I can still remember my father making his requests for Father's Day breakfast. He was quite exact.
"I want French toast made with organic eggs, milk from cows that graze in pastures untreated by pesticides, a rasher of bacon — you do know what that is, I assume — and a demitasse of cold-pressed coffee with pure cane sugar, sprinkled with cinnamon. Madagascar cinnamon, if you would. From the East Coast. It has a certain ineffable quality imparted by the rays of the setting sun." And then he would remove his monocle, blow on it and clean it with a silk cloth.
Just kidding. If I offered to pour him his Corn Flakes he would have regarded it as sufficient for the day. What else do you want, Dad? "Why? What could beat you getting out the Corn Flakes? Thanks!"
Nowadays, if your kids are grown, a card and a hug or manly clasp will suffice. But once upon a time there were different expectations. I have a copy of the "Standard Father's Day Book," a compendium of holiday suggestions whose cover indicates it was received by the library in Madison, Wis., in 1947, which would have been nine years after the book's first printing. It is a guide to giving Dad the best day ever, and it's almost as complicated as a Super Bowl halftime show.
You were supposed to read poems and play out skits. Dad sits in his suit in the good chair with a frozen smile, while the kids line up and recite lines in a monotone while Mom stands behind, keeping the whole show together.
There's an entire chapter on "Banquet Occasions," which might make some modern dads sit up: "Banquet? You mean the fried chicken? It's so bad but it's so, so good." No. As the book says: "This part has been prepared with the conviction that a Fathers and Sons week can not be complete without a banquet."
A week! An entire week! You begin with an invocation: "Come on, Father! Time to eat! Gravy and tomatoes! What a treat!" (Note: This claim has not been verified by the FDA.)
Then there are games, one of which is a contest to determine which son or father has the biggest grin. There is a suggested skit, and I think I can give you the flavor of the times thus: "A thin Chinaman shows the audience the mice, snakes, etc. he is eating."
The banquet concludes with toasts, and their sentiments are timeless:
"To Father! To the one whose sleep I disturbed as a baby, whose interviews in the woodshed I deserved as a child, and whose purse I have always helped to keep thin. To him, my best friend and counselor, my Father!"
According to the book, this is Father's proper response:
"We do hope we have given you many things that will be of value all your life. Such things as honesty, courage, courtesy, kindness, sympathy and forgiveness toward your fellow men, and reverence and love of God for all. These things, after all, are the only things of real value that a father can give his son."
If you find some resonance in that, you're a fortunate person.
Sure, the booklet is laden with anachronisms, and you wonder how many dads pretended to be lured by gravy and tomatoes, or whether any of the kids remembered lining up to orate. It's just remarkable that there were booklets that laid out a liturgy for the day, complete with high-flown words and joshing doggerel.
If you want to be honest, Father's Day happens all over the calendar. It's the moment you first hold your child. It's the moment the child takes a few steps and stumbles into your arms; it's the moment you take your hand off her back as she pedals away on a two-wheeler for the first time. It's the moment when they move away and you know it's for keeps, and it's the worst part of the best thing.
But of course, it's also the moment when the card arrives, or the phone rings, and she calls you Dad. Or, in my case, Pater. It's Latin. I insist. Just to hear her say it makes my monocle fog up a little.
