Father’s Day always reminds me of the late, great futurist Alvin Toffler’s description of parenthood: “The single greatest preserve of the amateur.”

Indeed, like countless other parents, I was stunned when I first held our child in my arms and wondered like the first-time congressional winner in Robert Redford’s “The Candidate,” What do I do now?”

Let’s be honest. Dad’s Day often seems to struggle for respect with Mom’s Day, which happens just a month before. In fact, in 1911, I recently learned that the great Chicago social reformer Jane Addams suggested that the city set aside a day to honor fathers only to be turned down. Maybe the city fathers had the opinion my own father expressed about gift neckties.

“No more neckties,” he declared after too many years of that particular gift.

That’s OK, I also have learned. Part of being a man, my father used to show me by annual example, is to shrug off the notion that anyone should make a big deal out of what to buy you for Father’s Day.

Once again, Father’s Day arrives at a time when Black........

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