Duck Tape Parade, Sports, Car Show: 6 Things To Do In Cleveland Area To Celebrate Dad 2022

CLEVELAND, OH — Before you wish him a happy Father's Day, you'd better strategize a plan. Where are you going to take Dad on Sunday? Instead of just sitting and watching TV together, take Dad to do one of these fun activities to show him you care.

The Six Best Things To Do With Dad for Father's Day 2022 In The Cleveland Area

Go to a baseball game. Unfortunately, the Guardians are out of town for a while, including Father's Day weekend. But don't worry. Cleveland has plenty of sports teams — there's always a game to watch. The Lake County Captains (a minor baseball team and the High-A affiliate of the Guardians) play Friday, Saturday and Sunday, so you still have plenty of opportunities to watch a ball game with Dad.

Go to the Baseball Heritage Museum. On Sunday, according to the website, you can "have a catch with Dad." Bring your own mitt or borrow one of theirs and have a catch on the field of Cleveland’s Historic League Park. Take advantage of the opportunity to walk in history at the birthplace of Cleveland baseball. This is perfect for the history buff who also loves sports.

Take Dad to a car show. Dads like cars — that's a rule when you become a dad. The area has several car shows this weekend, including Ferrari Night at South East Harley-Davidson on Friday night, the Knights of Columbus car show at St. Charles Borromeo Church on Saturday and the Father’s Day car show at the German American Cultural Center on Sunday.

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Play a round of golf at Dad's favorite course or surprise him with one he has never tried. The Cleveland area has lots of courses, so check out Golf Pass' ratings of the courses in the area if you need some help picking.

Experience the Avon Heritage Duck Tape Festival. Who loves duct tape more than a dad? They use if for everything. Thursday, Friday and Saturday, the Duck Tape Festival is going all out on the fun. For a quirkier Father's Day activity, bring Dad here on Saturday for the Duck Tape Parade and the Lynyrd Skynyrd tribute band later that night.

Stampede to the zoo. On Sunday, dads qualify for free admission to the zoo. There's so much to do at the Cleveland Metroparks Zoo that the day surely won't be boring. Feed the giraffes, visit the rainforest and try to find Dad's favorite animal. (Then see if you're right when you show him the exhibit.) Don't miss the elephant crossing.

Still looking for a last-minute gift for Father's Day? Check out Patch's Father's Day Gift Guide 2022.

A Brief History Of Father's Day

It wasn’t a #MeToo movement that made Father’s Day a national holiday on equal footing with Mother’s Day in 1972, about six decades after President Woodrow Wilson proclaimed the holiday celebrating America’s mothers in 1914.

In fact, it was the opposite, something akin to a #NotUs movement in the more patriarchal family structure in the early 20th century.

The whole idea of a day to celebrate fathers for simply doing their duty — providing for their families — struck men as silly and trite when it was the nation’s mothers who were underappreciated, Lawrence R. Samuel wrote in “American Fatherhood: A Cultural History.”

Men “scoffed at the holiday’s sentimental attempts to domesticate manliness with flowers and gift-giving, or they derided the proliferation of such holidays as a commercial gimmick to sell more products — often paid for by the father himself,” according to one historian’s account shared by The Old Farmer’s Almanac.

The first Father’s Day observance was held on June 19, 1910, in Spokane, Washington, and it was organized by Sonora Smart Dodd, one of six children raised by a widowed Civil War veteran.

Dodd thought fathers such as hers should be honored in the same way mothers are. So she set out on a campaign to make it happen, convincing local churches, civic groups, shopkeepers and governmental officials of the idea’s merit. Accordingly, on the third Sunday of June in 1910, preachers across the state of Washington gave sermons honoring fathers.

In the years following, U.S. presidents and other politicians nudged the idea forward that Father’s Day should be made a federal holiday.

In 1916, Wilson used telegraph signals to unfurl the flag in Spokane when he pressed a button in Washington, where he celebrated Father’s Day with his own family. In 1924, President Calvin Coolidge asked state governments to observe Father’s Day.

Even though Father’s Day was an unofficial holiday, families around the country celebrated it. Silk neckties became the go-to gift for dads and were mass-produced in the 1920s to meet the demand, according to Good Housekeeping.

Father’s Day survived a movement in the 1920s and 1930s to do away with and decommercialize the individual observances and celebrate Parents’ Day instead. Pro Parents’ Day rallies were held in New York City’s Central Park during those years to raise awareness around the idea that, in the words of Parents’ Day activist and radio performer Robert Spere, “Both parents should be loved and respected together,” according to History.com.

During the Great Depression, retailers and advertisers overcame many Americans’ hesitance to part with their money with promotions to make Father’s Day “a second Christmas” for fathers, according to History.

When World War II came along, marketing efforts shifted, according to Good Housekeeping. Father’s Day became another way to honor U.S. troops and support the war effort, though some dismissed that as propaganda, according to Good Housekeeping.

Still, Father’s Day was firmly institutionalized, even if it wasn’t the official holiday Wilson had hoped for.

In the 1950s, Sen. Margaret Chase Smith of Maine pleaded with Congress to make Father’s Day official, arguing that Congress “has been guilty now for 40 years of the worst possible oversight against the gallant fathers of our land.”

“Either we honor both our parents, mother and father, or let us desist from honoring either one," she wrote.

In 1961, Republican Rep. Walt Horan, whose district included Spokane, gave a speech on the House floor in support of an effort to make Father’s Day an official holiday. The 11-term congressman didn’t live to see it happen; he died in 1966.

That year, President Lyndon B. Johnson, who reportedly was keen on the idea of a national Father’s Day holiday, issued the first-ever presidential proclamation honoring fathers.

Johnson’s successor, President Richard M. Nixon, made Father’s Day a federal holiday in 1972, writing in a proclamation the following words.

"In fatherhood, we know the elemental magic and joy of humanity. In fatherhood, we even sense the divine, as the Scriptural writers did who told of all good gifts coming 'down from the Father of lights, with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning' — symbolism so challenging to each man who would give his own son or daughter a life of light without shadow.
“Our identity in name and nature, our roots in home and family, our very standard of manhood — all this and more is the heritage our fathers share with us. It is a rich patrimony, one for which adequate thanks can hardly be offered in a lifetime, let alone a single day. Still it has long been our national custom to observe each year one special Sunday in honor of America's fathers; and from this year forward, by a joint resolution of the Congress approved April 24, 1972, that custom carries the weight of law.”

Father's Day may be on equal footing with Mother’s Day as an official U.S. holiday, but consumer spending for Father’s Day doesn’t come close to matching the amount of cash Americans lay out to celebrate their mothers.

This year, Father’s Day spending was expected to be about $20.1 billion, according to the National Retail Federation. That compares with about $32 billion spent on Mother’s Day.

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