That's What I Loved About Sundays...

While channel surfing late one night this week, I happened to come across the heart warming movie Sister Act 2, which immediately took me back to my childhood Sundays. While this week will always be flooded with special memories, it's time to sit back and enjoy another blog of Sara Grows up: Childhood edition.
     I can remember each Sunday to a tee.  It began with the honking of my grandfather's adorable grey Toyota Camry that promptly arrived in my driveway at 8:45 to pick us up for the 9:15 Children's church service. After making the trek downtown and listening to the boring Sunday morning talk radio, we always promptly arrived at 9:00, which allowed my grandfather to go "politicking" while we were instructed to go get our pew. The great thing about the Children's 9:15 service, was that it instead of having to sit through a 90 minute adult celebration, it was a very fast 45 minute service that was geared towards the younger age group. With wanting to keep things interesting for the younger generation, there would be volunteers for certain jobs to help by taking the collection plate and my favorite job, or staying after communion to extinguish the candles. I volunteered for any job that I could take, but I'm not gonna lie, that was by far my favorite job. When it came time to give the sign of peace, we gave the sign of peace alright. While we shook the hands of the other parishioners', we had our own sign of peace. The the three of us held up two fingers and gave the peace sign. After I did my job to signal the end of the morning, I headed up to Sunday school while my grandfather headed to adult bible study. Sunday school  usually lasted around 45 minutes and was jammed packed with "choir" practice, snack, and the occasional arts and crafts, and in the winter, Sunday school turned into Christmas pageant costume try-ons and rehearsals. My favorite costume? The holy sausage/the palm tree. Being the typical sisters, we I never exactly got along with mi hermana, and sometimes those long mornings turned into arguments over who got the front seat, or who got to sit next to my grandfather. It was the little things that got me. And if we had behaved, it was after Sunday school that we would hear those magic words: "here's a dollar. Go get a diet Pepsi for the ride home." I was like a kid on Christmas Morning. While I would spend the morning with my grandfather, it was only fair that my hostess with the mostess grandmother get some quality granddaughter time.
     While I would be attending church, my grandmother would be holding down the fort while she would would catch up with her own children while she anxiously awaited our arrival. "Yoo-Who!!" I would yell to signal we have arrived. "Hi Sara, we're in here. Before you do anything, go get out of your church clothes and go get into your play clothes." Once I had changed into play clothes for the afternoon, it was crunch time. We had a span of 45 minutes to catch up with my favorite aunt :) and uncle, because once the clock had struck noon, there would need to be complete silence in the house while the TV was turned on to This Week with Sam Donaldson and Cokie Roberts. It was his time to catch up with the happenings in Washington, while we retreated into the kitchen for lunch.
     "What do you want for lunch Sara? Your usual?" What was my usual? Dinosaurs and bread. Sounds gross doesn't it. Oh no. This by far was the highlight of my week. Dinosaurs can be described as today's Spaghettio's. But way better. I would start with two pieces of Pepperidge Farm Very Thin White Sandwich bread, crumble it into pieces, and then pour my steaming hot Dinosaurs on it. If there was only one thing that made me happy, that was it. As for mi hermana, she had a usual too. Hornbucket Chili and bread. Canned chili and bread. Plain, simple, and easy.  While we were assigned to the kitchen to talk, this was our time to catch up with each other for the week, while the library was being occupied by Sam and Cokie. After lunch came another monumental decision.
     If we had completed our homework for the weekend, or didn't have any afternoon plans, we would stay for the afternoon to pick out a movie to watch in the basement. Now are you seeing where I came from with Sister Act 2? One of the great things about Grandmothers is that no matter how many times she has watched your favorite movie with you, she will gladly watch it with you; AGAIN. My favorite? Sister Act 2. My sister's favorite? Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Arc. I'm sure you have your favorite flick and there are those moments where it brings you back as to if you're watching it for the first time. After the movie was picked out, it was time to hunker down on the I don't really know how to describe it, maybe you could call it an instant sleeping bag bed for my afternoon nap. My strategy was to pick out a long movie. The longer the movie, the longer the nap, the longer I could hang with my grandparents. After the movie was over, it was time to head home. And I began waiting for next Sunday.
     Sadly, those Sundays have come to an end. While there are Sundays that I can not go over there because of opening at Shenanigan's, I look back on each and every one of those Sundays, I think back to all of those countless number of car rides, countless number of bowls of Dinosaurs with bread and Buckets of chili, and countless number of memories that I will never forget.
     But today, I'll be making that trip for you...

-Sara-