they won’t be seeing each other for a couple months they are sad.  In the past, on the last day of school, he would cry.  His older brother’s response was a less than supportive “What are you, nuts?”  He can’t wait for the end of the year and is quite happy that it is over … but  I digress.

As I said, in the past, he has cried a little on the last day of school.  This year, when I picked him up, he jumped in the car and with great bravado said, “That’s done.  Let’s get out of here.”  As I drove off, he sat back quietly for the ride home.  We were going to pick up his brother and go out for lunch.  After that the plan was for him to come to my house and we were going to bake Movie Theater cookies.  These are cookies that include buttered popcorn, chocolate covered raisins … sorry, there I go digressing again.

So we got his brother and their choice for a special last day of school lunch was a fast food place.  It would not have been my choice, but it was what they wanted and it was their last day of school lunch.  I noted that the older one was his usual self, but the younger one was quiet.  He ate his meal but was not as gregarious as he usually is.  After we left he decided that he would pass on baking the cookies.  This surprised me because he usually loves baking.  I realized that, while he didn’t cry, he was still sad that school was over.  I only hope that this enjoyment of school and the friends he makes there stays with him.  Nothing is as heartwarming as seeing kids sorry that school is over, but I am sure that in a couple days he will be over the sadness and in full-on summer vacation mode.  I thought I would share that for anyone reading this who teaches.

Okay, here is your bad joke of the week – What do you call a cow with no legs?  Ground beef!

This week our fact takes us back to last week’s story of destroying the shed and how lucky we were.  It seems that skunks can accurately spray their fluid as far as 10 feet.  That means that all three of us would have gotten nailed.  Whew!

Don’t forget to call your Dad.  Then go have a martini!