When I was a kid,
every Sunday we'd go to church with my father; and on the way out of church
we'd pick up the Sunday newspaper.
Sometimes my father would let me put the change on top of the pile of
papers on the walk-way outside the church, and it somehow felt like a kind of
"special Sunday thing".
When we'd get home
from church, and as my mother made Sunday dinner; my father, sister, and I
would sit in the living room and go over whatever sections of the paper
appealed to us. My father, of course,
went first for the news section. My
sister and I took turns reading the comics, the two magazines that came with
the paper, and sometimes the ads - especially around Christmas when stores put
out "whole sections" just for Christmas toys. The Sunday paper would also often come in
handy over the course of the week, so it was just kind of a good thing to have
in the house. My parents got the daily
papers too, but that Sunday edition was something to keep in the house each
week until the next Sunday edition was brought home.
Personally, I didn't
particularly either love getting dressed up for church, those Sunday dinners
that often involved the unpleasant smell of, say, boiling cabbage or turnip, or
having to wait until a respectable hour in the afternoon before changing into
more casual clothes; but that after-church/before-dinner time in the
living-room each Sunday was kind of nice.
Now, as an adult and a mother, I see how nice it was to have Sundays be
different from the rest of the days of the week, and to be spend the time we
did together. Oh, and, yes, there was
the Sunday drive "to the country", with stops for ice-cream on the
way home.
Sometimes, depending
on what else we did and/or how old we were at the time, right before getting
home we'd stop for submarine sandwiches because they were considered a special
treat, but also because my mother didn't want to cook after spending the whole
day out. Another Sunday tradition was
that my mother would iron the school outfits of all three of her kids, as well
as iron my father's work clothes for the week.
So, there wasn't a lot of extra time between the Sunday drive and a
night of ironing a family's-worth of outfits.
Sunday was also the
night when my grandfather would visit.
As my mother ironed and chatted with my father and grandfather, and as
the Ed Sullivan Show could be heard in the distant living-room; my sister and I
devoted the evening to getting our end of the school matters in order. My brother young enough that he didn't have
to worry about school.
Times have changed
and life has moved well on from those days, of course; but I have a kind of
"OCD thing" that I know is left-over from those days: Today, no matter what has changed or how
different life has become, I have that kind of "OCD thing" about
making sure I get my Sunday paper. My
"paper" isn't a paper these days, and it's not something that I'd
pick up outside a church on Sunday. That
Sunday paper is something that shows up in my Kindle, and my modern-day version
of a Sunday tradition is to make sure I go to Amazon and get that paper once it
is available on Sunday mornings.
There have been times
when WiFi either hasn't been available or hasn't been working right on Sunday,
and that's when I've gotten my Sunday paper over the PC and made sure I got out
to where there was free WiFi that I could use just long enough to get that
paper.
In a day and age when
news is pretty much wherever one looks, people I know sometimes seem to think
my "OCD thing" about that Sunday paper is a little odd. Sure, news is pretty much everywhere anyone
looks these days. Sunday traditions,
however, are not always quite so apparent.
Neither are so many of those small and yet important things from our
childhood that didn't just make family members feel that much closer for the
moment, but that made whole living-rooms' worth of family members feel that
much more connected to the world beyond their front door.
It was a nice thing,
even if the smell of boiling cabbage or turnip was involved.
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