Sunday Mornings

I remember when I was a kid, Sunday mornings had a ritual to them.

We’d get up early and Dad would cook breakfast. It was always Dad, Sunday morning breakfasts were his specialty. It would always be a variation of the same thing. Either bacon or sausage patties, scrambled eggs or “soft” as we called them- overeasy is how most people know them, and toast. A glass of orange juice would complete breakfast.

Dad would read the Sunday morning paper, starting with the comics. I’d look at the sale ads until he was done with the comics. There was a period of about three years when I kept all of the Sunday morning comics. I had a pretty good pile going until the dog peed on it once. Into the trash it went.

After that was church. Growing up, we went to church every week. My parents found it important to give us kids a sense of religion, to let us experience it and educate us so that one day when we were old enough, we’d be able to make an informed decision on whether we wanted to remain religious or not.

The church services always took forever. I’d doodle all over the childrens program while waiting for the Pastor to finish up his long long sermon. But I always enjoyed the singing and when I was old enough to read, I’d belt out the words to the songs loudly, if off key.

After the service was fellowship time, all the members would gather in the meeting area outside the chapel. There would be donuts and orange juice for a donation of your determination. My dad would give us fifty cents to get something, even though we’d had a big breakfast already. Then it was time for Sunday school.

Sunday school would be about an hour long. Anymore it’s hard to remember the people I had it with. Over the years that I went to church, there was quite a few different kids as parents moved in or out of town, or changed churches. I remember Jerry and Dawn. Wes, Marie and Becky and that’s about it.

After church was time for ourselves. They were always lazy days and not much got taken care of. Sometimes Dad would do some work on the outside of the house, nothing more than raking or tinkering around in the garage. Mom would bake or do some cleaning in the basement. It always needed cleaning. I usually spent the day watching tv or reading a book, playing my video games.

It’s been a different story ever since I started working. I don’t always get Sundays off. Actually, I seldom get Sundays off. That’s the problem with retail, it’s not a 9 to 5, Monday through Friday job. I work when they need me to and I don’t complain. Well, I don’t complain much.

Today though, I have a Sunday off. We didn’t get up early, we haven’t had breakfast and no church is in site. We will spend the day being lazy though, that I can guarantee.