First Posted: 8/14/2014
It’s not the Pittston Dispatch. Never was. It’s the Sunday Dispatch. And that’s no accident.
When William A. Watson Sr. began his new community newspaper in February of 1947, he wanted it to be included in something that was part of Americana then, and something that Pope Francis recently said is a key to being happy today. Sunday was, and the Pope says needs to be once again, a holiday.
The Pope’s advice was part of his “Ten Secrets to Happiness,” published July 27 in the Argentine weekly Viva, but it’s something everyone knew in the late ’40s and ’50s, when people, by and large, were far happier than they are today.
I distinctly remember when Sundays were holidays. And, looking back, I appreciate the brilliance of Mr. Watson in starting a Sunday paper.
Sunday papers, primarily purchased at the corner drug store after church services, were a big part of the Sunday experience. When I started working at the Sunday Dispatch I could not help but smile as I recalled Sundays at my grandmother’s house when I, perhaps five years old at the time, would be asked by one of my uncles to bring him the Dispatch and I’d eye the pile of papers stacked on a chair in the kitchen and ask, “Which one is that?” The Dispatch would be mixed in with the New York Daily News, New York Journal American, The Philadelphia Sunday Bulletin and The Wilkes-Barre Sunday Independent.
My uncles would read those papers all day long. That was partly because there wasn’t much else to do, aside from watching the Yankees on TV, or maybe going to a local Suburban League baseball game, but also because Sunday was a day of leisure and casually reading the newspaper from cover to cover, including and especially the color comics, fit in perfectly.
My uncles would spend the whole day in the white shirts they’d worn under their suits to church that morning. They might loosen their ties and roll up the cuffs of their shirt sleeves, but that was only after Sunday dinner which was rather a formal affair.
Sunday dinner back then had all the trappings of a holiday meal, every bit as special as Christmas or Thanksgiving dinner. There was always a beef or pork roast, or stuffed roasted chicken, mashed potatoes with gravy, vegetables, cole slaw, rolls with butter. My Italian friends in Pittston always had pasta for Sunday dinner. “On Sunday, we eat the ‘ronies,’” they’d say, short for macaroni.
The point is, Sunday was special. And it was special in every house on every block.
Hearing the Pope’s advice begs the question why we ever allowed Sunday to stop being a holiday. What were we thinking?
Pope Francis’ “Secrets to Happiness” are hardly secrets at all. They are just simple, common sense, loving suggestions for living peacefully with one another … much like the teachings of Jesus Christ, himself.
I sometimes say, at the risk of sounding blasphemous, that it was a mistake to take the teachings of Christ and turn them into a religion. Pope Francis seems, at least in part, to agree.
“Live and let live,” he says, as a way to be happy. “Proceed calmly” in life, he adds. And stop being negative.
One of the Pope’s “secrets” I find particularly pleasing is to “be giving of yourself to others.”
That immediately reminds me of the book “I Am Third” by Gayle Sayers, one of the best running backs ever to play college or professional football. Some of you may know Gayle Sayers from the movie “Brian’s Song” about the 1970 death of Brian Piccolo, Sayers’ teammate with the Chicago Bears. If you haven’t seen it, you should. The movie is based on Sayers’ book, the title of which comes from his own philosophy of life: “God is first, others are second, and I am third.”
My own greatest joys have come from serving others. It stems from Jesus’ paradoxical teaching that if you want to find yourself, you must first lose yourself.
I have used that Gospel message more than once in my Best Man’s toast at weddings. It goes like this:
“Jesus said, ‘If you want to find yourself, lose yourself.’ In your marriage, may each of you lose yourself completely in each other. And in doing so, may you find yourself in ways you never dreamed possible.”
To me, it’s the perfect formula for a happy marriage.
And, in case you grow tired of losing yourself in your spouse, don’t worry, God will send you children. And you’ll lose and find yourself all over again.