PAYDAY FRIDAYS

 PAYDAY FRIDAYS

Fridays will always be special to me. It's an established characteristic of my youthful days. It was an integral part of my years of growing and learning, and I became one with the intricacies and complexities of Fridays. 

 Friday was payday! It came with a host of things that became embedded in my psyche. My father, as well as many other fathers in my village, got paid on Fridays. Even I, when I  became a wage earner and got paid on Fridays, got immersed in the niceties of payday, but this blog is not about my Fridays. It is about  my father's Fridays when I was a youth, growing up and enjoying the energy and excitement of school, studies, and parental guidance and discipline. 

My father, after ensuring that all the workers under his supervision got wages that they earned during a week of  back-breaking, manual labor, picked up his own wages at the offices of the sugar estate where he was employed and proceeded home.

 But his trip home was not so easy. He had to socialize with his favorite employees and met with them at restaurants and bars before he got home, where they rehashed, and fantasized about the events of the past week.

I knew this! My mother knew this!  She, however, expected his arrival in the early evening and ensured that a sumptuous dinner was ready for him when he got home.

 I waited in eager anticipation for the things he would bring for me, all tucked away in a canvas bag that he always carried.

It was a celebration when he came home on Payday Fridays! My dog, Flash, waited on the bridge for his arrival, excited and flushed with love. Flash knew when he was coming,  houses away, and wagged his tail in excited anticipation, running into the yard, and going back to the bridge, his tail wagging in overdrive, waiting for him, as he rode his shiny, Humber bicycle, whistling as he got closer to home. He always had that canvas bag dangling from the handle of the bicycle, full of goodies for me and my mom.

Friday was payday! It created a universe with its own milky way and gleaming, twinkling stars, to be repeated over and over, on every Friday.

I grew up in this universe! I relished and became a child of payday! My father's Fridays were full of expectations. It made our home bristled with joy. The discipline, advice, moral guidance, and repeated calls to do well at school all came easy after payday Friday.

This is why I like Fridays! This is why I put aside time on Fridays to become a part of my father's world. This is why I dance and become lost in music and revelry on Fridays. This is why Fridays will always be my payday!

Like my father's Fridays, payday will always be filled with food, delicacies, love, music, good cheers, and a respect for humanity's intelligence and wisdom.