Often on a Sunday morning, I wake with kind memories of dressing for Sunday school. This was my life until my middle thirties. Sleeping a bit later than we could on weekdays because of jobs and school, hurrying less than we needed to when jobs and school ran on tight schedules, worrying less than we did when the demands of jobs and school weighed heavy. We woke with smiles and hopes. Sunday morning…when our dad read the Sunday newspaper with a relish for the promise of a quiet house and time alone, while his wife and five children readied for the Lord’s Day. He was not one of us. I always liked him better for his respectful dissent of religious expectations.
Sunday morning…when Mom wore her absolute best. She was a woman of classic-Hollywood beauty, the full red lips, large green eyes, high cheekbones, perfectly coiffed dark hair, and a curvy body. No one remembers her ever leaving the house without lipstick on her mouth. Everyone remembers her dressing up and scaling up her appearance for Sunday church. Sunday morning was the only chance in her busy life to feel pretty and chic. Although our mom was a genuine beauty even in a house dress, she saved her best for Sunday. She dabbed perfume on her neck, light scents that would not offend other church goers. Sunday morning was her only social time in any given week. Our parents rarely went to company parties, and we do not remember them going out on a date night. Before we as teenagers used weekend nights to socialize downtown or in church youth activities, Friday and Saturday nights were family nights at home in the truest sense. I always admired Mom for being the woman who presented herself in public, whether the grocery store or a church service, in respectful dissent of average expectations.
Sunday morning…when the neighborhood was silent. The paper delivery, one clear whack on the front door, was the one reminder that we were not alone. All the dads mowed their lawns on Saturdays. The multitude of post-war children in our neighborhood were indoors until the afternoon, either sleeping in late or performing the Sunday morning rituals as we did. Until we were old enough to help with this chore, Mom ironed our shirts and dresses on Saturdays, after laundering then drying on outdoor clotheslines. For a quick shine, the girls’ patent leather Sunday shoes were given a final coat of Vaseline. We ate a simple breakfast on Sundays, always eating our meals together at the dining table. Mom put together a roast with vegetables to simmer on the stove top while we were at church. Dad would keep an eye on it. Dad would slowly rouse from the newspaper and gather his tools for a project. The few hours during which his wife and five children were in Sunday school and morning worship were the only hours in his life that he had to himself. When we drove away, most of the neighborhood was still quiet. Contrary to trendy belief, most Americans in the 1950s and 1960s did not regularly attend church services. Though in surveys most Americans claimed religious affiliations, they did not practice their faith by tithing or listening to preachers. I admired our neighbors for living good lives with respectful dissent of organized, obligatory, time-consuming, and hypocritical religious practices.
In my old age now, I muse on the feelings that give me peace. The feelings that slow my heart rate and my busy mind. Why are the feelings ever present but hidden, until some odor or sound brings them forth? Because the feelings are old ones. Senses and the contexts of places and familiar faces wrap our memories. On Sunday mornings I remember these things and more: the aroma of a Bible with delicate pages and leather cover that I kept all week inside a drawer. The aroma of Mom’s Sunday hat kept all week in a fancy box on the top shelf of our parents’ bedroom closet. The clangs from Mom’s kitchen that woke us because she would set a meal to simmer on the stove top while she was gone. Dad’s smiles that I now understand as his anticipation of a quiet house. Sisters arguing with each other over socks, necklaces and hairbows. Four girls born between 1953 and 1960…our older brother rarely argued with us; he did not share anything with us as our parents required of the girls.
If we were visiting the grandparents’ farm in Texas on a weekend, Sunday mornings would be loud and busy. We woke to the soft sounds of Grandpa walking through the farmhouse with its creaky wooden floors, the milk bucket in his hand, and Grandma setting heavy iron pans on the gas stove to cook ham slices and eggs. The cows that had spent the night in the shadows of the mesquites near the large water trough were making their noisy way on the path to the upper pasture. It still surprises me that I can hear their hooves thud on the hard dirt path past the house. Soon we heard the milk cow in her small corral as Grandpa readied her for the milking he did by hand. There is no sweeter aroma than the freshly drawn milk that Grandma poured through a cheesecloth into the jars that she kept in the refrigerator. Just after breakfast, we began preparations for the arrival of other families…our dad’s siblings with their spouses and children. We did not dress up for this day because we would play outdoors all day with our cousins while our parents visited each other on the sofa, at the large farm table, and on the porch. We ran through dry ditches and thorny mesquite brushes. We climbed the strong branches of the large tree that hung over a trough. We played with tarantulas, ran scared from large wasps, chased the chickens until an adult yelled, and we wandered through wilder parts of the farm where our dad had collected stone tools as child.
Sundays on the farm near Dumont, Texas, are among my favorite childhood memories. Sunday mornings…when quiet, easy, unhurried time gives us opportunities to remember other people who were kind to us, other places where we could safely and simply enjoy our play, where we came from, when freedom and hope were a reality, when we experienced pure love.