I was outside having a smoke with my wife when I remembered a fond memory of Sundays when I was a kid. Let me tell you..

We would start early with Sunday School. To my mom’s credit, she hated being in church all day, and Sunday School was 9-10:30. She thought it important that I get a little God in my life; plus, she didn’t really like the minister, who was our example of What Not To Be As A Man Of God. So we’d go, leaving Dad at home, and get our God on, and come back.

If there wasn’t a football game to attend, we’d go shopping. We’d take a trip out to Cerritos to Fedco, which was a goverment-employee membership store about 40 minutes away. On the way there, we would turn on KLON 88.1 from Cal State Long Beach, as they played jazz and blues on Sundays. We’d go and get groceries, and.I would be turned loose in the book section as my parents shopped.

We’d leave there and maybe go to Cerritos Mall, or maybe Lakewood Mall for a while, and then back home with KLON playing their music. I’d be in the backseat as we would talk. We’d have great conversations, and I remember feeling…free. Happy. Content.

We’d get home, and Mom would cook early dinner, and we’d eat around 3. Any amount of goodness would away; Mom was, and still is, a master in the kitchen.

Afterwards, I’d help clean up, and they would adjourn to watch TV. I would turn on the little radio in my room and tune in to three radio programs that evening. The first was a spoken word program, kind of like the Moth, where people would tell stories. Secondly would be the Dr Demento Show, where he would play all and any mater of comedic songs and radio bits.

Thirdly, the 24 hour radio news channel would, for an hour, play two 30-minute episodes of old time radio shows. Those shows would vary, but I probably got my love for audio engineering from that show. The Cisco Kid. Green Hornet. The Jack Benny Show. Buck Rogers. I would sit only bed and draw or read, aware that Monday lay on the other side of sleep, but in those days, Monday just meant school, not a soul-crushing job or mandatory interaction with middle management.

As I got older, my bedtime was relaxed, but early on, bedtime was 8pm, and sometimes, I would smuggle my clock radio under the covers, turn the volume down REALLY low, press the speaker against my ear, and listen.

I wonder what it would take to get that peace back, of a routine that centers me, calms me.

Sitting outside with my wife listening to jazz is doing a good job of it now, though.