SECOND FIDDLE, FATHER'S DAY : `THE OTHER PARENT' SLIGHTED, BUT DADS CAN HANDLE IT.

Byline: Richard Nemec

LIKE the rest of the country, I am thinking about something else this Father's Day. It is that kind of ``celebration,'' I guess, lacking appropriate pomp and ceremony. The greeting card sellers barely have Father's Day on their radar screens. After all, there is Valentine's Day, Halloween, Grandparents' Day and, oh yes, Mother's Day.

I'm thinking of Mom today, knowing she is the one that our celebration-hungry culture pines for 11 months of the year. Her day conveniently comes after Passover and Easter each spring with the first warm days.

America gushes when it comes to its mothers. Mother's Day, of course, came first. It was an ad hoc creation of 19th century England and later small, remote towns in the United States. By 1914, President Woodrow Wilson made it a national day of recognition.

Some now-forgotten person in the state of Washington was just getting around to celebrating a day for fathers four years earlier, but dads didn't get any official recognition until 1936, in the midst of the Great Depression, when a national committee on Father's Day was convened. No wonder Mother's Day continues to be the ``real'' parental celebration. After several decades of watching every high school, college and professional athlete mug before television cameras incessantly crying, ``Hi, Mom!'' before millions of male TV sports viewers, I have gotten the message. So for Father's Day 1999, I am thinking about mothers - my own; my wife/mother-to-my-two-children; my sister, who is mother to my only (and favorite) niece; and my daughter, who will never be a mother.

This year we took my 88-year-old mother out to brunch on the Saturday before Mother's Day last month, and only waited one-half hour to be seated. Other years we have tried dinner the night before. We gave up long ago - without reservations - going to restaurants on Mother's Day. Next to Valentine's Day, it is the busiest day of the year for restaurants. Don't ask your local bistros where Father's Day ranks among the annual celebrations.

Even my encyclopedias - admittedly 20 years old - carry a bias toward moms. Father's Day's origins command only two short paragraphs, and the reason given for the national recognition is to ``express gratitude and appreciation'' to fathers. Conversely, Mother's Day fills half of a page, has a photo of Ana Jarvis, the West Virginian who campaigned for a national day in the first decade of the 20th Century. ``Mother's Day is set apart every year in honor of motherhood,'' my reference book states. Somehow ``honoring'' an entire universe of women as opposed to passing on ``appreciation'' (time permitting) to dad doesn't seem like equal treatment to me. But what do I know? I'm just a dad.

There are compensating factors in being No. 2. There is never any excessive commercial hype when it comes to Father's Day. We are not bombarded with advertising, reminding us we must get cards, flower, candy and gifts. We don't have to leave 15 minutes earlier than usual for church or temple because it will be crowded the way it is on Mother's Day. There are no traffic jams near the local flower shops. A sales catalog for pocket and business calendars arrived in the mail recently with a sample calendar page shown on the cover, dated June 16, 2000, a Friday. No photo of Sunday, June 18, Father's Day!

Such subtle slights and omissions go on and, as one who has passed nearly 30 summers as a father, I am immune to this discriminatory treatment. Like birthdays, the level of celebration and anticipation wanes over the years. Our culture is very trend-conscious anyway. As an example, when was the last time a college athlete waved to his father on national TV? It is not trendy or expected.

The 20th century has given us Mother Theresa and phrases like ``mother of invention,'' and ``mother ship'' in space travel. For dads there is only Father Time, who seems to deal more cruelly with them.

As an optimist in training, I am trying to glean some good from society's seeming lack of interest in dads. So, I think there may be hope if the current American obsession with ``family values,'' and the resurgence of interest in the two-parent households can be turned into something practical. In most cases we are talking about households headed by both a mother and a father, although I realize that there are single-sex parents, too. For all of us, maybe a ``Parents' Day'' in late spring or early summer should replace the separate mom and dad days in this country. It seems somehow fitting for the next century. Let's see which of our year 2000 presidential candidates is the first one to promise this change. It will help us poor, forgotten fathers, and it will give families a fitting tribute annually. How's that for a 1999 Father's Day idea? Now let's hear from all those moms out there.