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| What kid wouldn't be seen dead dressed like this today? |
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| Me and dad in our Sunday best for Mother's Day |
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Written at 11:10 p.m., Sunday,
April 25, 2021
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Just a brief history lesson before reading what follows: The Lord's Day Alliance of Canada (renamed People for Sunday Association of Canada in 1982) was a lay organization founded in 1888 under the aegis of the Presbyterian Church and supported by the other Protestant churches to combat increasing Sabbath secularization. The Alliance became one of the most effective lobbies of the early 20th century. It gained the crucial support of the French Canadian Catholic hierarchy and, with its promise of a legislated weekly rest day, of organized labour. It surrendered its charter in 1994.
For the past 10 or 15 minutes this evening I have been thinking about the events of my day which is about to turn into tomorrow:
-- Slept in 'til 10:30 (what else was there to do on this particular Sabbath with all of its COVID restrictions and imposed isolation).-- Had a leisurely breakfast/lunch.
-- Laboriously practiced a few piano tunes.
-- Fired up my computer, caught up with overnight happenings on my news feed and spent the rest of the afternoon (no kidding) answering emails and surfing Facebook for contributions by my friends and opportunities to wax eloquent on their respective timelines by adding my traditional two cents.
-- Fell asleep still sitting at the computer (I blame it on anti-anxiety medication) and woke up with a stiff neck just in time to get a late supper which was damn good, if I do say so myself.
-- Cleaned up the kitchen and...you guessed it...back to the computer again for a protracted exchange on a historical group site that needed my informed input(?).
-- All of which brings me to the above-stated one hour before the stroke of midnight and mulling over the mundane things I'd done with the past 12 hours. In reality, nothing different from what transpired in my life the other six days of the week.
After all said and done and COVID 19 aside, I found myself contrasting this particular Sunday with one I would have experienced 70 or 75 years ago.
It is quite remarkable how times have changed and, sadly, not much for the better.
There is no similarity between Sunday life in small town Ontario back in my day and in the year 2021 with secular emphasis on entertainment and self-serving activities far removed from "a day of rest and worship."
Sunday today is one of the busiest days at shopping malls. Factories and companies run 24/7, and employees are scheduled accordingly, with very little resistance. Recreational activities galore are unquestionably the order of the day. For busy people, setting aside one day in seven for rest, relationships and worship seems too much of a sacrifice to make.
When I was a young lad growing up in the Kent County town of Dresden, primarily in the 1940s, the comunnity and its rural surroundings exemplified the traditional day of rest on Sundays. All stores were closed and a good 60 per cent of the citizenry attended the church of their choice, of which there were eight drawing regularly from a population of 2,200.
For 10 straight years I was required to attend 10 a.m. Sunday School classes and then join my parents for church services an hour later. I carried a Wolf Cub and Boy Scout card for the minister to sign, verifying my attendance as a step closer to religion badges and other Scouting recognition.
It was always straight home after church for a customary pot roast dinner that you could smell still siting in the church pews, but not before a complete change from Sunday-go-to meeting attire, we called it our "good" clothing. Back in our everyday play clothing we didn't play much, instead often taking afternoon car rides with our parents to the country or along the nearby St. Clair River and stopping in to visit relatives along the way. Sunday picnics in summer months were a big deal, as were Sunday evening band concert in the town square.
As a break from readin, rightin and rithmatic, I always looked forward to the Sunday edition of the Detroit News, complete with an eight-page comic section, or Funnies -- and getting to it after polishing off mom's pot roast and ideally before my dad finished his tea.
You have to remember that we are talking about a period before television and computers in every home. I always looked forward to Sunday evening visits with my Aunt Hattie and cousins Jim and Norma and huddling around our old Radiotrope listening to Amos and Andy, Jack Benny and Lux Radio Theatre programs.
We played a lot of table and board games in our house on Sunday evenings (crokinol, parcheesi, monopoly, checkers, snakes and ladders) but card games like poker, euchre and bridge were considered sinful and taboo. I never played baseball or hockey on Sundays either until I was about 14 years of age when town council passed a bylaw permitting team sports to be played on the Sabbath. It took a while for me to become comfortable playing baseball on Sundays in particular. My conscience always bothered me and I was convinced that I played my worst on Sundays for that very reason.
Even to this day there are things that I still do not do on Sundays. Things like yard work and other "noisy" activities that may disturb my neighbors. I also come straight home from church and change my clothing, just like my mother told me to. Old habits tend to die hard I guess.
I suppose a young person reading this item today (fat chance), momentarily putting aside his or her $200 Iphone, would consider this all so terribly old fashioned and boring. But, you know what?
I am privileged to be able to talk about one of the most cherished, moralistic and happy eras in recent history and to do it from a first-person perspective.
Them's truly were the days!
POST NOTE: There goes another night's sleep!
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