One of my favorite memories when I was young was that on Sunday nights after supper my father would gather the stack of hymn books (black, cloth-bound- does anyone else remember them?) and five or six of the youngest kids would group with him around the big library table in the middle of the living room and we would lustily sing 'Love Lifted Me', 'Softly and Tenderly', 'Gathering in the Sheaves', 'Heavenly Sunlight' 'Shiloh' and dozens of others.

My mother didn't normally join us- my guess is that she was getting ready for the next day's return to 'real life'. Or maybe she was just catching her breath.