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Hello All,

I wish you and your family, friends, near and dear........

A very happy, honoring and playful Father’s Day wishes (21/06/09).

Father's Day is a secular celebration inaugurated in the early twentieth century to complement Mother's Day, in celebrating fatherhood and male parenting, and to honor and commemorate fathers and forefathers. It falls on the third (3rd) Sunday of June, every year. However, it is celebrated on a variety of dates worldwide and typically involves gift-giving, special dinners to fathers, and family-oriented activities.

The driving force behind the establishment of the integration of Father's Day was Ms. Sonora Smart Dodd, born in Creston, Washington. Her father, the Civil War veteran William Jackson Smart, as a single parent reared his six children in Spokane, Washington. She was inspired by Anna Jarvis's efforts to establish Mother's Day. Although she initially suggested June 5th, the anniversary of her father's death, she did not provide the organizers with enough time to make arrangements, and the celebration was deferred to the third Sunday of June and thus being followed on every third Sunday of June each year. The first June Father's Day was celebrated on June 19th, 1910 in Spokane, WA. However, the first observance of Father's Day is believed to have been held on July 5th, 1908 in a church located in Fairmont, West Virginia, by Dr. Robert Webb of West Virginia at the Williams Memorial Methodist Episcopal Church South of Fairmont. The church still exists under the name of Central United Methodist Church.

Sonora Smart Dodd was the first to solicit the idea of having an official Father's Day observance to honor all fathers. It took many years to make the holiday official. In spite of support from the YWCA, the YMCA and churches, it ran the risk of disappearing from the calendar. A bill was introduced in 1913, US President Calvin Coolidge supported the idea in 1924, and a national committee was formed in the 1930s by trade groups in order to legitimize the holiday. It was made a federal holiday when President Lyndon Johnson issued a proclamation in 1966. The holiday was not officially recognized until 1972, during the presidency of Richard Nixon.

Although the name of the event is usually understood as a plural possessive (i.e. "day belonging to fathers"), which would under normal English punctuation guidelines be spelled "Fathers' Day", the most common spelling is "Father's Day", as if it were a singular possessive (i.e. "day belonging to Father") and is spelled so, since the bill has been introduced to the US Congress as the first attempt to establish the holiday. In addition to Father's Day, International Men's Day is celebrated in many countries, most often on November 19th every year. The Associated Men's Wear Retailers formed a National Father's Day Committee in New York City in the 1930s, which was renamed in 1938 to National Council for the Promotion of Father's Day and incorporated several other trade groups. This council had the goals of legitimizing the holiday in the minds of the people and managing the holiday as a commercial event in a more systematic way, in order to boost the sales during this occasion.

Many many happy returns of the day.

All the best and take care….

With thanks, regards and best wishes,
G.Srikanth.