The Day Before Sunday

When I was a kid, the day after Saturday was Sunday. We all knew this, but it was more than counting the days of the week. This knowledge brought an urgency to Saturday for all of us, from the youngest to the oldest. We dusted the furniture and mopped the kitchen floor. We vacuumed the carpets and scoured the bathrooms.

We scrubbed potatoes to boil and grate, ready for an easy fry on Sunday after church. Some of us pitted cherries while others mixed up the batter for cherry delight. We thawed a roast and made seven-layer salad.

We dusted the church pews and straightened the hymnals and picked up week-old tissues people left on their seats. We swept the church driveway, clearing away the debris accumulated by the continuous riding of bikes from the gravel parking lot to the cement. I can still see my brothers pushing those outdoor brooms one way up and the other way down, over and over, likely wondering if bike riding was worth it.

We prepared for Sunday school, and my dad finished his sermon notes. We typed the bulletin and ran it through the mimeograph machine. Some of us sat around the kitchen table and folded each one, precisely, just as our dad taught us. Then we polished shoes and shampooed hair and trimmed fingernails and set out our Sunday clothes.

Finally, we ended the day with a treat from the carts my brothers jangled up and down the city streets, pedaling ice cream for spending money. It was the one time a week we were allowed ice cream from that cart. And we took our time choosing. Would it be a drumstick cone or an ice cream sandwich or an orange push-up or a rocket pop?

It’s good the night came between Saturday and Sunday. In the morning, we’d be off again—combing hair, setting the table for Sunday guests, gathering our Bibles, rechanging a small shirt already soiled with spilled cereal, tying shoes, settling quarrels between already tired kids, and getting everyone out of the parsonage, across the drive, and into church pews on time.

It’s good every day wasn’t Saturday.

Or Sunday.