I’ve always thought that Father’s Day is one of those Hallmark holidays, created to celebrate dads – and to recognize them with cards and other gifts.  Brilliant marketing if you are a card company.

But actually, a woman gets credit for establishing the modern holiday: Sonora Dodd, who celebrated the first Father’s Day in Spokane, Wash., in 1910 to recognize her single-parent dad of six kids.

There are some things about the third Sunday in June, however, that one cannot make up, such as:

• Dad’s root beer was the first product to be sold in a six-pack format…
• Ken Griffey, Sr. and Ken Griffey, Jr. actually played on the same Major League Baseball team…
• In Phoenix, we used to be able to watch the Danas, Joe, Kent and Joe (father, son, grandson), on TV at the same time…
• At the Old Father Inn in Tucson, I once saw a horse come into the sports bar adorned in Green Bay Packers’ gear…
• How I can reflect and realize that I do sound like my dad…
• Weaving a joke into a story is a learned trait…
• If I pay attention, I know what I’ll look like in 25 years…
• There are things I’d have no way of knowing if it hadn’t been for my dad…
• How proud you can be by watching your own children’s successes…
• I already have enough neck ties…
• You can never thank your dad enough…

I’m sure I’m missing a few things about Father’s Day that you just can’t make up.  Yep, it’s all fun and games until someone gets hurt.