Little Chicken

I was probably about eight years old when this happened. It was a big misunderstanding that required unique ingredients: my anxious imagination; a Protesant father who never failed to take us all to church on Sunday; and a Catholic mother who sometimes gave the family a night off from Saturday evening mass.

One Saturday afternoon after a busy day, I was unusually tired, and I stretched out on my bed and fell asleep. My sleep couldn't have been more sound. I was still dressed in my Saturday clothes upon waking, but I was certain that I had slept all night. That could only be Sunday morning sunshine streaming in my window (of course I didn't note that it was coming from the west). My family must have seen how exhausted I was, and they just let me snooze.

I went downstairs to a breakfast of ... hamburgers and homemade french fries? On Sunday morning? And no one was dressed in church clothes?

"We're not going to church?" I asked. I meant Sunday church, but we also called mass "church."

"No, Mom's too tired."

I nibbled at my impossible breakfast burger. Mom's being tired simply wasn't a reason to miss Sunday church. Dad would just take the rest of us. But everyone was buying this? Who were these people?

It was like the Twilight Zone.

After eating, I made my way to the front porch to ponder everything. And who did I see sailing by in her car—and not going toward church—but my cousin Fern! Who also never missed church.

I jumped up out of my chair and just ran, filled with alarm. I ran to the top of the big hill behind our house. That's when I noticed all the light draining from the sky.

Obviously, the world was coming to an end because we were skipping church.

I numbly walked back inside the house as darkness fell. After all, you want to spend your last hours with your loved ones. Not that they seemed to notice that life was drawing to a close. We watched some comedies on TV. They laughed, while I simply watched the sky grow. By 9:30 a.m., time for church, it was like India ink.

Everyone went to bed., including me. I lay there a while with my eyes as wide as tennis balls. No good. Dark or not, I couldn't go to sleep at 10:00 on a Sunday morning.

I snuck back downstairs and watched TV. A cop show where lots of bad stuff happened. I never know there was TV like that on a Sunday morning. Oh, wait, maybe today was just different. Of course—by now Satan had taken over the airwaves.

The show ended and—whoa—the picture condensed into a tiny prick of light (the way TV did back then at the end of a broadcast day). That was enough to drive me back upstairs. But on my way to my bed, I crept over to my brother's bed.

"Michael—why is it so dark?!"

"Because it's the middle of the night, Ya Goof!"

Okay, that's what he would have said if we used the phrase "Ya Goof!" back then.

Suddenly, all the pieces fell into place. It was Saturday night, not Sunday morning! I felt like Ebenezer Scrooge after he got his life back! I was not the same boy I had been that afternoon!

Now I can look back on that scared and confused little boy and affectionately say: Keith, Ya Goof!