Blog 2366 – 04.16.2022

Saturday

When I was a boy growing up in the southern United States, then and now still referred to as the Bible Belt, Saturday was the best most fun day of the week. Sunday not was not nearly so much fun though it was also a no work, no school day. The Christian Church inspired, passed, and kept strictly in place Sunday prohibition laws meant there was little you could do besides go to Sunday School and Church on Sunday. Most all businesses were closed except restaurants, folks who could afford to, loved to eat out after church on Sundays.

In my seventy-one and counting years I have seen more than a few things change, mostly for the better. Doing away with Sunday prohibition laws is among the better changes, I think. The very idea that a small minority or even a large majority has the right to force its beliefs upon the rest of us is to me a very un-American concept, something that never fits well in the land of the free and the home of the brave.

The Saturday prohibition laws were patterned after some of the strict Jewish Sabbath observant laws. Sunset Friday to sunset Saturday is the Jewish Sabbath. That comes from the Genesis creation account of the supposed seven days of creation each day being delineated as “the evening and the morning.” The more standard thinking of a day is morning and evening or day and night. But then there is the Cole Porter song made famous by among others Frank Sinatra, Night and Day.

Sinatra also sang of his beloved adopted hometown New York, New York as the “City that never Sleeps.” New York never had the the Sunday prohibition laws. It’s tremendous diversity would never have allowed them to take root and flourish.

I recall a very Texas TV commercial from years ago where two cowboys were discussing brands of hot sauce around a campfire. One cowboy reads from the bottle where the hot sauce was made, “New York City” then adds, “Get a rope.” You can only assume he intends to hang the chuck wagon cook who allowed such a travesty to take place. Reminds me of so many city and state and country prejudices. I have been in all fifty U.S. states, eleven other countries, five Canadian provinces, and more towns, small and large, than I can take the time to enumerate here. I can tell you without exception most of the locals in each of those places believed their city, state, country, or province to be the best bar none, and better than all the rest.

The Apostle Paul who despite being once a strict Jew and later a reluctant and devout Christian wisely wrote that not only had he learned to be content in whatsoever state he was in (and I know he was not talking about New York or Texas), but that he tried to honor all days the same not deeming one more holy than the others. Our term holiday comes from holy day. As the nineteen-fifties Primrose Lane song said perhaps a bit to Leave It To Beaver or Donna Reed Show idealized, “Life’s a holiday on Primrose Lane.” Every day can be a holiday if we see it so. Everyday is like a Saturday for this ole retired guy and “I’m loving it” to borrow a Mickey D’s slogan.

Your friend and fellow traveler,

David White

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1vno_7cogjxfc2LU3Mp0n_gsMOz7e3PrF/view?usp=drivesdk

Night and Day