Whatever happened to Sunday clothes? Whatever happened to dresses and
suits reserved exclusively for church, funerals and weddings? Clothes
that didn’t do double duty for a cookout or a bowling tournament?
I wish I had a dollar for every Sunday in my youth when the first words
out of my mama’s mouth as we walked in the door were, “Go
take your church clothes off so you can help me in the kitchen with dinner.”
I didn’t wear my Sunday clothes to school and I didn’t wear
my school clothes to church. I most certainly did not wear the jeans
I wore to a Friday night football game or the sandals I flip-flopped
around in at the creek.
I was taught to save my best for the Lord’s house and to always
enter it dressed with respect. I still do. I have never darkened the
door of a church or a funeral home dressed in slacks. I always go attired
in the best clothes I have. I have black dresses for summer funerals
and suits for winter ones.
Today, Sunday mornings are no different than they were when my mama
and daddy kept a stringent eye over what I wore. I still carefully select
my outfit, press it, wash my hair, do my makeup, find a pair of pantyhose
that is the right shade, match my high heels, purse and jewelry.
Last thing before I leave, I tilt the cherry full-length mirror in my
bedroom and give the outfit one last going over to check for sagging
hems, loose threads and the such.
Once, I was running late and didn’t do that since I had to pick
up my parents who were going to church with me that day. My eagle-eyed
mama, following me out the door and down the front steps, commented casually, “You
have a run in your hose. All the way down the back.”
I had on navy, which really broadcast the problem. I dropped my parents
off at church and headed to the drugstore where I convinced the clerk
to open five minutes early so I could buy a pair of hose. I then changed
in the restroom and headed back to church. I was not going to walk the
aisle in such a shabby condition.
The divas and I were discussing this recently and we all agreed: We
set high standards and have a certain protocol to which we cling tenaciously.
We refuse to let it slip from our manicured grasp.
“Sometimes it’s just disgraceful,” one commented.
“I was at a funeral the other day and a woman came in dressed
in jeans and a tee shirt advertising beer,” another commented. “I
almost joined the deceased right then and there.”
Recently, I looked across the congregation and saw many lovely women
dressed in gorgeous outfits that I could not imagine them wearing to
the grocery store or a soccer game. I saw others who looked like they
had just come from the ball field. Sunday clothes, I thought to myself,
where have they all gone?
Then, it occurred to me that they have probably gone the way of Sunday
fried chicken dinners in the family dining room, sipping lemonade on
a front porch swing, cranking the ice cream maker by hand and taking
the preacher and his family home for dinner.
Sad, isn’t it, how some things change?
[Ronda Rich is the author of “What Southern Women Know (That Every
Woman Should)” and “My Life In The Pits.” She lives
in Gainesville, Ga.]