Every aging generation seems to lament the passing of at least one aspect of what was considered the “good old days.” While I would never advocate going back to the time of no microwaves, flat-screen TVs, or Lipitor, there is one thing from the past that our society could certainly use these days. I’m old enough to remember a time in our nation’s history when we were more religious in a good way (not necessarily more Christian, which is a commonly held misunderstanding). On Sundays when I was a child, nothing was open. No stores, no gas stations, nothing except the local ER in case there was a real life-threatening emergency (as opposed to the drop-in clinic ERs have become nowadays). ATMs hadn’t been invented yet, but even if they had, you wouldn’t have needed cash on a Sunday--there just wasn’t anything open where you could spend money. If you forgot a key ingredient for Sunday dinner, for instance, you couldn’t head down to the local mini-mart, you’d have to borrow from your neighbor instead. Anyone born in the U.S. after 1970 probably can’t conceive of a world without Sunday commerce. While such a situation might seem horribly inconvenient by modern standards, when seemingly anything could be purchased at any time, there were some positive aspects that would bode well for our day and age.
