FATHER'S DAY ... WHY?  WHAT?  WHO?


                  I thought this interesting ... how Father's Day got started in the U.S.

                         WHY?   The power of one woman!
                       
                        1. Sonara Smart Dodd admired her father, a Civil War veteran, William Jackson Smart, a single parent who reared six children.

                        2. Sonara heard a sermon about Mother's Day in 1909 and told her pastor that fathers should have a similar holiday.
                      
                        3. She started the celebration of Father's Day in order to honor her father in Spokane, Washington on June 19, 1910.

                        4. In the 1920s, because of her studies in the Art Institute of Chicago, Sonara Dodd stopped promoting the celebration of Father's Day in her town. 

                        5. In the 1930s she moved back to Spokane and with the help of trade groups that benefited from the holiday, manufacturer's of ties, tobacco' pipes etc., she started promoting the celebration of Father's Day again.

                         6. After many years of Congress resisting bills to make Father's Day a national holiday, President Lyndon B. Johnson in 1966, issued the first presidential proclamation honoring fathers. He designated the third Sunday in June as Father's Day.

                         WHAT?
                        
                   
                          1. What happens in the U.S. on Father's Day?   GIFTS!


                             According to a survey of the National Retail Federation of June 2009, Americans  spend approximately  $91 on a Father's Day gift.

                                            Here is what is expected this year:


                                           $1.9 billion on an outing such as dinner or a sports event.

                                           $ 1.3 billion on clothing

                                           $ 1.2 billion on gift cards

                                           $548  million on books or CDs

                                           $522  million on home improvement items

                                           $502  million on sporting goods


                            WHO?  

                               Who gets Father's Day gifts?
                                   
                                 Most people, 51.1 percent, only plan to buy gifts for their father or stepfather.
     
                                But 28.6 percent will purchase Father's Day gifts for their husbands.


                                    The rest:  7.6 percent sons

                                                    4.7 percent grandfathers
                                                  
                                                    5.1 percent brothers


                       * My Father's Day celebration started today with taking my mother to the cemetery.

           We already put flowers at my father's grave and my grandfather's and grandmother's grave.

            This is very much a cultural and family tradition.
          
                  This Father's Day ...
                          I will be thinking of my Cuban father, Tomas Gacio,  and the joy he experienced in Cuba, playing dominoes. I will remember the love he had for his children and grandchildren.

                   This Father's Day ...    
                        I will be thinking of my American, spiritual father, Gerry Robinson, known at his church as The Prophet ...  the love he had for dark, bitter chocolate and the passion he had for singing the old hymns.
                   
             This Father's Day I will give thanks for my favorite father on this earth.  My husband!