I always figured Fathers’ Day was just another Hallmark Holiday. Ok, and as it happens I still think it, like Mother’s Day and other similar saccharine events, is a Hallmark Holiday. That said I overheard a snippet of its history on the radio and its origin is kind of cool. I can’t find a link to the segment I heard (on, I think, a Tavis Smiley broadcast) but I was able to confirm the gist: it’s 100 years old this weekend and was first observed in a church in Spokane, Washington.

More interestingly it was started by a woman, Sonora Smart Dodd, who was raised by her father, William Jackson Smart, after her mother’s death.

Which means at least as far as its origins go it’s not so much a “fathers know best” narrative-supporting holiday as a distinctly alt-father one. And while I think it’s still hokey the way all such commemorations are (really, one day a year you recognize mothers, or secretaries, or fathers, or veterans or whatever? One day?) I’ve got a lot more, well, sentimental appreciation of the sentiment behind it.

So good for him. And good for her.