The A – Z Challenge; P: Roll Up The Sidewalks For Good Friday

(Instead of doing a differently named subject based on the letter for the day, I’m using the letters of the alphabet as hierarchical headings only.)

Herb’s Blog, Herbdate 23813 – 1252

Dear Readers,

Here’s the haps:

Now from the sixth hour there was darkness over all the land unto the ninth hour. And about the ninth hour Jesus cried with a loud voice, saying, Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani? that is to say, My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? Some of them that stood there, when they heard that, said, This man calleth for Elias. And straightway one of them ran, and took a spunge, and filled it with vinegar, and put it on a reed, and gave him to drink. The rest said, Let be, let us see whether Elias will come to save him. Jesus, when he had cried again with a loud voice, yielded up the ghost. And, behold, the veil of the temple was rent in twain from the top to the bottom; and the earth did quake, and the rocks rent; And the graves were opened; and many bodies of the saints which slept arose, And came out of the graves after his resurrection, and went into the holy city, and appeared unto many. Now when the centurion, and they that were with him, watching Jesus, saw the earthquake, and those things that were done, they feared greatly, saying, Truly this was the Son of God.
(Mat 27:45-54)

I was doing some more remembering since today is Good Friday. When I was a boy and a young man in the Sixties and Seventies, even up until the early Eighties, the small town that I grew up in, Shawano, Wisconsin, would close down from Noon to Three O’Clock on Good Friday. When I say close down, I mean, as the old saying goes, they rolled up the sidewalks. Every business in town, no matter what kind of business it was, closed. I don’t remember if the bars actually closed or not but their doors were shut, and there wasn’t a lot of noise coming from them. No matter whether the business owner, like my boss, was Jewish, (There were atheists and agnostics in town, too), everyone respected the time from Noon to Three O’Clock on Good Friday.

Those days, I have a feeling, are long gone. Yes, I know the Sixties and Seventies were a long time ago. I realize that. To me, it just shows the degradation of society.