A Summer Solstice Father's Day

Today of course, is the time to celebrate the summer solstice. The best way I know to celebrate is to enjoy every minute of this longest day of the year doing something you love, if your lucky, with someone(s) you love. If part of that day includes honoring the fathers in your lives, better yet! Some are still around, some are not. Some of the Father's are Mother's who stepped up to the plate when life turned out that way. My father hasn't been around on this planet for a long, long time, but so much of what he is to me will live forever...in myself, in my brother, in my children.

I wrote this for my Dad last year and seem to feel exactly the same way this year...Here's to you, Dad. It's better than a sharp stick in the eye!

An old fashioned Father's Day card that looks much like ones we gave our Dad...
with the tie tack and/or cufflinks, year after year after year, always to his delighted surprise. Dad's are funny, yeah they are.

My father raised four of us from the time I was four years old. He wasn't perfect, but he loved us all the best he knew how...and did a pretty damn fine job of it. The dark spots brighten in the light of his love (which, as I tell my own children, covers a multitude of parental errors).

He taught me how to cook and that the cook's helper gets to, and in fact, must *taste test* whatever is cooking. That's the law.

He taught how to capture fish and clams and shrimp and crabs, and how to clean and eat them too. He taught me how to swim and ride a horse and how to drive a car. But not all at the same time.

He taught me to see in the dark by taking us to watch sea turtles lay eggs on the beach at midnight. He taught me how to be quiet (yes, really, sometimes I am). He taught me to see in the light what is to be seen and to not overlook it.

He taught me how to sail and how to not be afraid of most things. He taught me to take care of myself, whether I wanted to or not. He taught me to not hold back on hugs or kisses or saying 'I love you'. He taught me not to pretend affection, and that I didn't have to do any of those things if I didn't mean it, that being polite was good enough.

He taught me that good manners are a way to live in the world more easily; a ticket to glide, not a false chore. He taught me that there are good people and bad people and anything else about them really doesn't matter. Stick with one, stay away from the other: once you know which is which, it's pretty easy, though the mistakes will be costly, they can be lived through and beyond.

He taught me to love stories in life and stories in books, not to litter, not to lie and not to steal. And that if I had only one true friend in the whole world, that I was wealthy beyond measure. I am beyond any wealth in the universe if that is true. I think it is.

He taught me about good food and good liquor and how to live well without a lot of money. He taught me that simple is better than showy, and lasts a lot longer. He taught me none of this with words, he just did it, lived it and brought me along for the ride.

He's still teaching me, the same way. Happy Father's Day, Dad. Thanks. Hope you like my Culebra view (I know you do).

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Remember that picnic I was suggesting you might want to take this morning, combining Father's Day and the Summer Solstice? Remember the mention of Stonehenge in England? Well, as I was doing more reading on that, I came across the perfect solution to so very many facets of the above! If you can't get to Stonehenge, make Baconhenge...and then eat it.

Carin Huber, on the website The Anticraft says of this creation: "Let Baconhenge be the site of your seasonal celebration! Let bacon stand in for the sacrificed Year King, French toast for the Grain Goddess, the eggs in the frittata for the Cosmic Egg, and the vegetables for the bountiful Earth on which we live."

That's exactly what I was thinking...no, really, I was. Well, maybe not the Cosmic Egg part. And I don't know what the Year King is. But that bountiful Earth thing? She nailed it! In an eggy sort of way.

photo credit: Carol Squires

More cheating, thank you

This is from the Old Farmer's Almanac, since the Old Farmer is now online! Old dog, new tricks.

June 21, 2009

Summer Solstice

The summer solstice heralds the beginning of summer. The timing of the solstice depends on when the Sun reaches its farthest point north of the equator. This occurs annually on June 20 or June 21 in North America, depending on your time zone. The word solstice is from the Latin solstitium, from sol (sun) and stitium (to stop), reflecting the fact that the Sun appears to stop at this time (and again at the winter solstice). In temperate regions, we notice that the Sun is higher in the sky throughout the day, and its rays strike Earth at a more direct angle, causing the efficient warming we call summer. In the winter, just the opposite occurs: The Sun is at its southernmost point and is low in the sky. Its rays hit the Northern Hemisphere at an oblique angle, creating the feeble winter sunlight.

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Summer Solstice at Stonehenge, England

Celebration of the summer solstice at Stonehenge has been going on from the shadows of history to the present day. I wish I could have been there a hundred years ago....

However you celebrate the longest day of the year (two people I know will be celebrating an anniversary...where's my sashimi???), enjoy being outside somewhere. Set aside your troubles, make a picnic, even if it's pb & j and lemonade, find a beautiful place to spend a few hours. This is a glorious planet we live on, especially if you turn off the television and computer to go out and enjoy it.

Sunrise on Culebra will be at 5:24 Sunday morning, just in case you want to have a breakfast picnic someplace to truly get in spirit with the day. I'm big on breakfast burritos or quiches or frittatas for breakfast picnics. You can add all of your favorite eggy/bacon/sausage things, pack it in a covered container, lay on a few folded towels to keep things warm and it's yum on the beach (or the field, or your yard). A thermos of coffee or tea and wa la. Summer Solstice on a plate.

AND DON'T FORGET!!! SUNDAY IS ALSO FATHER'S DAY!!!

(also from the Farmer's Almanac)

Father's Day

Like Mother's Day, Father's Day has a modern origin. The idea came to Mrs. John Dodd as she sat listening to a Mother's Day sermon in 1910. Her father, William Smart, had raised his children alone on his Washington farm after his wife died giving birth to their sixth child. Mrs. Dodd proposed to the Spokane Ministerial Association and the YMCA that they celebrate a "father's day" on June 5, her father's birthday. The idea received strong support, but the good ministers of Spokane asked that the day be changed to give them extra time to prepare sermons on the unexplored subject of fathers. The first Father's Day was observed on June 19, 1910, in Spokane, Washington, and soon other towns had their own celebrations. In spite of widespread support, Father's Day did not become a permanent national holiday until 1972, when President Richard Nixon signed a law declaring that it be celebrated annually on the third Sunday in June.