Well today did not go as I'd hoped or expected.  I did consider that Fathers' Day might not be the best day for a flea market, but I did it anyway.  The crowds were thin and those that were there weren't buying!  This was a huge disappointment and blow to my pocketbook.  Bummer.  

The upside is tomorrow's another day.  I'm just going to shake this bad experience off and get back to it tomorrow.  Now about that money I lost...

Did you know that Father's Day was founded in Spokane, Washington at the YMCA in 1910? Its first celebration was in the Spokane YMCA on June 19, 1910.  Civil War veteran William Jackson Smart was a single dad raising six children. After hearing a sermon about Mother's Day in 1909, one of his daughters told her pastor that fathers should have a similar holiday honoring them. Although she initially suggested June 5, her father's birthday, the pastors did not have enough time to prepare their sermons, and the celebration was deferred to the third Sunday of June.

It did not have much success initially. In the 1920s, they stopped promoting the celebration and it faded into relative obscurity, even in Spokane. In the 1930s  Spokane started promoting the celebration again, raising awareness at a national level, with the help of those trade groups that would benefit most from the holiday, for example the manufacturers of ties, tobacco pipes, and any traditional present to fathers.  Americans resisted the holiday during a few decades, perceiving it as just an attempt by merchants to replicate the commercial success of Mother's Day. The trade groups kept at it however and eventually found success. In 1957, Maine Senator Margaret Chase Smith wrote a proposal accusing Congress of ignoring fathers for 40 years while honoring mothers, thus "[singling] out just one of our two parents". In 1966, President Lyndon B. Johnson issued the first presidential proclamation honoring fathers, designating the third Sunday in June as Father's Day. Six years later, the day was made a permanent national holiday when President Richard Nixon signed it into law in 1972.

So now, thanks to me and Wikipedia, you have the official run-down of the humble beginnings of Fathers' Day!  Hope you had a good one, and "big ups" to all you Dads!