Sometimes I cling to a premise or principle and vow I won’t give in, no matter what the rest of the world does.

I call that holding out.

When I hold out, clinging to my personal principles, it’s a bit like painting myself in a corner. Sometimes I’m stuck. And sometimes I notice I seem to be the only one in that corner.

The world will progress, whether I like it or not. Well, I’m not sure it’s progress.

Let me give you an example. I can do it one word: Sunday.

How have your Sundays changed over the years?

Can you remember when Sundays used to be reserved for church and family?

When I think about the Sundays of the past, I think of the tantalizing smell of roast beef or chicken drifting from kitchens as I walk home from church.

I think of the entire family sitting down together to enjoy a special feast because it’s Sunday. Even when we were too busy to cook big meals during the week, we did that on Sundays.

When I think about Sundays from the past, I think about a leisure day of reading the Sunday paper, then just relaxing or doing something special with my family.

Then I think about how that way of life has disappeared. It is so long gone that half my readership will have a hard time knowing what I am talking about.

When society began to steal Sunday away from us, I was probably one of the last holdouts, refusing to go along with helping traditional Sundays disappear.

When stores first started to stay open on Sundays, I refused to shop then. I figured if I couldn’t get what I needed during the other six days of the week, I was doing something wrong.

I intrinsically knew if I gave in and joined the Sunday shoppers I would be helping the bandits steal Sunday.

So, who were the bandits? The bandits were the winds of change.

Yes, I know. Change is inevitable. But sometimes we don’t know the high price we pay when we give in to change.

When our whole leisurely concept of Sunday slipped away, we gave up the one day of the week reserved for our leisure and relaxation. That meant we could rush about and be stressed out seven days of the week instead of just six.

Now, we can’t take Sunday as a day of relaxation. After all, we have too much to do. We can’t give up that day.

I remember the big fuss church groups made when communities started having sports teams play on Sunday. At first, their protests worked.

Then a compromise was reached. No community event or sports activity would take place Sunday morning. All Sunday activity would be scheduled after Sunday church services.

Then that too fell by the wayside.

Sunday became just another day of the week.

I remember how concerned I was when my grandkids gave up church in favor of playing sports. My daughter said a kid who can’t play on Sunday can’t be on a team.

Call it another nail in the coffin as a tranquil, family and church-focused Sunday was taken from us.

Well, I remained a holdout for a long time. I didn’t shop on Sunday and tried to keep the day tranquil and special.

But soon I was running the washer and dryer on Sunday “to get caught up.” And every now and then I did go to the store.

Eventually, my relaxing Sundays were edged out of existence as hectic job schedules left me trying to get things done on the weekend.

As much as possible, I did manage to keep Sunday special with church and with kayaking.

Sitting on a lake in my kayak while I watched wildlife for an hour or two was the equivalent of a mini-vacation, and I enjoyed every peaceful minute.

For many decades, I was also a holdout on insisting on buying everything I needed or wanted from local stores.

When I lived in Palmerton I absolutely relished shopping in Shea’s Hardware where every customer was treated like family.

I recall questioning Bernie Shea about whether he thought I would be able to use a weed whacker. He picked one out, gave it to me and said, “Here, go home and try it for a while.”

You can’t get that kind of treatment by buying on the Internet.

As a strong supporter of local businesses, I never bought things at the mall or out of town unless it wasn’t available locally.

After I moved to Florida I was still holding out on buying things on the Internet that I could buy locally.

One exception was books. Amazon could get me any book I wanted and have it delivered exceptionally fast.

Lately though, I find myself relying on the Internet for hard-to-find things such as the teal green and white cafe curtains I need for my bathroom.

I’m delighted with how the Internet can quickly cough up things that are hard to find in a store.

With the Internet being such a time saver I can see where Internet shopping will overtake buying in stores.

Today after church it was too windy to kayak so David and I went shopping.

The last of the holdouts is finally giving in.

Contact Pattie Mihalik at newsgirl@comcast.net.