Last Day of Spring -- Paternal Recognition

It is that day that -- before the addition of cell phones -- amounted to the largest day of collect calls across the U.S.  Some may not remember collect calling, but while Mother's Day generated one of the largest calling days of the year, Father's Day generated the largest collect calling day. And maybe that still is the case if the cell phone is under a family type plan . . .

Above are just a few of the fathers from our tree and we wish them each a "Happy Father's Day"!

Growing up, I don't remember Father's Day that much, we just did not make a big deal of it. The day itself started to be recognized around the turn of the century (1900 that is). And by the time of WWII it began to be seriously taken as a holiday.

In the 60s LBJ declared that the third Sunday in June would be the day for recognition of fathers. And then the Republicans, not to be outdone, RMN in the 70s made the day a national holiday. So there you have it.

It also happens to be the very last day of Spring 2016. So that means tomorrow of course would be the first day of Summer -- it seems to us that we have already had that though. We are facing in the 90s temperatures for the next several days.

And the lower regions of California are experiencing huge wildfires along with even warmer temps as are other western regions.

The fun part of today for me is that I have a few additions to my library.

Muhammad Ali, of course will be a timely read and I'm sure a fun one as well.

Drew has always been a fascinating actress and this will be fun to read -- probably more for me than for Gail . . .

And lastly, Bill O'Reilly has produced a new history series that I have started watching on TV -- "Legends & Lies" so the book will be great to follow along with that.

And then my own copy of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution. I really had not peeked at them since school-days.

What's on the menu then for this double celebration day:

While researching this week I stumbled upon the menu to the left.

It is not the menu that we will have on this holiday. It happens to be a menu given for Governor James Norris Gillett, our cousin.

I'm not sure what the occasion was but it was put on by a Senator Perkins for the Governor one hundred and eight years ago on March 2, 1908.

About the only item I recognize are the "Phillip Morris Cigarettes" . . .

I can only imagine what a dinner like this would be like. It certainly is not the "rubber chicken" variety.

Instead, we are having the very simple items to the right.

We love ribs and they fit today just perfectly.

We'll have a fresh salad and a roll or two and we will dispense with all of the items described in French above . . .

Maybe a simple chocolate chip cookie for dessert

So that's it for our week -- Happy Father's Day to all -- and see you all "in a few"!