Last Sunday I made a visit to some new neighbors down the block. No specific pur

Last Sunday I made a visit to some newneighbors down the block. No specific purpose in mind, just an opportunity to sitat the kitchen table, have some tea and chat. As I did so, it occurred to mehow rare the Sunday visit has become.

When I was a kid in the New Jersey of the1960s, Sunday visits were routine. Most stores were closed and almost nobodyworked. My family normally traveled eight city blocks to the home of mygrandmother, where adults would sit on the front porch and chat while wechildren played hide-and-seek.

The Sunday visit was something to desirestrongly. It was the repetition to church, our reward for and hour of devotion,and opportunity to take advantage of the fact that Dad was not at work, we werenot in school, and there were no chores that couldn’t wait until Monday. Sundaywas, indeed, which means that there was one day when everyone seemed to havetime for everybody else.

Sunday as a day of rest is, or was, sodeeply rooted in the culture that it’s surprising to consider that, in a shortspan of time, it has almost entirely lost this association.^① In mychildhood, it was assumed that everyone would either be home or visit someoneelse’s home on Sunday. But now the question is, “What do you plan to Do thisSunday?” The answer can range from going to the mall to participating in a roadto jetting to Montreal for lunch. If one were to respond, “I’m making aSunday visit to family,” such and answer would feel strange, an echo fromanother era.

I suppose I should be grateful to live inMaine, a state of small towns, abundant land tight relationships. Even thoughfolks work as hard here as they do anywhere else, the state’s powerfully ruralcast（特质）stillharbors at least remnants（剩余部分）of the ethic of yesterday’s America, where people had to depend onone another in the face of economic vagaries（反复无常的情况）and a challenging environment.^②

1.The writer’s general impression of theSunday in the past was a day when_________.

2.What can we learn from the underlinedsentence in paragraph 4?

3.From the last paragraph we may infer thatpeople in Maine____________.

4.What is the writer’s attitude towards theSunday today?

试题答案

【答案】

1.B

2.C

3.D

4.A

【解析】略