This year, for Father’s Day, Put-in-Bay Daily™ has the privilege of sharing a poem by Anne Parker.  Ms. Parker, life-long islander, celebrated her 93rd birthday in May.  She dedicates this poem to her father, Delbert A. McGinnis, who was born on November 22, 1887.

We join Ms. Parker in wishing all a meaningful Father’s Day!

 

    The Lunch Pail

No parent in those days embarrassed child or self.

The spoken words “I love you” were always left unsaid.

Food on table, home so warm were proof enough of that.

 

Daddy packed his lunch each early weekday morn.

Coffee thermos neatly tucked up in the lunch pail’s dome.

 

He came home tired at half past five.

Time for my daily rite! I opened up the pail

To find one sandwich – slightly dry

Still in waxed paper wrapped.

That buttered bread plus Mama’s homemade jam.

It was my bread from heaven, that panis of the gods.

 

“I thought of you this morning as I over packed my pail.”

My delight was his reward.

 

Eight decades passed. And now I know

He said with more than words:

“Small daughter, this is how I say

How very much ‘I Love You!'”