The Lighter Side 'Lumps in my throat' By Dick West
WASHINGTON (UPI)—Just about the most beautiful thing in this world to me is the esteem and affection that is lavished upon us fathers by department stores.
We may not be revered too highly by our children, but the department stores love and respect us with a zeal that knows no bounds.
Reading the Father's Day advertisements always brings a lump to my throat, and I'm not what you would call the sentimental type.
The most touching thing about it is the way the department stores are willing to overlook our shortcomings and follies. So maybe we're not perfect. So what? To a department store, old dad is still the greatest guy around and deserves nothing but the best.
One store, I note, wants me to have a pair of "kicky party pants" done in "smashing floral prints for Pop." I got really choked up over that one.
In the eyes of my offspring, I am strictly a parallelogram having four equal sides and four right angles. They would laugh their heads off at the idea of me stepping out in flowered trousers.
But there is no generation gap between a father and a department store.
A department store simply is blindly adoring of fathers. It will go to any extreme to be a "dad-pleaser."
That means a lot in these days when the family unit is said to be rapidly eroding as a binding-force and stabilizing influence in American society.
I'll be honest about it. At my age, I really would look pretty ridiculous in "kicky party pants." But it's nice to know that somebody still thinks of me as a swinger.
"Pop's the tops," the ads say. "For dad: the something-extra." "Treat him to the luxury he so richly deserves."
The department stores, at least, are not ashamed to express a little honest emotion.
It is often alleged that America has become excessively materialistic, with commercial values taking precedent over human values.
But anyone who bothers to study the Father's Day ads can readily recognize the fallacy of that allegation.
Department stores spend a great deal of money to exhibit their appreciation of fathers, and I, for one, reciprocate.
I get a warm feeling every time I hear the patter of little credit cards around the house.
Pediatrics prof named head of rehabilitation unit
Dr. John S. Spaulding, assistant professor of pediatrics, has been appointed director of the Children's Rehabilitation Unit at the University of Kansas Medical Center in Kansas City.
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He will succeed Dr. Herbert C. Miller, who for several years has been both director of the unit and chairman of the pediatrics department.
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and has held a National Institutes of Health postdoctoral grant in pediatric endocrinology here. He is currently the medical advisor of Human Growth, Incorporated, in the Kansas City area.
The Children's Rehabilitation Unit deals with children suffering from learning disability, mental retardation, motor defects and behavioral disorders. A comprehensive approach utilizes findings and recommendations of psychiatry, pediatrics, psychology, speech and hearing, education, social service, occupational therapy and physical therapy.
Dr. Spaulding, a native of Chicago, earned his B.A. degree in psychology from Swarthmore College and his M.D. degree from the University of Chicago. He interned and did residency training in Chicago and was a pediatric endocrinology fellow at Johns Hopkins University. He came to the KU Medical Center in 1965
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