Fields of Green: Fathers' Day

My dad being an awesome grandpa.

The whole apostrophe thing in this holiday drives me crazy. It seems like no one ever uses it right. If you're just referring to one father, then it would be Father's Day. Singular. But the holiday is referring to fathers everywhere, so it should be Fathers' Day. Plural. Except no one ever spells it that way and because no one ever does you look like you don't know what you're doing with apostrophes when you do punctuate correctly. Kind of like Web site; did you know that's the correct AP spelling? Yet even my resume says, "website" because I am convinced that any potential employer would think I was insane if I wrote Web site.

But as usual, I digress. To me, Fathers' Day is just that- plural. On our Fathers' Day, we celebrate all of the fathers- my grandpa, my dad, my husband, his dad- and we do it in style. With something on the grill and ice cream cake for dessert.

My family has kind of an informal tradition of celebrating Fathers' Day the weekend before the actual holiday. This is because apparently some insensitive, calendar-less bride-to-be and scheduled my wedding for the day after my grandpa's birthday and the day before Fathers' Day. "Happy Father's (singular) Day, Dad! Instead of me getting you a gift, why don't you give me away instead? And pay for 200 people's dinners, too!"

Geez. What a bratty bride!

Anyway, we celebrate today last weekend and we made it a twofer with my grandpa's birthday. He turned 79 this year and he can still man a chainsaw better than my husband and fix anything in my dad's tool shed faster than my dad can. (Why do I get the feeling I just incited a battle in the garage?)

They are pretty cool, the dads in my family. They all love the Lord, their wives, and their beautiful children (if I do say so myself), grandchildren (if I do say so myself) and great-grandchildren very much. They take incredible care of us; in my family, your house will never be cold because your woodpile will never be low and your car will always run because you'll never be out of oil. You will always be laughing (or rolling your eyes) because one of those men always has a good joke to tell. Little blond babies always have scruffy cheeks to kiss and know exactly who to snuggle with if they want to be sneaked a treat. There are always motors running, whether it's a tractor, motorcycle, RV, chainsaw, weed whacker or truck. There are toolboxes and work gloves and sawdust and weed killer. And there is a never-ending battle with their greatest foe, the dandelion.

Which makes this one picture my mom has of me giving my dad a dandelion bouquet when I was four really ironic.