I am fervent celebrator and I love to observe most occasions—if you are observing an occasion and would like me to come party with you, I am there! However. I do not like to be forced to celebrate. People find this contrarian, since I love all festive occasions so much, but I do not like hegemony—it’s not a celebration if someone is making me. I think all statutory holidays should be called Civic Holiday and they should be random, maybe pulled out of a hat every year. I recognize that this is a minority position and if I were to run for office on this platform I would lose but it is truly how i feel.

Even the non-statutory occasions, I think somehow it would be nice if somehow it were not mandatory we either celebrate them or FEEL BAD that we are not. You know the ones I mean, the Bad Emotional Triumvarite (BET) of Mother’s Day, Father’s Day, and Valentine’s Day (I don’t think many peopl\e feel bad if they stay home on Hallowe’en).

Listen, days are days—sun, then moon and stars. Am I going to feel worse that my father is dead this coming Sunday than on most days? Probably. But the fault there lies mainly with Hallmark and the calendar industry and whoever invented those box wrench sets where you get them all in descending order of size. It’s not a real “day” anymore than National Casserole Day. Even “Tuesday” isn’t real by the standard of the tides…maybe that is going a bit far.

I think, in his heart, my father did not believe holidays are real either. His family did not celebrate them very much when he was growing up and though he came to accept them, he had a kind of “if you say so” attitude towards almost all of them. He was pretty quiet about this, I believe in deference towards childish excitement when I was younger and, when I got older, because he wanted me (and my brother) to come visit. He never said it, but I don’t think my father thought Father’s Day or Passover or Christmas or even his own birthday were of much interest, but he was happy to have the family all together for a nice meal, so whatever drew us together was fine with him. This is just a working theory—I never asked and he is, as I say, dead so it will be a while until I get another chance.

If Father’s Day sucks for you this year or any year, I’m sorry—I realize that saying it isn’t real does not help very much. I hope you have good memories or good distractions or both, plus some hugs. I have put one my favourite photos of me and Jerry in the header—it really embodies the best moments in our relationship, I think.