Winter in downtown Huntsville Ontario. Every time I see this church I imagine its history. I can picture what Sunday looked like at the beginning of the 1900s, particularly on sunny days in the spring and summer. Inside there are kids in their Sunday best waiting for the service to end. Outside we would see rows of fishing rods propped up against the old church wall also waiting for the service to end. And when it does, kids burst from the old building, grab their fishing rods and tumble down the hills to get a few casts in while all the parents socialize for a short time around the church doors.
Each Sunday a few caps and ties would always be forgotten and left behind at the riverbank. Little wool knickers and gleaming white shirts would come home wet, covered in mud, worm guts and fish slime – proof that the kids had truly communed with God that day and understood it all.
This would be repeated until the river froze solid for winter. Then it would be rows of hockey sticks propped up against the church wall waiting for Sunday service to end and for the true purpose for the day to begin.
Whether this happened or not I don’t know. I can only be certain that if I had been there a hundred years ago this ritual would have been faithfully carried out each week.
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