The fair used to be closed on Sunday.
NO beer No sundays. What is with the original owners?

I believe the big stores in the mall we closed. then they switched to opening at 12-4 ish. It was long ago so correct me if I am mistaken.
People are OFF on Sunday- well lots anyway. Open or we cannot shop at your store we will shop someplace else.
Hobby lobby is closed on Sunday.
I understand Carocel being closed on Sunday since they are the only ones to run the business so maybe a helper on Sunday or something.

WIG..., you are correct. There is an old saying: "Nostalgia aint what it use to be." And I invented my own old saying: "Nostalgia isn't memory, nostalgia is something that's done to memory."

The irony of the AG episode and the series in its entirety is that the fictional town of Mayberry is looked back upon by people today as a enviable way of life -even though that very episode works against that idea.

This was an Andy Griffith episode from 1963. "The Sermon for Today"

"For his Sunday sermon a visiting preacher, Dr. Harrison Everett Breen, extols the virtues of a quiet, peaceful lifestyle. He commends the good citizens of Mayberry for their calm and measured approach to life, particularly when compared to so many who are in a constant rush. Back at home after services, they begin to reflect nostalgically about the good old days when they use to have a band concert in the park."

It seems even 50 years ago people dreamed of the good old days.

Bob, I prefer to be in agreement with your account of the rest of the story -whatever it is. I'm sure I can't improve on it. And I would add, relevant to what happened that time and the blog: If it was a Saturday night game, then, there were no diversions the next morning and all that day. Serendipity truly, sometimes, spices up life.

More to the point: Your "be careful of what you wish for" hit the nail on the head. We want more and more all the time. But when we are given more -in this case choices as to what to do with our time- we are relieved of the comfort of not having to decide. Decision-making is a big part of the work of life.

When we are given the choice to go shopping on Sundays or use those days as a retreat, the real basis for the complaint is that we wanted someone else or something else to make our decision for us -but now we're the ones who have to decide.

How strong was the sincerity of the Sunday sabbatical if it goes by the wayside when we have a choice?

This 27/7 world we live in is exhausting.

Fate played a part - I happened to meet an old pal's x-girlfreind at one of the many after-game-bars. She lived not too far from the stadium.

Why don't you just make up your own ending to the story at this point.

Bob Keith - a firm believer in fate

I am sure that he was find.

Bob, what happened that night you couldn't fine gas for your bike?

The irony as well as the tragedy of this subject is poetic. I remember wishing there was more than one all-night restaurant in Janesville besides the Oasis. I remember riding my motorcycle to a Brewers game back in the 1970s and not being able to find an all-night gas station after the game to fuel up. It is almost painful to invoke the worn out cliché, “Be careful what you wish for.”

There are all-night restaurants now, but most of them are not worth eating at and are overpriced with contrived menus, poor service, and bad food. And, I haven’t been able to afford a professional sports game for years, so I shouldn’t be needing a late night gas station after an extra innings game any time soon.

And speaking of sports, for better or worse, American football was once tied to the hip of Sundays off. Nowadays, it is hard to figure out which day or night your favorite team will be playing.

Times have changed and will always change of course. But, we embrace, enable, and apologize ad nauseam, for this “new norm,” global 24-hour, 365-day work life. Yet, few of us work full-time or earn benefits. The post World War II, 40-hour work week with its freed-up weekends, some benefits, and perks, is gone forever. I work with 30-year-olds that have never known what it is like to have predictable weekends off; and, they surely have no idea what a benefit or vacation day might be. They are poster children for collective banal social re-conditioning.

I have noticed few people under 40 years old, understand the old concept of the mom and pop shop. Getting friends, co-workers, and family to try a neat little inexpensive local café or retail shop is like pulling teeth. They always defer back to the fast food chains with the lousy food and the big-box stores and the relentless sales of Chinese junk for everything in their lives.

It kind of gives me the creeps to see the new norm phenomena of big box stores open on Thanksgiving and Christmas mornings. But I am an old by-stander, a relic from ancient history if you will; one of those old nuisances who continually insists, “Things actually don’t really need to be this way for us to get by.” A fool of sorts, from a past now mostly lauded in quaint literature.

Dream on Mr. Peck, and humble blog posters, for those days when American culture collectively took a pause on Sundays. Because, the only place you will find those days for the most part nowadays, is in your…,

…. sentimental imaginations.

Bob Keith – so very tempted to just laugh at us all…

I hated Sundays in the '50s and '60s. It was like Twilight Zone, nobody moving and no one did anything. Dead.
We now live in a 27/7 world, with people working all hours, rotating days on shifts, etc. It is no longer a 8-5 Monday thru Friday workweek.
Sunday is just another day now for me, especially since I retired...because for me, every day is Saturday! :>)

The Sabbath wasn't a day of rest, but a day of worship.

I remember back when the Janesville Gazette didn't have a Sunday edition. You got the local paper for Monday through Saturday, and on Sunday if you had the urge to read, you would buy a big city Sunday paper such as the Milwaukee Journal or Chicago Tribune.

That gave you a different perspective on national and regional news or issues than that of the Gazette, and a view of the larger city we didn't normally get back in those days before cable TV and the Internet.

I find that the older I get the more I look back with nostalgia on growing up in Milton in the l950's. Pick-up baseball games in the summer instead of organized sport. Playing up and down Plumb Street under the street lights at night. (Our parents didn't have to worry about us.) It was a safer and quieter time instead of the hectic and frenzied world we life in now.

I'm trying to get a handle on the metaphor. Does it mean that the arrow should be fired sooner -and if so, at what?

And if the tense bow is supposed to represent the tension in our muscles and connective tissue, then, a better metaphor would be to hang upside-down like a bat three or four times a week. Now that I think of it, that's not a metaphor at all (except for the bat part). It's what I do. It works good too.

In addition to being closed on Sundays, many stores closed at 5:30 or 6:00 during the week, except on Friday. In the late 50's/early 60's stores started to stay open on Wednesday nights also.
The malls and big box stores led the way to stores staying open until 9:00 PM.
Most states did away with their Sunday laws in the late 60's. The exception is automobiles. Many states still ban car sales on Sunday, including Wisconsin.
I don't recall the shorter store hours as being a burden. We adjusted accordingly.
About a day of rest, Lennon-McCartney said it best in song, "oh that magic feeling, nowhere to go."

I rest whenever I feel I need to, not always on that "that biblical day of rest." Sometimes I rest on weeknights and save my weekends for a rousing good time!

So the 40 hours a week people spend watching television isn't relaxing enough?

I cherish the times I have that are totally not scheduled and there aren't enough of them. Seems like the newer technology has enabled everything to happen so quickly that life itself seems to be moving faster. It's a mixed blessing.

At times I do miss the slower pace of life, especially as a child. Summer vacation meant all the time in the world to do anything we wanted, ride our bikes anywhere (even outside Janesville to the county parks for example), spending all day at Lions Beach - with no sun protection other than your towel! We didn't have cellphones, had little or no money, and our parents just knew that we'd probably be home for supper because we'd be hungry from running around all day. Today I like to keep at least one day per week, usually Saturday or Sunday, with nothing scheduled. If we decide to do something, fine, but not required. Some people pack as much as possible into their weekends, we try to have a balance.

If people didn't shop on Sundays, the stores wouldn't open. Seems it's up to individuals to decide when their own down time should be and don't feel the need to be in a store just because they're open or they're having a "sale".