District 191 of Burnsville, Minnesota has challenged parents to spend twenty-one minutes a day of face to face
family time to directly offset the roughly six and half hours average television and screen time kids were having.
The City was also concerned about the half hour a day children are spending with their dads as apparently this
half hour is not direct time but time spent mostly in the company of dads as they do other things like cook, clean,
work on the car, or take out the trash.  This IS in America and this WAS an article published this year.
I don’t know who these families are or what their deal is that twenty-one minutes has to be encouraged
by the local districts but it did make me greatfull for the Dads I know and so though I’m a little late for Father’s Day,
I thank them none the less.

To Greg M., who never missed a field trip and always made them a little more fun and a lot more unpredictable.

To Dave R., who has logged more volunteer hours then I have spent at my part time job.

To Don T., who always has a kitchen full of kids including my own and doesn’t seem the slightest bit miffed about it.

To Joe B., who coached a decade worth of boy’s soccer teams, some to championships and is more then happy to brag about his boys.

To Bill S., who appears every year in the cousin’s Star Wars video and plays the part of the Syth or Darth Vader without a wink of shame.

To Tom S., who will gladly take a rowdy group of pre-teens to lazer tag, mini golf, or the bowling alley and give them a run for their money every time.

To David T., who tag teams with his wife every Saturday soccer game so they each get to watch a half.

To Bill M., who one Halloween took seven rowdy boys out for a late night game of flashlight tag.

To my father George S., who is not here to share in my boys with me but would have beaten them to the net every time on the basketball court.

And finally to my husband Mike who has an amazing work ethic and has managed to make himself a career as a fireman
here in the city of Richmond but still finds time to play basketball with a soccer ball on a three foot hoop every Sunday
and is not ashamed to spend a Saturday afternoon at the pool being called “Big Daddy Fishy”.

To all these men I say thanks and I also say twenty-one minutes- PSHAW