They visited with friends and neighbors from miles around.
MAY 19, 2007 (SATURDAY) – Saturday is so many things to so many people nowadays that it’s a difficult day to put into a category.
I was eighteen years old before I knew what a great day Saturday could be. I was introduced to the right way to observe Saturday in 1950 in East Central Texas, in a small town surrounded by farms and ranches. Saturday was the day most area residents loaded up the family and “went to town.” They bought groceries, shopped all the stores, and, best of all, stopped to visit with friends and neighbors from miles around.
The custom was begun years before, when wagons and carriages, drawn by horses or mules, came to town hauling dads, moms, and all the kids. By the time I finally came along, as a preacher boy in a country church, the carriages had become cars and the wagons had turned into pickup trucks, but the sidewalks and stores were filled with the same kind of wonderful folks that had been coming to town on Saturday for many years.
The bank and every kind of store was full of folks for most of the day. The children might find themselves fortunate enough to get some candy or fruit while the parents tended to their business and caught up with their visiting. The pastors could just stand on a corner and visit with nearly everyone in the church before the day ended.
Families would arise and do the chores, just like on the week days, but when chores were done, folks washed up, put on clean clothes and headed for town. Toward the end of the day, the evening chores called for their return home, and the evening would be spent by many, listening to the radio and preparing for Sunday School the next morning. And, of course, taking turns in the bath water.
Times have changed in that town. Customs there are pretty much the same as everywhere else now, but I’ll always remember Saturday in a country town in 1950. The name of the town? Groesbeck. But it could have been almost any small town in Texas back then. And what was the parting word to friends? “Y’all come!” Still is today.