Sourdough Sundays Research Paper

The fresh, sour scent begins to cover my entire house. My great grandfather's house used to always smells like this. This smell is the scent of sourdough bread, a simple yet significant part of everyone in my family’s lives. Sourdough Sundays are a huge tradition in my family where everyone goes to my grandfather's house to eat, and talk about the previous week. The smell is one that I could never forget, the scent itself represents family, loyalty and happiness. I didn’t always appreciate those principles but years later, I understand the deeper meaning that is the tradition of Sourdough Sundays, which just sounds like eating sourdough bread every sunday, but it is much, much more than that.

As I walk into the massive,

At any point I would have loved to drive home and eat some old and stale cake in my grandmother’s freezer and then fall asleep on the couch, but this was beginning to be a different night then all the others. The mood shifted, from a joyous, exciting, family get-together, to a heartfelt visit with my grandfather. At this point, I realized the importance of this night, as it could possibly be the last time I ever see my great grandfather. He began to tell a story about his time in World War II, of which he had a lot of. My Grandfather was a pilot in the US Air Force and he had several stories about attacks that he was a part of but he told my favorite of all of his stories, the story about when he crashed into an island where a people called the Naga Head Hunters lived. He said that the Nagas were violent people in some cases but are very welcoming to people that needed their help. As incredibly interesting as this story is, it was not the story that I was paying attention to. I saw the joy in my grandfather’s eyes as I knew he was proud of this experience. As he was telling the story, I realized that anyone else that was put into this scary situation other than my grandfather, could not have handled it with such composure and grace. Like I said, my grandfather is one to bring people in, make them part of the family no matter

are you going to finish that?” said my mother from across the dining room table. After my grandfather passed away in February of 2013, Sourdough Sundays were postponed for several weeks. After the last time I saw my grandfather, I had a completely different view on family and the acceptance of others. I knew what my grandfather had been through as a child; the great depression, poverty, being enlisted into the Air Force at age 19, and more, but compared to my childhood, I have much more to be thankful for and that my family has been there for me the whole way while my grandfather’s life was not like this. In honor of Bill Arnot, my family still gets together on sunday evenings to visit with each other and keep in touch with the people that we love. While we don’t make sourdough bread much anymore, we all know the true meaning of getting together on sundays: