We would go to 11:00 mass, get home and I would spread the sunday paper out on the dining room table. I'd start reading it cover to cover including the supplements. I'd never finish before I heard "Set the table." Then we'd eat. Almost always Italian or pot roast with potatos and carrots and, yes, mashed potatos with gravy.

After that I'd finish reading the paper, take out the garbage, do my homework, go play 'till the streetlights came on. Then, watch Ed Sullivan. I'd try to stay up to watch Perry Mason, but most times my mother would hear its theme and yell from another room, "Joe, go to bed."

If there is a God, I have one wish: return me to just one Sunday back then.

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