Sunday is a special sanctuary

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Sunday’s the one surviving day of the week relatively free of institutional demands

One of the great pleasures of country living in Maine during the fall of the year is a Sunday afternoon stroll through the nearby fields and woods, checking out the foliage while always on the alert for wildlife sightings large and small.

The autumn walk is a tradition that’s compromised late in the season for the sake of another tradition, hunting, but that compromise makes those hunting-free Sundays all the more valuable during November for the backyard hikers among us.

It’s a similar sense of freedom that Sundays have retained within our public education system and its related activities, such as sports.

School activities have been a Monday-through-Saturday experience for generations, just as classroom time is a Monday-through-Friday rite of passage.

Sundays are a traditional day of rest, a day of personal choice to engage or not to engage in the hustle and bustle everyone complains about during the rest of the week.

It’s a respite that may be set aside for religious services, family time or just plain relaxation, but it’s the one surviving day of the week relatively free of institutional demands, particularly in the afternoon and evening.

Yet every time inclement weather wreaks havoc with a Saturday of high school sports playoffs no matter the time of the year, some will suggest turning Sunday into game day. It’s a refrain that’s been put forth for decades, and thankfully has fallen on deaf ears from those who decide such things.

As time-honored traditions are eroded throughout society, one day blends into the next to the point where it becomes hard to differentiate between days of the week.

And once Sundays are used for rescheduled playoff games – provided the weather allows – the precedent is set for using that lone day of rest for more mundane activities, such as rescheduled regular season games or even rescheduled practices.

Then what are we left with is even less of an opportunity to let the mind and body regroup before the next week begins.

If scheduling high school sports were all about convenience or profiting at the gate, all games would be played on Saturday or Sunday. Thankfully it’s not, and people still somehow find their way to the games that are important to them whenever and wherever they’re played.

Sundays already are game days for many active participants, from youth hockey sojourns around the state to high school players of yesteryear working off their dinners in pickup contests at their high school gym.

But those are personal choices to play or not to play, not one more day consumed by institutional demands.

There’s nothing in the air regarding opening Sunday to interscholastic competition in these parts nor should there be.

Inclement weather is a fact of winter, spring and fall in Maine, but invariably the games are played and champions are crowned, just as they have been this week in soccer and field hockey.

And if you think there’s no rest for the weary now, just wait until the day Sunday becomes game day.

Whenever would we take that autumnal walk?

Ernie Clark may be reached at 990-8045, 1-800-310-8600 or eclark@bangordailynews.net