A Side of Clyde
This nicely dressed woman was on her lunch hour, but she wasn't in a hurry. She was standing in front of the greeting card display at McWhorter's browsing through the Father's Day cards trying to make a selection.
"This one," she muttered to a woman standing next to her, "might do nicely for my father." She hadn't seen him for more than a year. He was living miles away.
The card had a picture of a classic Oldsmobile sedan on the cover and a few lines of verse inside that could have an appeal to him. The words were sentimental and in a frilly mode that pay tribute to fathers of the old fashioned mold.
"How nice of you to think of your father on Father's Day. Most people think of their mother on Mother's Day, but very few people consider their father on Father's Day," the woman said.
As they continued choosing Father's Day cards, the conversation continued.
"I try to get my father something generic, the first woman said. "My father and I were never close and I only see him once every few years."
"He must live far away," the second woman said.
It was a logical assumption. The economic boom of Silicon Valley has always been, in part, a tribute to the deep and enduring dysfunction of families in California.
"He lives back East," the first woman said. "But even proximity doesn't always bring out the realities of life because families aren't always happy and they move a lot. Because they live miles apart, parents and offspring don't always grow close as they grow older through the decades.
"My father and I were never close. I call to check up on him and he always makes an excuse to get off the phone. There's something he is always doing on his car, or watching a ball game or someone's at the door. He doesn't want a relationship."
Along with the more traditional and flowery Father's Day cards, you can find the casual, jokester and modern, fun cards, but it's hard to find a card for your father that tells how you feel.
Lives are complicated these days and you can find cards for grandmothers, mother-in-laws, mothers-to-be, new moms, sisters and substitute moms, but finding a card for Father's Day that matches the situation is difficult.
So the well dressed woman on her lunch time break chose a simple card for her father. One with a pretty geometric design on the cover and a crisp and straight-forward message. "Thinking of you on Father's Day," it said.
It wasn't a hard choice. She never went to her father for advice. He was never there for her when she needed a father, and all he did was help pay for a few things while she grew up. When she needed quality time with an older person she went to her mother. Her mother was always there for her, along with her other siblings.
As the nicely dressed woman walked out of the store on her lunch break, she thought to herself that getting a card for her mother was so much easier because she was closer to her, but then maybe that's why Mother's Day means so much more to a family than Father's Day.
Clyde Noel is a longtime contributor to the Town Crier.