Fathers Day

Upscale timepieces are traditional Father's Day and graduation gifts. One place to look for them this gift season is IWC, which offers luxury watches for active dads and grads, whether their pursuits be ecology, sailing, diving, piloting or golfing or just being a great dad. IWC — which stands for International Watch Co. — is based in Schaffhausen, Switzerland, and was founded by an American, Florentine Ariosto Jones, in 1868....

Henry Jaglom makes semi-improvised films with a casual visual style that serve as a dramatic mirror to the foibles of his particular social milieu. While this may make him sound like one of the young festival darlings recently grouped under the loose rubric "Mumblecore," Jaglom is 68 years old and has been making films like these for nearly four decades.

To celebrate fathers this weekend, it's going to be all "The Kid" all the time -- well, a few times anyway. The Silent Movie Theatre is unspooling a special matinee screening Sunday of Charlie Chaplin's 1921 comedy-drama in which the Little Tramp raises an abandoned child (Jackie Coogan). Later that night, Pulitzer Prize-winning cartoonist and author Jules Feiffer will introduce the 1971 adaptation of his black comedy, "Little Murders," starring Elliott Gould and directed by Alan Arkin. www.

Jonathan Broxton rarely smiles and often mumbles when speaking to reporters. That wasn't the case Saturday. The Dodgers' soft-spoken closer was beaming as he recounted how he returned to Georgia on Thursday for the birth of his first child, Jonathan Brooks. Better than saving a game? "Yeah, yeah," said Broxton, who missed the Dodgers' series opener in Texas on Friday. Broxton said his wife, Elizabeth, called him Thursday at 3:30 a.m. to tell him that her water had broken.

It's easy for imagination to fail when it comes to finding gifts for Father's Day (witness the land-office business in ties and tube socks). But writer Cooper Ray, creator of Social Primer -- a website dedicated to bringing back traditional manners for men -- is practiced in remedying that.

Now it's Dad's turn to feel celebration deprivation. Retailers expect Father's Day spending to decline this year because of the recession. But dinner and neckties will still be popular gifts, according to a National Retail Federation survey. The survey found that U.S. consumers are expected to spend an average of $90.89 on gifts for fathers this year, down almost 4% from $94.54 in 2008. Total spending is expected to reach $9.4 billion.

On July 22 in Las Vegas, Michael Bibby will be playing in a basketball tournament. That's Michael Bibby, age 10. His dad, Mike Bibby, 30, star guard of the Atlanta Hawks of the NBA, will be in the coach's seat. No big deal there. Fathers coaching sons is the American way, especially when your father has been one of the best pro guards of this era. In the stands, chest all puffed up, watching every move of both Michaels, will be grandpa Henry, 58. Now that's a big deal.

FATHER. DADDY. DAD. Father is the neutral term, encompassing the entire voyage from daddy to dad, from infallible superhero to endearingly flawed man. Today we celebrate that voyage as much as we do any one person. Daddy is the one who could do no wrong, the dashing one with the comforting smell, be it of after-shave or pipe tobacco; the one whose stories were enthralling, whose laughter was contagious.

Anita DeFrantz was a young girl when her father drove her to neighboring Marion, Ind., to show her a sign, a holdover from the days of segregation. It read: "Don't get caught here after dark ... " and ended with a racial slur. Robert David DeFrantz, community activist and former president of the NAACP at Indiana University, wanted his daughter to see the world with eyes wide open.

Dad was working late as usual, finishing up a 14-hour shift at the Brooklyn Navy Yard. Vin Scully had finished his homework and was getting sleepy. Although something was on his mind, he couldn't wait up, so he wrote a note and put it on his dad's breakfast plate before going to bed. It was 1943 and Vin was 15. His stepfather, Allan Reeve, left for work each morning at 4:30, riding buses and subways to the shipyard, often not returning home until after nightfall.