Please read this...Fans focus on favorite Father's Day flicks

Father's Day has come and gone. And the day probably came with little, if any fanfare.

This is being written on the Friday morning, which would have made it Father's Day eve eve, I think. At the particular time that this masterpiece was being composed, yours truly hadn't really decided what he wanted to do on the big day.

Reading a book, and taking the inevitable nap which seems to come with reading a book, were one possibility. A road trip was another option. We shall see.

Father's Day doesn't seem to get the kind of attention that goes with Mother's Day. I think I saw or heard or read that the average American spends something like $3,278 for Mother's Day presents. When it comes to Father's Day, though, kids come to dad and ask to borrow money so they can get him something. 

That's OK. Dads are used to such things. After all, when a little one falls and bruises her knees, who will she go to for a hug and some kind and comforting words? Mom, of course.

But when it comes time to find the source of an unusual odor emanating from below the floor in the downstairs bathroom, who gets to squeeze into the crawl space to take care of the problem.

The source of the not-so-pleasant aroma turns out to be the remains of a creature which can no longer be identified, given that its demise occurred during some rather hot weather. 

Oh, by the way, that little adventure unfolded on Father's Day. Really.

As far as I know, Hollywood has not made a film about an adventure involving a dead animal in a crawl space. Such a flick might be out there, though.

The preceding paragraph is a clever attempt at a transition from one topic to another. Sometimes such things work, sometimes not so much.

Anyway, the Wednesday, June 15, edition of USA TODAY, arrived in our mailbox on Thursday, June 16. This is not unusual. Actually, the Tuesday, June 14, issue also arrived on Thursday. Ironically, Thursday's paper also arrived on Thursday.  

Given that Father's Day was fast approaching, a headline in the June 15 issue of the paper caught my attention. "Father's Day flicks: 25 films dads want to share with their kids."

The article which accompanied the headline shared: "In a Father's Day promotion for FandangoNOW, the on-demand video service asked more than 1,000 fathers which 'modern classic' they most want to share with their kids this summer." The article was written by Chris Heady.

The 1,000 dads were able to choose from movies which were released between 1975 and 2010. Yes, young folks, there were movies in 1975. And before then, too.

(Just as an aside – "One Thousand Dads" sounds like a great name for a movie. Kind of like "Seven Samurai." Or "The 300 Spartans." Or "101 Dalmatians." 

Topping the list on the dad's flick survey was the original "Star Wars" film. Yes, we've shared "Star Wars" with our kids. We actually have the first three films in the series...on videocassette tape. We even have a videocassette player which still works. I think.

I'm pretty sure that the first time we saw "Star Wars" involved some sort of rental procedure – as in we had to rent the movie, on videocassette tape, and a videocassette player, too. At that point in our lives, every penny mattered. We couldn't afford such luxuries as videocassette players. And we thought it was a big treat to get a new movie for Christmas each year.  

Some of the other movies in the top 25 on the list included "E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial" at number 2, "Jurassic Park" at number 3, "Forrest Gump" at number 4, "Toy Story" at number 5, "Shrek" at number 6, "Raiders of the Lost Ark" at number 10, "Back to the Future" at number 12, "Field of Dreams" at number 18 and "Independence Day" at number 21. This dad has seen all of those with one, or both, of our kids.

(Another aside – little would we have known, as we were watching "Forrest Gump," that one day, in what was then the future, but is now the past, daughter would end up having a class taught by the brother of the star of this film. Really, she did.)

I was not one of the 1,000 dads in the survey. If I had been, I would have had several other films at the top of the list – "Dances with Wolves," "Titanic," "A Knight's Tale" and "Aladdin." Yes, "Aladdin" – Robin Williams is a hoot, and the princess is kind of cute, too, for a cartoon.

"Dances with Wolves" is one of my all-time favorite movies. We have a videocassette version of the film, and a DVD, too, which is about as far as we go in terms of modern technology. I liked the movie so much that I picked up a copy, on videocassette, before we even had any way to watch it. 

Enough for now. I hope all of you dads out there get a chance to see a special movie with your kids, whether it's a "classic" or one that's going to be a classic some day. What is really classic is the special memories that you will have.