Sunday morning memories.
We go to mass every sunday at 7:30. I hated this when I was a kid, but I also knew that early mass meant we got to eat soonest. We were old school catholics, nobody ate until we had been to mass. When I started serving mass, I would work hard to get early masses just so I could get out and get home and eat. On some very special sundays, when dad had an extra tenner in his pocket, we’d go to Golds corner restaurant and eat. That was a treat, there. We could all have different things. My sister would order belgian waffles. I’d order a ham and cheese omelette. Mom got cereal. Cereal? You can have that at home, mom!! Dad got an over-easy egg on top of a stack of pancakes with a big coffee. Our favorite waitress, a willowy Whyan girl, would wait on us, my teenage hormones working overtime.
So these days, my anchor is the sunday morning mass and breakfast. Very little gets in it’s way. The three of us, sitting in a restaurant eating breakfast after mass, talking about the sermon, reading the comics, giggling at each other’s jokes. The daughter doesn’t seem to mind the early hour, as she likes to see the people we know that always go to early mass, and to early breakfast. We don’t wait to be seated, we just walk in and take our booth. The waitresses know what we want, and bring it. We haven’t looked at a menu in years. I pray every sunday evening that the next sunday morning is exactly the same with no changes. I hope your anchors are as deeply rooted and as pleasurable.
Man, I hope you’re running off copies of this stuff and putting them in a strongbox. If the server ever goes pfft, then you have your hard copy backup of your manuscript. If you’ve ever read anyone else’s “let me tell you about me” blogs, you’ll see how yours actually connects with us out here in the ether.
I don’t know if you ever read Bill Granger’s stuff when he was with the Chicago Trib, back in the late 70’s early 80’s, before their Sunday magazine section became yuppie tripe and he got sent packing. But that’s what this reminds me of.
I remember Grainger. Royko. Kup. I miss those old school reporters, they were a dying breed when they were young.
Those “anchors,” as you call them, are what bring continuity and purpose to our existence.
These days, for me, it’s breakfast with the Minyan Boyz after daily morning services. Menus? We doan’ need no steenkeen’ menus!
Or, on a more secular note, dinner out with our friends on the weekend. Routine it may be, but it never feels like a rut.
Echoing mts.
My aunt and I are facing a project right now, of how to get Granny’s years’ worth of letters to her sister off of all the disks she saved them on, on a Brother word processor back before computers were common. Shouldn’t be too hard, I’ll manage a solution one way or the other.
But yeah, Og, make sure this stuff is backed up for posterity.
Your kid or your grandkids will want to have these things you write, and a blog isn’t foolproof, even with Google caching.
On a separarate note… I really want to meet you and shake your hand, grill some steaks, have a few beers, and swap Dad stories :)
Thanks, Aaron. Someday. We’re going to have a blogmeet in the spring in Chicago. Maybe you can come.