Sunday Afternoon Boredom

 At my age I really enjoy my naps. They refresh me and I am thus able to continue on with my day. On Sunday as I was preparing my self to grab a nap in our favorite “fat-ass” chair, I thought back to my youth when naps were not that important to me.

To most people living on a farm Sunday was a day of rest.  To our family living on our farm in Saskatchewan about 70 some years ago, it was indeed a day of rest from the daily hardships of farming!  We all worked hard.  My parents were no exception. From sunrise to sunset, they worked very hard at providing a home for four children, doing the multitude of jobs to run a mixed farming operation, and making sure that everyone was clothed, fed, nurtured, and that we had time to do well at school amid all the chores and duties on a farm.

I could never understand why on every Sunday after church and after a Sunday dinner that my mom had seemingly whipped up out of nowhere, my parents would seek out the sofa or the bed in winter, or spread a blanket on the grass in the shade of a Manitoba maple in the summer and proceed to nap the afternoon away.  Even when my aunties and uncles visited, they, after a suitable amount of visiting, would all find comfortable chairs, beds, sofas, or in the summer, extra blankets would be spread out in the shade of the trees.  They would all nap. Now that I am older and I understand the benefits, values, and the desirability of a nap, I have a different take on their napping habits on Sunday afternoons.

But when I was a young lad with lots of energy to spare, Sundays would take on a feeling of interminable boredom.  There was nothing new to do! Waste my time napping! Never! To top it off, I had to tone down my activities in the yard so as not to wake the “nappers”. Sundays dragged on forever.