Fathers Day in Big Cypress

By Nery Mejicano

BIG CYPRESS — The celebration started early, with Paul Buster, Jonah Cypress, Fred Phillips and Marie Phillips providing the musical entertainment. The event was catered by the Swamp Water Café, which as always enticed the community with a delicious and varied menu to choose from. Seminole fathers were joined by their children, grandchildren, spouses and extended families to celebrate a day that is dedicated to them.

The staff of the Big Cypress Recreation department as well as other departments joined in decorating the BC gym with blue and white colors, welcoming the fathers and their families. The highlight of the day was the arrival of the South American music group, of Fito Rodriguez, Goyo Hoyos and Peter Yanez, whose music is mostly from the Andes region of South America.

The Andean flute combined with the marvelous fingers of Peter at the guitar, and the incredible playing of the cajón–a wooden box with a mike inside–by Goyo, made for a memorable musical experience.

The first Father’s Day was observed on June 19, 1910 in Spokane, Wash. At about the same time in various towns and cities across America, were beginning to celebrate Father’s Day. In 1924, President Calvin Coolidge supported the idea of a national Father’s Day. Finally in 1966 President Lyndon Johnson signed a presidential proclamation declaring the third Sunday in June as Father’s Day.

Father’s Day has become a day to not only honor your father, stepfathers, uncles, grandfathers and all those men who by their role have become father figures. Let’s not honor fathers only this one day, but every day of the year for they have given life and love to their children and grandchildren.