Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: WEDNESDAY, May 18, 1994                   TAG: 9405180054
SECTION: EXTRA                    PAGE: 1   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: Ben Beagle
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

ONLY CASH WILL REDEEM FATHER'S DAY|

This has nothing to do with Mother's Day, which already has happened anyway, and I hope your old lady enjoys the $34,000 sports car you gave her.

I was cheap. I used to write my mama poems for Mother's Day. I think she'd rather have had chocolate candy, but she loved them anyway.

(I would publish a collection of those poems here, but I really do need this job.)

I think Father's Day should be abolished for any number of reasons, which I may or may not get around to in the space available here.

(I would also like to say something about the space available, but I really do need this job.)

I don't know how mothers feel about it, but I get uneasy on Father's Day. I worry that my children will become over-emotional - get all misty-eyed and sloppy - and say things like:

"Gee, Dad. Thanks for all you've done for us. You stood alone against the perils of our existence and, like Sir Galahad, protected all that was good and decent because your strength was as the strength of ten because your heart was pure.

"You always filled the hole like a good Bobcat tackle should, ready to throw our adversities to the ground. For our enemies, it was always fourth and seven."

This hasn't happened yet. But you never know when they might say something like that instead of, "Gee, Dad. I hope you liked your card."

This is fine with me. I don't want a lot of maudlin nonsense and I don't like cheap displays of materialism - although this is not to say that I would turn down a new Grand Cherokee if somebody happened to give me one. Red, I should think.

As the fates would have it, as we used to say infrequently in Radford, I had no sooner launched my attack on Father's Day than The Wall Street Journal came along.

It had a story about these people who are planning to rebuke both Mother's and Father's Days with the observance of "ChildFree Adult Day."

Coming soon: "AdultFree Child Day," during which children will be encouraged to fire automatic weapons at their parents.

I dunno. With stuff like that going on, I give up on doing away with Father's Day. Maybe next year.

As long as we're going to have it this year, I hope the kids bring money.