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Father’s day.  Dad’s all across the country will be heading out to the golf courses and ball parks, lakes and rivers, or just to the living room to veg out in the Lazy Boy with a frosty adult beverage sporting that new paisley necktie because–well it’s dad’s day and that’s what dads get to do on their day, right?   I’ve got other things that need tendin’ cause well, I just do.  So I thought I’d repost from last year my thoughts on Father’s Day.  I think it still rings pretty true and it captures what I really feel about Father’s Day.Happy Father’s Day.  (originally posted June 16, 2007–Thanks for the Warning, Andy)

Warhol once said, “In the future, everyone will be world famous for 15 minutes.”  I’ve spent my entire life trying to figure out how I was going to leave my mark, my signature.  How will the world know that I was here?  What will be the Legacy of Ed?  I’m nominal, at best when it comes to sports. I can barely hold a tune in a bucket. I don’t play an instrument. I don’t have a best selling novel floating around in my head. Forget business ideas, and I’m not really all that altruistic, so servitude is out.

Six years ago this January, I finally got it.  I realized in a single moment on a snowy winter day, how I would be shaping the future, changing the world around me.  My epiphany.

January 18, 2001 at 3:54pm I became a father.

“And the clouds parted to cast a true shadow.”  My idiotic quest for personal glorification died that day as I then came to realize it’s no longer about me.  My life now has purpose, focus and meaning.  My children are my world, they mean everything to me.  And I know now that my legacy, my signature is them.

Father’s Day is supposed to be about honoring dad, recognizing his sacrifices and his greatness.  I think it should be about the kids.  You guys are my reason, my purpose and my joy.  And let’s face it, without you, Father’s Day would really be just another Sunday in June.

Happy Father’s Day, guys.  I love you.

Intended to inspire an awareness of and an appreciation for  the Earth’s environment, Earth Day is celebrated today at it has been each April for the past thirty eight years.  A grassroots campaign initiated back then served as a wake up call of sorts to help people to realize the impact of our actions on the planet and give the environment a national spotlight.  A movement was born and today Earth Day is celebrated not only in America but in countries all over the world.  But are we really doing right by our dear Mother Earth?

People take to the streets celebrating, organizing rallies, staged marches on political institutions, speeches, concerts and festivals.  One can don their favorite “Be Nice to Your Mother” t-shirt pack up the ice chest and Styrofoam plates with plastic sporks, maybe even the hibachi, and head off to the park with thousands of other like minded enlightened to listen to your favorite bands perform their favorite tunes at ear bleed decibels all the while trampling Spring’s offering of new green grass and hopeful flower buds discarding used cups, plates and napkins along the way because someone neglected to pack trash bags.  These same people will spend forty minutes looking for the recycle bin for their beer cans and in that same time span flick half a pack’s worth of Marlboro butts on the ground.

Zoë’s school had a poster campaign and a dress down day in honor of the event.  Innocuous enough I suppose, yet I hardly believe that any of the paper used for the posters will be recycled (I know the three rejected ideas in our house were not).  And the money collected from dress down privileges.  Well, that’s going towards the purchase of microphones for the auditorium.  A much needed item, mind you but in my advanced and cynical age I tend to view amplified noise as not very environmentally friendly.

So it’s Earth Day.  Again.  Like the saying goes, Every Day is Earth Day, and unfortunately I’ll have to delay my observances.  As much as I’d like to reduce my impact, if even for the day, I’m off to fire up every piece of power equipment I own because Spring has sprung and my yard is rapidly overtaking me.  Sorry, Mom.  But you need a haircut!

Anyone doing anything special for Earth Day?

It’s easy to become so totally absorbed in the holiday season that we lose focus, the ability to just step back for a minute or two and ask ourselves why are we doing all of this?  Bows, ribbons, packages, cards, lights, trees, family get togethers, Christmas carols and music programs…….Really?  What’s our motivation?  What’s it all about?

Thank you, Linus Van Pelt.

God Bless and Merry Christmas to you and yours from me and mine.  Here’s to a year of promise, prosperity and peace.

See ya in January!

If you, like me, fear you may have peaked just a tad too early this Christmas season I offer this.  Levity.  For me, it seems to put things back into perspective.  Brings things into focus.  Enjoy.  And remember, there’s only six days left.