Saturday Morning

Yep… It’s Saturday!

For over 40 years my wife and I have looked forward to enjoying Saturday activities. Being involved with church like we have been often means that Sunday is a “work” day, and Saturday becomes the prep day. For those who are bi-vocational then another day of the week is not the option to a busy weekend. The job requires your commitment, just like your “weekend duties.”

I notice this Saturday is a “13th” and I’m not worried at all… Of course, I’ve had 59 birthdays on the 13th… So, I’m used to it!

Add to the fact that you are now involved in college – as a student and a teacher. Then every spare moment seems to be revolving around the concept of doing class work, meeting deadlines, writing papers, grading, and all the ancillary activities. You may not have much going on during the summer except for your regular bi-vocational responsibilities – and then you strive to carve out a niche of time, here and there, and plan your get-a-way. Often, it’s simply resting at home playing catch-up with all the undone tasks of home ownership.

Yet, every so often a Saturday pops up with nothing to do. Of course, that’s not this weekend!

I remember Saturday morning as a kid. Mostly, it was enjoying the TV shows of cartoons, Tarzan, and all the westerns we thought fantastic. Around 9am you began Saturday chores and sometimes that was the rest of the day. Occasionally those ended around noon – and then you had time to play. Bikes, cars, guns, Lincoln Logs, Tinker-toys, model cars, or simply reading a good book. Sometimes you headed for the country to visit relatives. A few times I remember “stay-cations” and we would spend a few days doing the beach or the zoo, and enjoying those times probably as much as if we had traveled thousands of miles to some far off destination.

Suspicion sets in about my memories of growing up. Did we really look forward to a Saturday as much as we do today? Or is it simply nostalgia, something about those good ol’ days.

Let me get another cup of coffee and think about this for a moment!

The one thing I note about weekend time – it is far easier for folks to move their Saturday thoughts to a Sunday skip. As in, let’s work hard on Saturday and just take Sunday off. After all, college football has claimed Saturday, and the NFL has claimed Sunday!

Back in the early 80’s we lived in Alaska. This was before the time zones of Alaska collapsed into one big zone – before I think it had 3 or 4 zones. Anchorage was in a zone that made it 5 hours to east coast time, so a 1 pm game start on the east coast became an 8 am game start in Anchorage. Many a work morning I would show up at 5 am just to get on the phone with east coast support groups for various software systems I managed – just to be on their schedule so at the end of their 8 hour shift I could have my support needs met.

This one thing I do know, we are so ready for some downtime! My wife’s promotion made us change a travel celebration of our 40th Anniversary. Instead of making it to NY and DC (Brenda has never been there), we are instead hanging out in the Rockies at the start of Fall for some down time. Of course, they have already had some snow – but then, we love it cold and snowy!

But wait, I’m in a 15 week semester online class period taking 5 classes. I’m teaching one class that wraps up next week and I’m not sure when the next one begins. Perhaps, just perhaps, I can take a partial down-time, and at least vacate the state…