This is today's column from the Columbia City Post and Mail.
Somewhere along the line, the good gene pool skipped a generation. My family of origin, particularly on my father’s side, values early morning. This behavior comes from days of tending livestock, and remains even when the livestock do not.
Or perhaps it comes from that nasty axiom of Benjamin Franklin’s about “early to bed, early to rise, makes a man healthy, wealthy, and wise.”
Wonder what Mrs. Franklin thought about this? Knowing what history tells us about Old Ben’s activities in Paris, perhaps we should interpret Mr. Franklin’s aphorism differently.
Since this is a “G” rated post, we’ll stick with the common interpretation of his adage.
Some people wake up every morning with that “raring to go” attitude. While I am not a violent person, these people drive me crazy and make me want to throw something large and pointy.
Last weekend I visited my parents who live in an apartment within a retirement center. My parents both wake up early, and thrust their cheerfulness upon me.
At my parents, I sleep on the couch in the middle of their living room, the apartment’s central traffic area. I am not pleasant, or even reasonable at five-thirty in the morning.
My parents and my family all live in Indiana. However, we live in Central Time and they live on Eastern Time. Their Sunday morning church services start at 8:30 a.m. This means they get up around 6:30 a.m., which my body clock tells me is 5:30 a.m.
When we got back from church I took a little nap during Meet the Press or an infomercial about vegetable juicers. Not really sure, as I was in dream land before it started.
Don’t even get me started on the time zone madness. I know, farmers need the light. Most combines run all night, and include GPS and satellite radio. Combines are so large that I suspect some of them have elegant sleeping rooms.
I learned in Mr. Hunt’s science class forty years ago that the sun should be overhead at noon, not 10 a.m. or 2 p.m., so the whole Indiana time zone system is madness to me.
I left the corporate world four months ago to start my own business. I dare say that I’ve slept in a few times since then. For more than thirty years I was bound to the schedule of other people.
Now – don’t be scandalized by this – I sleep in until 7 a.m.! I know, hard to believe a person of such high moral character could sink so low to sleep in until seven a.m.
Up in heaven, my Grandmother Mc Vay is rolling her eyes as she prepares homemade bread in the early morning for the hungry angels.
By Amy Abbott © 2011 Whitley County native Amy McVay Abbott has never been a morning person, and won’t change. Her column The Raven Lunatic appears in four Indiana newspapers. She loves hearing from readers, but won’t read e-mails until after 7 a.m. CDT at amymcvayabbott@gmail.com.
