Fathers Day

This Sunday, half of the parents across the country will be hoping for breakfast in bed and to be showered with gifts, yes, it’s Father’s Day.

You can tell it isn’t Mother’s Day, bins of discounted socks and car wash gift packs confront you in every shop. Don’t worry the kids and I have managed to resist such blatant marketing.

Fortunately, we have also managed to resist buying anything actually dangerous. Unfortunately the sons of Frank Roots of Ohio didn’t really think through their gift back in 1953.

They got their dad a two-foot alligator for Fathers Day…

That can’t go well, can it? I have to say that Frank took to their present more amiably than you would expect, tickling its tummy. Obviously the alligator gift wasn’t wrapped tightly enough, and what should have been a happy Fathers Day ended in hospital with a nipped nose. Thanks for nothing, kids!

The Courier-Mail 22 Jun 1953 http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article50560065

What would we do without our dads? I for one would have never been introduced to science fiction, giving me a love of it that has never left.

I was taken to the cinema to see Star Wars at a very early age (the Wampa gave me nightmares for years). Since then Dad and I have seen every movie in the franchise at the cinema together, not all of them have been good, as we all know, but the tradition remains.

Because of our shared love of sci-fi the rest of the family had to endure watching those cheesy seventies sci-fi television series, Star Trek, Buck Rodgers, Battlestar Galactica, Land of the Giants…. oh, there were so many!

For flashback purposes and your (very dubious) pleasure, here is the intro to Buck Rodgers in the 25th Century. So cheesy, I can almost hear the mice….