With Father's Day being this weekend, I am going to try to remember as many details as possible about the Father's Days of my life. (I don't care if the apostrophe is in the right place.) But Father's Day isn't one of my designated eight holidays, which means there's less I remember about it than regular holidays.
2011. I think this was the time we were sitting on the left side of the chapel, which was unusual. There was a new family in front of us. During the sacrament, my niece Allie (not quite eight) was whispering, but she was whispering quite animatedly and loudly. I motioned for her to be quiet. That did not sit well with her, so she started making faces at me. Her first was an imitation of her mom's reproving face, having a serious expression and tilting her head down. Then she started scowling. My mom just silently laughed. I'm sure one of the hymns we sang was "O My Father"--not because I remember it specifically, but because my ward is predictable like that (as are wards in general). I think we had Sunday school, but the block was cut short because there had been record-breaking rain during church and someone's driveway was flooded. Allie was a bit panicky, and when we went home my mom had to explain that the flooding wasn't going to hit our house, and that if it did, it would just be a lot of mud. I changed into some ugly jeans, a big BYU shirt, and some shoes I had bought for running but didn't like running in. It seems like my dad and I were going to drive down, but Marialana Way was blocked off, so we had to walk anyway. My dad left the shovel in the trunk. I know we saw Mike Taylor at one point. Then we went to the house, which was on Lacey Way. They had sandbags set up so that the mud wouldn't go to another house. There was a lot of mud. There was a boat trailer, and the mud was up several inches on the tire. There were lots of people helping. I think we were shoveling mud from the driveway into wheelbarrows. I was standing around doing nothing, and our neighbor, Jeff Pay, lent me a shovel. Eventually my dad decided there wasn't much we could do, so we left by climbing up through the gully where the mud came down. We looked at the sidewalk on Marialana where dirt had been washed away from underneath the sidewalk and into the gully. A woman who was in the 9th Ward came out and remarked how it was the 11th Ward doing all the helping, even though the house was in 9th Ward boundaries (the homeowners weren't Church members). It was said that all the 9th Ward members had already gone off to Father's Day dinners. There were some emergency and city trucks, and a news reporter was also there. Then my dad and I went back home to get ready to go to my grandparents' house. I was going down to Provo after dinner, so my mom and Allie rode in one car and my dad rode with me in my car. I put in my Spirit of America MoTab CD, and before I put it in, the radio was playing "until you love me, papa, paparazzi," which I had never heard before, but I had heard of it. I had to ask my dad to help direct me to my grandparents'. After dinner, I drove down to Provo. I put my neon American flag light in the window and a patriotic garland on the living room bookshelf. I probably went to ward prayer. I filled out a new planner and wrote a blog post, A week in a paragraph, while I watched the news to see if our helping efforts made it on the news.The talked about the record-breaking rainstorm, but they said nothing of our helping.
2010. All I remember was that I was at church with my dad (since my mom was in Nashville) and they brought around chocolates to the fathers. They actually announced that they were giving them to all the men, but I am definitely not a father, and I don't like the idea of having to have the responsibilities of a man, so I didn't stand up when they were giving them out. My dad tried to get me to stand up, and when I didn't he took an extra chocolate for me, but it wasn't in season, so I refused to eat it. I think he felt bad he took one for me.
2009. It was Elder Warren's first Sunday in Lewiston. I think we sat on the left side of the chapel for the Lewiston 2nd Ward. I think they had the primary kids sing Father's Day songs before the meeting began. I thought that was an interesting approach to getting their singing in without interrupting the flow of the meeting. Then for the Lewis-Clark Singles Branch, there was a high councilor speaking. He decided to talk about the founding fathers (that was his connection to Father's Day) and had that Mormon picture of the signing of the Declaration of Independence. (Maybe it's the Constitution.) Brock Ball was sitting in front of us and asked us what he was talking about. That night I remember that Elder Warren was talking on the phone with Elder Hinebaugh about church, how the high council speaker used a visual aid to talk about the founding fathers, and how someone in the branch asked us what was going on. Elder Warren didn't quite understand at that point that Brock Ball is "a few fries short of a Happy Meal."
2008. My journal entry for June 15, 2008, reads: "Today we only had Jess at church. He's doing great. We did half-time at a baptism and that went well. We had dinner at the house of Bishop White in East Wenatchee 2nd. It's a huge house. My bike was flat again so we walked. An ornery person drove by and honked three times. We gave away a Book of Mormon to a lady. It was a great conversation." Aided by this journal entry, this is what I remember. After church, they gave away Father's Day gifts to the men, including the young men in the ward; the gifts were large cookies and the pamphlet Preparing to Enter the Holy Temple. I think there was some discussion that we couldn't eat the cookies at church because the little Hill girl had a peanut allergy. The baptism where we performed half time (sharing the first lesson while the wet people change) was for a lady associated with the Pedersen family in the East Wenatchee 2nd Ward; I think her name was Pam, and she bore her testimony after the baptism. Elder Hansen had to help Brother Pedersen get the baptizee under the water. The reason we had dinner at Bishop White's house was because the members we were supposed to have dinner with in our ward, I think their name started with a W, were having dinner there. Elder Bramall told me that I couldn't say anything about it being Father's Day because of a family situation. One of the sons of the family drove us to the bishop's house. I think Elder Bramall told me how the rocks could play music, although that might have happened on the Fourth of July. While we were there, we shared my member visit of Book of Mormon fortifications to a huge group of people. After dinner, we were walking down 9th when a white (I think) car drove by and held down the horn. This villain turned around and did it two more times! Elder Bramall told me that he lived in the apartments where we were heading, that he was friends with the people who lived below Brian Latimer and that he had previously had a bad conversation with them. We went to the apartments on 9th and there was a lady who was trying to manually remove studs from her tires. We talked to her, and Elder Bramall mentioned that Jesus came to the American continent after his resurrection. She said, "Really?" and seemed quite surprised and intrigued. So we gave her a Book of Mormon. I think her name was Trina.
2007. Allie was a Sunbeam and she got up with all the primary kids to sing "Fathers Are So Special." It was very cute. In her primary class she made two orange Father's Day cards, one for my dad that said, "I like to watch Monster House with Pops," and one for me that said, "I like to play Mario with my Uncle Mark." We went to my grandparents' house, and after dinner, my cousins Jesse and Peter and I took Allie to the duck pond. We crossed a small bridge and Allie asked if there was an elf under it. So Jesse stood threateningly in front of us and said, "You shall not pass!" Allie shrieked excitedly and walked right around him. She made him do it over and over, each time squealing and walking right past him. At one point he pretended he didn't know what she was talking about, so she told him what to say: "You sill not pass." It took a long time to get back to my grandparents' that way. I carried her for part of the way back, and she started singing the song she had sung in sacrament meeting: "Back to my home above." It was very cute. Then she said she sang "a tale of it." I thought she was saying tail, meaning the end. But then later that night in the car she said something about how she was telling a tale, which my mom and sister found quite hilarious. Then I knew she had earlier been saying she was telling a tale of the song, not the tail. My cousin Quin for some reason wanted to spend the night at our house; my mom told him that he would be bored. In the car Allie was telling him about a girl named Chessie, but Quin thought she was talking about Jesse. I think that was the tale she was talking about.
2000. I believe that this was the first (and therefore only) time I ever sang on Father's Day in sacrament meeting (previously it had only been on Mother's Day). The Thompsons came over to our house and my then-uncle Wayne brought the duck tie he got. I remember turning on the Father's Day slide in my holiday projector.
1996. I remember that in my Primary class we were making cards with candy for our dads. We used a Tootsie Roll Pop for it to say, "Dear Pop," with the pop substituting for the word Pop. I told my teacher, Caroline Weight, that I called him Dad, but she said that for the card it would say pop. The next thing we said was, "You are a [SweeTart]." I think I hoped my dad would share the candy with me, but he didn't.
1995. I know for sure we were on vacation, and I know I gave my dad a card with teddy bears on it, and we gave him a travel jigsaw puzzle of a picture of an elk. But I remember this more from buying those things, not from giving them to him. I remember seeing the puzzle at my great-grandma's house, "the Pond," in New York, but I don't know if we gave it to him there. If we did in fact give it to him there, it would mean that we were at the Pond for a very long time, because I know we were there on the Fourth of July.
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