Timely Recollection 1
The first part is the simple question, whether I’ve covered this material before. In the day-in and day-out routines required for one of the longest, continuously running horoscopes, I maintained a goal of “no repeats” whenever possible.
the fineprint
Looking backwards, July 2021 passed the 26-year mark for the weeklies.
Can’t claim success — or loss — on the “no repeats” goal, but that isn’t what this one is about.
During a narrow frame of time, some many years distant, Saturday nights my sister and I were parked at my maternal grandparents — the grandparents babysitting. Both grandparents were extremely devout. My grandfather taught, religiously, a Sunday school class, every week. Many years later, that church named one of the classrooms for him, and a chair endowed. Details, lost in time.
However, the singular recollection, running amok in the grandparents’ house, me and my sister as small children?
Consider that my grandmother, though mostly bedridden, was a great reader of books, despite failing eyesight, so books played into the memories. Both fiction and devotional items bedside, piled up in various rooms. Then, too, there was that Saturday night family format.
I think we were fed, not sure, and I remember watching a particular program on TV, network, over-airwaves TV, which subsequent research puts us in the five to seven or even eight or nine age range demographic for me and my sister. That program lasted four or five seasons, with two Saturday evening time slots in the first few years — web “research.”
While both my maternal grandparents were devout, I think, Presbyterian, affiliated with the big church downtown, that faith carried through into everyday activities, but what the single timely recollection is about?
Timely Recollection 1
After supper on Saturday evening, my grandfather would retire to his study, an office lined with books, and he would prepare his Sunday morning lesson. In that office, in a closet, it was probably an original “mother-in-law” suite, but in the closet, from an early age, there was a wooden crate with toys — reserved for me and my sister.
The simplest recollection was my sister and I on a carpet in front of the TV in the den, ostensibly under the watchful eye of grandmother while grandfather prepared his Sunday “sermon.” Sunday’s lesson, a missive.
The scholarly recollection, and remnants of this image I’ve carried around for years, but the singular memory was me checking in on him, and he was surrounded by books, probably various translations of the Bible, think he was a “New Revised Standard Version” aficionado, not sure, as my own memory is notably porous.
I’m more a King James person myself.
I’m curious, as an occasional scholar myself these days, how that image I’ve carried around in my head, how that impacted me. I do recall that between him and his younger son, my uncle, that the two were masters of the Sunday prayer before a meal, ending to conclude with “In Jesus name, amen.” (Father, Son, Holy Ghost, &c. — elicits an eye roll.)
Timely Recollection 1
My own faith is variegated, but I have to wonder, his influence of that idea of Saturday night, spent in earnest study, contemplating the mysteries of faith, preparing a solid message derived from his gospel? What kind of an impact does that carry forward, unbeknownst to me.
