Outdoor Summer Music

John Colgan-Davis From:j.colgan-davis@att.net To:blackjayduke!1200@yahoo.com Wed, Jul 2 at 2:49 PM DUKES FANS: “Hot Fun in the Summertime" Sly Stone Somehow, we slipped right from May into August. Hot, humid, rainy August in Philadelphia is far from my favorite month. I generally like the first part of summer, but August gets tough and uncomfortable. When my wife was alive, we would always take the last two weeks of that month for our extended camping trips. We would head north and would camp in NY state, go up to Canada, and generally enjoy cooler weather. But it is here early, and we just have to face it. Accept, adapt, and apply; that is the human condition. One of the good things about summer, though, is the outdoor park and street concert series that abound. I love playing outdoor concerts. I love seeing families together, folks who don’t come to hear us in clubs, and visiting different city and suburban neighborhoods and areas. I have played each of the three parks we are playing this summer before, and I love them all. Bring picnics, lawn chairs, family and friends to each of them. And at Seger, you can bring your dog. These are all wonderful gigs. Of course, with the heat and humidity being what it is, it is important to remember to stay hydrated, hydrated, hydrated. If you are coming to hear us at any of our outdoor gigs this August, please remember this. And don’t forget-you can stay cool with The Dukes indoors this month at the Mermaid as well. Have a Happy Summer. Hope to see you at some of our gigs.

DUKES FANS: Sunday June 15 was father's Day, and it was an important day for many of us fathers. Some of us were taken to brunch or dinner, were presented with gifts ranging from tools to ties, and others got to spend time with our children either in person and/or through face-timing. My son and I had a good dinner together at my house and watched a movie together-something my family had done for years when my wife was alive. My son and I still do it periodically, but it felt especially right and special on Sunday. I like being a father, and I love the relationship my son and I have. I am also a history guy, so I am always interested in where something came from-how it originated, caught on somewhere, and then spread. Mother’s Day, I knew, grew out of a post-Civil War attempt to unite a town in West Virginia that had been divided by that war. A day was held to honor the mothers of fallen Union and Confederate soldiers. Started by Ann Jarvis in 1868, it became an annual event to honor the work and sacrifices of mothers. Eventually Ann’s daughter, Anna, started a large nationwide campaign to have it become a national holiday. She got hundreds of people to write letters to Congressmen in support of the idea and had a huge Mother’s Day celebration at Wanamaker’s Department store in Philadelphia. The campaign took off, and Mother’s Day became a national holiday signed into law by President Woodrow Wilson in 1914. In some ways, Father’s Day can also trace its roots to the Civil War. William Jackson Smart was a Civil War veteran living in Spokane, Washington. He was a single father to six children who loved and adored him. One of those children, Sonora Smart Dodd, heard a sermon in 1909 about Ana Jarvis and the start of Mother’s Day. She went to her pastor asking for a day to honor and to celebrate fathers in the way Mother’s Day honored mothers. He agreed, and after the initial service, she started going to other churches, YMCA’s, and government officials trying to sell the idea. iI tworked. Washington State had the first statewide celebration of Father’s Day in 1910. But It didn’t become a national holiday for quite a while. President Wilson was in favor of it, and President Calvin Cooledge urged states to celebrate it in 1924. But it was slow going. Many men, apparently, thought the idea of a day like Mother’s Day was too effeminate; not manly enough. While there were states that observed it and it was routinely debated in Congress, the idea of a national day for fathers did not catch on at first. Retailers, though, looked at it as an opportunity, so they started advertising ties and tools and cars as ways to “give dads a Christmas in the summer.” The constant push by retailers led to a steadily growing interest in celebrating the day. It became an unofficial holiday celebrated throughout the counrtny. In 1996 President Lyndon Baines Johnson issued a proclamation declaring the third Sunday in June as a day to honor fathers. Finally, President Richard Nixon made it an official national holiday in 1972. Father’s Day was officially recognized. I love the day; I think about my father and his life and all he went through to establish a family and help keep it together. And when I see little kids in the neighborhood walking and playing with their dads, I am reminded of the joy doing such a simple thing brought me. No, not every father knows or knew how to parent well. Not every one was good to be around. But most of them are and recognizing it and celebrating it makes sense to me. And if you did not have such a person in your birth family life, I hope you found someone who could fill that role. (In 2023 Americans spent some $34 billion dollars on Mother’s Day, and some 23 Billion dollars on Father’s Day)