With Father’s Day approaching I’m sure my children are fretting, arguing, and spending many a sleepless night trying to decide whether to get me the silver or black convertible and to go with leather or cloth seats. Whichever they choose it is my duty as their father to set aside any personal preferences and unquestionably adore the gift they have bestowed upon me.

The gift itself is minor and will soon be forgotten but your reaction will lurk forever in the recesses of your child’s subconscious. One day, many days from that day, your child, now a dysfunctional adult will, with the aid of a State assigned psychiatrist, drudge up that Father’s Day of days gone by and lay the blame of a life gone wrong squarely on your shoulders. The lack of personal hygiene, perpetually bad haircut, left eye stigmatism, inability to hold down a job or attract someone sane of the opposite sex, and the insatiable appetite for truck stop chicken fried steak all blamed on your reaction to a Father’s Day gift.

I honestly can’t recall any gift I have ever given my dear old Dad on Father’s Day and apparently his reaction was sincere and gracious enough as to not plunge me into a life of downtrodden self pity. Maybe I was an ungrateful little urchin that never put crayon to paper to profess my Dad as king of Dad Land?

I seem to recall a cordless drill or beard and mustache trimmer but the details are fuzzy. Or it could have been a carton of Vantage Menthol cigarettes as those were a sociably acceptable gift at the time. Cigarettes…a gift from the heart to your lungs. It also used to be common practice and acceptable for me to hop on my blue Coast King bicycle with the yellow mag wheels to fetch my Dad a pack of smokes from Berg’s Red Owl.

Dad hasn’t smoked for over 20 years now so the gift choices for him have dwindled a little. I guess I could buy him a carton and see if he’s still got the Father’s Day gift opening poker face down. “Wow…cigarettes…I absolutely love it…What? Smoke them? Oh I couldn’t…there a gift I want to keep them forever.”

I did a little Father’s Day research just as I did for Mother’s Day and uncovered some very interesting facts, figures, and what not. It seems that although there are a smaller number of phone calls made on Father’s Day than Mother’s Day the percentage of collect calls is much higher on Father’s Day. Father’s Day, the busiest day of the year for collect calls, somehow this doesn’t surprise me.

I found the traditional Father’s Day celebratory activities of Germany to be of particular interest. On Herrentag (gentlemen’s day) groups of men go hiking while pulling little wagons filled with wine, beer, and food. “Get out of the wagon sonny Papa needs room for ice and booze. Quit whining…the further we hike the lighter the wagon will get.” Sadly the domestication of the male homosapien has managed to infiltrate Deutschland as well and many fathers now forgo the traditional booze wagon hike and spend the day with their families opening gifts that they gave the kids the money to buy.

Maybe I’ll buy my Dad a Radio Flyer this year and we’ll swing by the 109 Club for supplies for a walk about and a proper celebration of our German heritage. Great Grandpa Kraft would be proud.