Patterico's Pontifications

6/21/2020

Happy Father’s Day

Filed under: General — Patterico @ 9:24 am



I hope all the fathers out there have a great day, and all the sons and daughters out there help make it a great day for their fathers who are still around. If, like me, your dad is not around any longer, give him a thought and, if you like, share a memory.

Earlier this year we finished an involuntary remodel of sorts caused by a leaky pipe, and in unpacking boxes of junk that were hastily boxed to make way for the contractor, we have also unpacked boxes that appear never to have been unpacked since we moved here 14 years ago. (Has it really been that long?) One of the things that we uncovered was a birthday card I had saved that my dad gave me when I was four. Apparently, I scrawled a “thank you” to him on the inside and back of the card, calling him by name (his name was Bill V. Frey).

Front copy

Inside copy

Back copy

Share anything you would like in the comments.

22 Responses to “Happy Father’s Day”

  1. Good morning!

    Patterico (115b1f)

  2. Funny how a little scrap of paper becomes precious with time.

    Happy belated 4th birthday!

    Barry Jacobs (e757ce)

  3. That’s insanely adorable.
    I still have on display a super-adorable birthday card that my dad sent me years back: it was clearly designed for a young girl, and I was (technically) well into adulthood, but I loved that my dad was telling me I would always be his darling daughter.

    Radegunda (89f220)

  4. Ah, I remember those sorts of cards from my boyhood: the kind you would get from parents and grandparents. They are still better than the dreck that is out there today — I was trying to find a good birthday card for a six-year-old nephew and I couldn’t believe how dumb (and expensive) today’s cards are.

    And that’s my “things sure have gone to hell over the past forty years” story for the day. Happy Father’s Day to the dads out there.

    JVW (ee64e4)

  5. Happy Father’s Day to all the guys being fathers to their kids.

    The best gift you can give a child besides life is that life with two parents in a stable and loving household.
    __ _

    harkin (4cf812)

  6. 4. Indeed…its all double entendres, green sensibility, and YAAAS QUEEN imagery…the best most thoughtful greeting cards are the Mahogany series aimed at the black community.

    urbanleftbehind (d5e96f)

  7. Great old card.

    My grandfather– my late mother’s father- passed away when she was only 7— a wayyyyy back in 1938. So Father’s Day was celebrated by her w/her own mother, who raised her, for decades.

    And both women saved everything— blessing and a curse. LOL.

    Over the past few weeks been discovering boxes, binders and folders of old cards for FD and assorted holidays which document fragments of life and times long gone.

    Great stuff; treasures saved from an all but certain landfill oblivion.

    DCSCA (797bc0)

  8. Spent the morning with my daughter. Agreed that it’s hard to raise parents.

    nk (1d9030)

  9. I was trying to find a good birthday card for a six-year-old nephew and I couldn’t believe how dumb (and expensive) today’s cards are.

    They might be even worse for adults: Lame jokes about getting old, along with vulgarity or jokes about drinking too much (which my relatives don’t do).
    I’ve been resorting to blank-inside cards, including a few New Yorker cartoon cards that are pretty good — e.g. a dog sitting at a restaurant table, menu in hand, asking “Is the homework fresh?” Then I have to remember who has already gotten which card.

    Radegunda (89f220)

  10. Happy Father’s Day patterico and all the other fathers out there.

    Time123 (7507a9)

  11. That is a precious card, and I’m glad that you found it.

    Besides just pro-active in a child’s life, one eventual hallmark of a good dad can measured by how his adult children feel about him. I am so grateful that my own adult children would all say that their dad is the one for whom they hold the deepest of respect, and that, when seeking his counsel, know that he will always give thoughtful and measured advice – even if it isn’t to their liking. They trust him absolutely.

    Dana (25e0dc)

  12. “(A)n involuntary remodel of sorts caused by a leaky pipe,” huh? We tore apart the living room on our eastern Kentucky fixer-upper, and my Father’s Day present was some insulation, drywall, etc. Running new electric wires through a crawlspace? Not fun at all!

    The Dana in Kentucky (126a70)

  13. Been playing Pop music all day.

    These two take me back to all the pool parties and BBQs in the sixties.

    https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=NC38-qqiVgg&feature=youtu.be
    _

    https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=05w5ch9l6zI
    _

    harkin (9c4571)

  14. Excellent spelling and penmanship at (basically) 3, plus wonderful manners. Well done, Patterico and your parents.

    DRJ (aede82)

  15. That’s very touching.

    lurker (d8c5bc)

  16. Did you usually call your dad Bill, or did you feel the need to be formal with the card?

    I love that you ran out of room with the “thank”, so just continued it on the line below!

    norcal (a5428a)

  17. Any dad who’s child loves him is rich. I hope everyone had as good a day as I did.

    Dustin (e3a6ae)

  18. Happy Fathers Day, Patterico and other fathers out there.

    Simon Jester (d57493)

  19. Awww.

    Happy father’s day to the dads.

    I drove over to the parents and spent the afternoon with them, which was nice. I’m currently 2 wks clear of other people’s germs, so we figured it was safe. (I have errands I’ve been saving up for 2 wks that I really should have run last week, but I wanted to be able to have lunch my parents for father’s day.)

    Nic (896fdf)

  20. That’s the way to do it, Nic!

    My father died in 1998, so it’s just mom now (88 years old).

    By the way, she told me one of her schoolteacher stories the other day. One of her 10th grade female students came up and asked her if, since she was getting an A, and her boyfriend was failing, could my mom just split the difference and give them both Cs?

    Scholastic communism!

    norcal (a5428a)

  21. My most endearing memory of my father, who died in 2003, comes from 1970, in the summer after fifth grade.

    I went upstairs and told him I was bored. Nowhere to go, nothing to do, that sort of thing. He said, “Read a book.” And gave me a copy of Homer, the Iliad and the Odyssey. And a copy of Bullfinch’s Mythology, to help me understand what I was reading.

    I became obsessed with Greek mythology over that summer. Then about a year later, this movie came out, Chariots of the Gods. I saw a commercial for it, purporting that it told the true story of the Greek gods. No one wanted to go with me, so I went to the movie by myself.

    Wow! The Greek gods were really extraterrestrials, space aliens. It blew my mind.

    The next day my father took us to the library. That was his thing. We went to the library every weekend. There I found a copy of Chariots of the Gods. There’s a book? I checked it out.

    Now, the one thing my father insisted on was family dinners, every night at 6:00. And the only holiday he really celebrated was Thanksgiving. Family dinners every night, and a family feast once a year.

    I kept talking about Chariots of the Gods. I had seen the movie and read the book.

    My father said, “Will you shut up about the space aliens?” Then onde day he came home and smacked a book on my head. It was Crash Goes the Chariots. “Read,” he said.

    I did, and I never felt more stupid in my life. Everything in Chariots of the Gods is completely destroyed in Crash Go the Chariots.

    It was a mind-opening moment. And I was just a child in junior high.

    When I was teacher many years later, my students, mostly the boys, were obsessed with crop circles, flying saucers and space aliens.

    I told them to go to the library, where I had placed a copy of Chariots of the Gods.

    So that when one or any of them would come up to me with proof, I could smack them upside the head with a copy of Crash Go the Chariots. “Read a book,” I would say.

    I learned that from my father. He didn’t play with me much, when I was kid, because he was constantly working. He was on call 24/7/365, because he was the chief programmer for the computer company that ran the accounts for all the banks and businesses.

    If the computer crashed, the entire economy crashed. So he was alwys on call to prevent that from happening.

    He didn’t have time to play with me, but he did have time to give me books.

    And for that, I will always be grateful.

    Gawain's Ghost (b25cd1)

  22. I have had fun reading the post and the comments. My father was incredible. The first of our family to graduate college, he worked himself through Medical School by working a 40 hour a week night job. He took care of his patients first, but his family was always a close second. He and my mother would go out on the town every Tuesday night.

    He and my mother gave us all a wonderful childhood.

    Harmon Ward (5921b0)


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