'Twas the Night Before Father's Day

In days of yore when my sister and I were still young enough to be read to at bedtime, it usually fell to my father to handle that task. So I am sure he was doing just that on the evening leading up to the day when we celebrated him and his work.

Try as I might, I can't recall many of the stories that he read to us. I expect he used several found in the old Highlights magazine, which we then received in the hardcover edition. And for some reason Peter Pan sticks out to me as a frequently told tale.

Of course what mattered most was that it was him reading the stories and us hearing them -- my sister first, as she was younger, and then me. I'm neither naive nor a Pollyanna, nor do I think that some magical return to the days of Eisenhower would fix all of our culture's problems. But I wonder how many of them might be gone, and how many of those left would be smaller, if there were books in homes for dads to read to kids, and dads at home to read them.