Sunday dinner was usually the same menu at our house because it “worked” for Mama.  She put the beef roast, beef raised by my father, in the oven around 9:00.  We went to Sunday School at 10:00 and got home from church around 12 noon; therefore, the roast was perfectly done about the time we got home.  The funny stories about the roast involve the Sundays on which Mother would suddenly get a funny look on her face during the sermon.  Then, she would jump up and leave or whisper in Daddy’s ear, and he would jump up and leave.  Usually it was because she forgot to turn the roast down or she left the potatoes boiling.  We always had the burned roast (we all loved it that way and do to this day), mashed potatoes which were sometimes very gluey because they had set in the boiling water the two hours that we were at church, green beans ( fresh in the spring time and straight from a jar that my mother had canned the rest of the year), homemade rolls, either a chocolate cream pie or a cocoanut cream pie or both, and strong, sweet, sweet tea, which the grandkids later labeled “MeMaw’s Sweet Tea”.  Talk about good memories.  We all sat down at the same table at the same time and enjoyed our meal and had family discussions, often about something the preacher had said.  Then, the kids washed the dishes (we had no dishwasher),  and Mother and Daddy read the newspapers from cover to cover.

It was long after I was an adult that I realized that not all people prefer burned beef.  We had it that way so often that we thought that was normal, and well-done or even burned became our preference.   I was also grown before I realized that not everyone got up and went to Sunday School and Church every Sunday.

Psalm 118:24   “This is the day the Lord has made; let us rejoice and be glad in it.”