Sunday Evenings Then & Now

It’s nights like this one. Sunday nights during the school year. I remember them well from when I was in grade school. I remember often beginning the anticipation in the middle of a Sunday afternoon. Come dinnertime the feeling was altogether different…Just knowing that homework must get wrapped up if it wasn’t finished yet. Just knowing that, if I were to be tested on something on Monday, whatever prep work I’d managed to fit it, well…the hours till my potential demise were certainly numbered.

I remember looking forward to being an adult. I remember thinking I won’t have to concern myself with falling asleep knowing a morning lie ahead where I’d have to deal with figuring out the ideal outfit, catching a school bus, peers…public school…& likely a test or two.

I also remember that on Sunday nights around this time of year my family might have likely been coming back from visiting out-of-state family. We had immediate family we routinely visited. It was just as common for us to pile in the minivan & head across the state border just after dinner on a Friday evening so that we could get “there” during primetime television & be ready for whatever our Saturday adventures held. Otherwise, we’d get going soon after waking up a bit earlier than we might otherwise on a Saturday morning. No matter, the anticipation of the car ride back home always weighed with the same trepidation.

I commonly slept on these car rides. I didn’t do it intentionally; yet, before we’d reach the state’s border I’d be asleep. We’d have turnpike fees to pay. Whenever I cross the rumble strips as I approach the turnpike turnstiles nowadays I still hear Mom’s voice as she turned toward me saying, “It’s okay. We’re just at the toll booth. You can go back to sleep.”

As a perk from Dad’s work, one of those “thanks for working for us for X amount of years” gifts, we had a flannel throw blanket in the minivan. It wasn’t the size or comfort of the similarly intentioned blankets of today. It was definitely more of a “throw” & back then “they” stuck to using flannel fabric, not fleece; it sufficed. On rides where my head & neck could handle the padding just below the van’s window where I sat behind the driver’s seat, I could use the throw around my legs. Otherwise, I'd be best to roll the throw up into a pillow-like formation, tucking it under my ear.

Sitting back & thinking about it, there is a “peace” that I’ve no tests to take, oral presentations to give, or class participation to concern myself with tomorrow morning, or any day this week. I do have plenty of awkward situations to navigate my way through hoping & praying that, now that I’d the “decision making” to do & the week’s “lesson plans” to write, that I would, ultimately surface at week’s end feeling that my Sunday night & my Monday were well planned, & therefore well spent.