People have braided together miles and miles of flowery lines about mother. Musicians have sat down at jangling pianos and tinkled teary tunes on mother's love. Artists have copied her in a rocker, etc.

But do not all these salutes to mother emphasize the obscurity of the man in the background? In picture or song or story, how much tribute is ever given to father? Cartoonists may dedicate to him a comic strip, like "Bringing up Father". Department stores toward the mid-June may suddenly start loving him from the bottom of their bulging stock-rooms up to the top of their clanging cash registers - you may call this, "ringing up father". But in general, he gets about as much attention and appreciation as we give to the water we drink or the air we breathe. It is the old human tendency to take the important for granted.

Yet these are the men - these fathers of families - who, more than anyone else, have made America. Some of them are miners working deep in the earth with a lamp on their caps and a pick in their hands. Some are line-men perched high on telephone poles, and with their wires and pliers weaving the miraculous network of communications. Some are architects bending over blueprints, sketching the skyscraper of tomorrow. Some are riveters with drills, making blueprint lines come true in girders of steel.

Some are the heads of small and large companies that are working hard to make successful businesses so that others can also profit from their hard work and obtain jobs with them. But all these men, lawyers or laborers, butchers or bakers, or electric light men, are the sturdy pillars that support the achievements of America. Their breath is the smoke of mighty factories, their heartbeat is the pounding throb of giant dynamos, their voice is the roar of rumbling traffic. They are the men who defend the freedoms for our Country. And, yet we pay no special attention to these men. Just as we pay no attention to the flagpole that holds up our flag. The Father of Our Country was a distinguished general and a well-remembered hero. But the fathers of our country are just undistinguished millions of unappreciated men - often unappreciated even in their own families.

I suppose that one reason why a father is seldom appreciated in his family, or not appreciated as much as he deserves, is because none of them sees him at work. Oh, mother works hard, but almost all her work is done under the eyes of her children. But Dad - why often he is up and out of the house before the children are out of bed. At lunch he is far away, eating from a paper sack or at a restaurant counter. They don't see the sweat pouring off him at his job, or the worries piling up on his desk, the disappointments, the pressure of a dead-line, the frustration of a dead-end, the personality clashes, and the rest.

And, ironically enough, the more years the father spends out there working for them, the more patronizing his growing children become toward him. Well, maybe if you were to take your Dad out to dinner in a smart hotel, where the silverware is laid out on either side of the plate like an array of dentist's instruments, perhaps he would not know which fork to use to spearhead each course, but never forget, he was putting food on your plate when you could not be trusted with a fork. Maybe at a modern dance, Dad would be hopelessly out of place - not knowing the conga or a samba and utterly lost trying to figure out rock and roll - but never forget he was putting shoes on your feet when your only dance was a toddling two-step and a tumble. And, if you have attained a higher education than he, the chances are you climbed up to it over his bent back as he toiled through the years.

Now for heaven's sake, don't go up to Dad this afternoon and begin to tell him what a grand fellow he really is. No - don't say it with words. Say it with your whole attitude - your thoughtfulness, your kindness, and your affection. Let your whole life say, "Our father, who art on earth, and who givest us our daily bread, forgive us our trespass in taking you for granted!"