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It's Halloween. The lamp is lit.

Around the fire we children sit

And telling ghost-tales bit by bit,

'Til sister Jane says "HUSH!"

Who's that creeping on the kitchen floor?

Who's that sneaking round the bedroom door?

Who's that squeaking like his throat is sore?

IT'S A GOBLIN!!

Why I remember this tattered bit of song from my school days - maybe grade 3 or 4 (and I took 3 and 4 in one year, which was then called "skipping" but which meant the curriculum was combined so that I could go into a "special" Grade 5) is a mystery to me, but it's one of those things that flies out of the junkyard of all my past lives and hits me on the head like flying shrapnel.

I say grade 3 or 4, rather than 5 or 6, because I seem to remember, vaguely, the music teacher from McKeough School in Chatham vigorously leading the choir, which was made up of "canaries" and "bluebirds", or something like that (i. e, the kids who couldn't sing were literally in their own little stigmatized group, not allowed to mix with the better singers). McKeough School was an old horror of a building which was turned into a heritage site in the '80s, but which may well have been converted into retail space by now - like that OTHER horror, Park Street Untied Church (about which I still get an inquiry once in a while when somebody takes a bit of interest in Rev. Russell Horsburgh, whom I have written about in several posts, years and years ago. I don't recommend you read them.)

I can't and won't go into other Hallowe'en memories (and we DID spell it with the apostrophe, a contraction of "evening" - I guess - and when I saw it spelled in that archaic way recently, I was puzzled. Do they still do that in Britain? Do they even HAVE Hallowe'en in the UK?), because I don't have too many. One time, though - my mother actually sewed my outfit, a black velvet cat costume which caused one guy in a car to yell out, "What's new, pussycat?" to a startled eight-year-old, trick-or-treating me.

I have to get on with my day now. I made this goofy little video out of PicMix gifs, and post it here cuz I want my videos to have a second life somewhere. It surprises me how many views I get on YouTube for these little things, primitive as they are. But there is pushback now because, among other things, YT has become (as they used to say in the '60s) "plastic" - too slick, too manufactured, too uniform, too DULL like a loud TV commercial, all monetized and out to grab your cash. And why is it that so many YTers KEEP ON SAYING, "Like, subscribe, hit the notification bell. . ." at the end of every single video, when everyone who has ever watched even ONE YT video knows all about that stuff? Just as actors shouldn't insult their audience and authors should not insult their readers, YT should not be insulting people who have actually SEEN the little symbols for like, subscribe, and notification at the bottom of EACH AND EVERY video.

But I digress.

The United Church: the NDP at prayer

Since going on Facebook, I keep finding old Chatham pictures/names of people, places and things, and it just jolts me because I have not thought of these since I left there in 1969. I found a very good pic of Evangel Tabernacle, which was across from us on Victoria Ave. Seeing it again gave me a weird mixture of wonder and heebie-jeebies. I used to hang off the bar at the front door and pretend I was riding a horse (?). An upside-down horse, I guess. I must have been very young. 

When I was growing up, we just knew without being told that Evangel Tabernacle was somehow unmentionable. For all we knew, "negroes" went to it (though I never did find out). The Catholics who went to Blessed Sacrament in their short-pleated-skirt uniforms were similarly unmentionable. For years and years, I didn't even know what a Catholic was, but we all knew enough to stay away from them.

I grew up in the United Church, and until Russell Horsburgh blew it all apart for us in the mid-'60s, we weren't much more exciting than the Methodists and Presbyterians who had melded together in the 1920s to form us. Though Horsburgh poisoned the well pretty quickly, the waters were muddied by the fact that he wanted to welcome black families into the congregation. This caused great consternation from the get-go. It was seen as one more stroke against him - that, and the fact he was homosexual (which was obvious, because he was in his 30s and not married). 

This takes nothing away from the more repellent and abusive aspects of his ministry, which eventually imploded because there was just too much evidence against him. But the people asked to testify in court were kids who had been under his power, and no doubt the good reverend had spoken with them and asked them to please shut up. Though he was eventually convicted and served a few months in jail, the whole thing was overturned when somebody carelessly set a match to his files. And back then, the thought that a minister would do something like that was simply unthinkable: he was a man of God, for Christ's sake!  He threatened to make a triumphal, I-told-you-so return to Park Street United, but I doubt if he followed up on it. It was just an idle threat, yet another way to lick the blood and feathers off his lips after his victory.

There was a horrible echo of the Horsburgh affair towards the end of my more recent attendance in the United Church.  In a very short space of time, our new minister had turned our formerly-reasonably-functional church into a war zone. The congregation splintered into viciously adversarial factions, and as far as I am concerned it never recovered. He was ousted in less than a year by the larger church, but he left scorched earth in his wake. I now wonder why I put myself through all that. Every trauma I ever experienced as a child at Park Street United returned to haunt me and make me sick. But trauma survivors suffer from an awful sort of extreme loyalty that is difficult to break away from. It's hard to understand unless you're one of them.

I didn't storm out of the place, but became gradually disaffected over a period of several years as "worship" became more and more an empty, even boring experience. I knew enough not to speak of it, or I would be asked to solve the problem and make it more interesting. Having survived the storm, no one wanted to rock the boat, and I think unhappy people were just keeping their mouths shut. 

All this aside, it is repellent to me what has happened to the United Church in recent years. It is now not much more than a group of left-wing atheists. It has been called “the NDP at prayer”, but it’s worse than that now, it’s “we-think” of the lowest order, dispensing with any kind of theological emphasis. I wonder what they do at services now. I suppose they have the same old ladies doing bake sales, but eventually they will all die off. I remember a friend of mine saying “we have some young women in the UCW now”, but they were all in their 40s and 50s. 

It’s that fustiness, and the hymns, my God, why do people bother going? It’s all hypocritical, as if anyone cares about Jesus or God any more. Even the more recent moderators say you don’t have to believe in God, but back when I was trying for re-entry in 1991, they wouldn’t even let me in without a refresher course. I had to be re-confirmed before I could be a member again because (they said) too many years had gone by since I had attended. 

My parents were incensed with this (I had to phone them to get my baptismal and confirmation records, which they - incredibly - had saved), because they had been told that if I was baptised as an infant in the United Church, I would be a member for life. But the church now required those documents, or I would not be allowed back in. I was re-confirmed after taking an eight-week course, writing a personal creed and passing a fairly rigorous interview by the minister, but - wait, there's more - I also had to go through a kind of formal re-entry during a service, with three "real" members laying their hands on me. 

Why was it important to be a member, and not just an "adherent" who was allowed to attend without formal membership? Well, you had to be a member to be able to vote at the annual meeting, that yearly four hours of dire financial prognostications. You'd leave three inches shorter than when you came in. But at every annual meeting, the membership rule seemed to be waived and anyone who had attended could vote. This was due mainly to low turnout.

This seems extreme now, and with the church hemorrhaging numbers every year (though, not so strangely, some claim that it's not true and they're doing just fine if you adjust for NDP membership), they would probably let just about anyone in by now. Certainly, you no longer have to believe in God any more because the moderator clearly doesn't.

At last count they were down to 400,000 – less now, probably, and will die off naturally because no one wants to wear orange to the service every week. If people do join, they are expected to take on a ready-made, left-wing political agenda, though of course this will be strenuously denied. How can you think that? Of course you can believe anything you want! How can you accuse us of that kind of oppression? What's wrong with you, anyway? If you're not happy here, you can always go worship at that fundamentalist church down the street. You know, that brick building on Victoria Avenue that says JESUS SAVES on the front. 

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Skeletons in the Rectory: the Horsburgh Affair

I don't know why I started digging for this today. It was like excavating through a thousand layers of decaying horseshit. I've written about this before - the scandal in Park Street United Church in Chatham, Ontario, in the mid-'60. This episode, which found its way in fictionalized form into my second novel Mallory, involved  the  Rev. Russell Horsburgh, a charismatic but fanatical minister charged with "improprieties" with a young people's group. After being found guilty and doing some time in jail, he latched on to a good lawyer and had the conviction overturned.

I was ten years old when all this happened, so I wasn't in the young people's group, but I remember Horsburgh and the fear and hatred he inspired in his congregation. My parents in particular found him repellent. I remember standing outside the church after choir practice and hearing drunken teenagers yelling for "the Rev", which was his nickname with the kids. These kids weren't tipsy, they were holding each other up, vomiting-in-the-bushes drunk. One kid called another kid "Boozy Bozo". Do I have a memory for this sort of tiny detail? Trust me, I do.

I was good at overhearing things in those days, mainly because nobody would tell me anything. I remember my Dad's best friend calling him a "psychopath", and my mother saying, "well, you know what they found upstairs in that apartment. Empty whiskey bottles. . .and worse." I didn't understand the reference then, but I am assuming, from my slightly more sophisticated perspective today, that she meant condoms, no doubt used.

I believe those kids, and I believe what they tried to say in court, but it's obvious to me that they were bullied, intimidated and made to feel foolish. They were also shamed. No doubt there was a taint of immorality, of "looseness", particularly among the girls, and lack of moral propriety. After all, a minister couldn't encourage kids to do things like that. It just didn't happen. It was a no-contest as far as power was concerned. These kids didn't remember things because they were told not to remember. But I saw them, I was there in the midst of it all. I heard the murmurings, and I know all this stuff really did go on.

I found another article in the Ottawa Citizen from several years later, recounting Horsburgh's triumphant return to Chatham for a dinner in his honour. His loyal supporters (these people always have them) sang "For He's a Jolly Good Fellow, and referred to the "utter garbage" spewed at the trial, all of it meant to maliciously drag his innocent name through the mud. I remember the last names of some of the people mentioned in the article - names I have not heard in a very long time. They were people my parents profoundly disliked.

I was able to lift this fragment off a newspaper morgue site, but the only way to obtain the other one - noisome as it is - is to transcribe it off the computer screen by hand. I can't even do a capture. Trust me when I say that at his victory party, Horsburgh was drooled over for FOUR hours, while he smiled to himself, realizing that he'd gotten away with the whole thing.


Teens Testify Rector OK'd Use of Apartment for Sex (September 22, 1964)

CHATHAM, Ont., Sept. 21 (UPD)  A witness said today it was common knowledge among the young people at Park Street United church that the apartment above the minister s office was regularly used by teenagers for sexual intercourse.

The testimony came from a 16-year-old youth in the government's case against the Rev. Russell D. Horsburgh, 45, rector of the church.

The rector is charged with eight counts of contributing to juvenile delinquency by encouraging and supplying accommodation for teenagers to indulge in sex parties.

Earlier in the day, the boy's 14-year-old girl friend broke down during cross-examination by Cy Perkins, defense counseL

The youngsters testified that in mid-March they went to the minister s office and the cleric told them there was nothing wrong with sex if it was done correctly.

"Everybody's doing it," they quoted him.

In giving her direct evidence, the girl told the prosecution that the minister read a booklet about sex to them, and that the youth said he would like to try it. She said she was frightened, and the Rev. Mr. Horsburgh told her there was nothing to be frightened about.

The girl said that she and the youth went upstairs into the apartment directly above the minister s office and had intercourse.

Doesn't Remember Text

In cross-examining the girl, Perkins asked if she remembered what the minister read to them. She said no, only that it had something to do with sex. Perkins produced a United Church booklet which contains what the church believes to be the Christian attitude toward sex and marriage. Perkins asked:

Is this the booklet he read from?"

"I don't know, I don't remember," she replied, and broke into weeping and had to be taken from the courtroom for 20 minutes. When she re- turned her mother was at her side, and remained there dur- ing the rest of her testimony.

The girl was on the stand for 2 hours, and took up the entire morning session and part of the afternoon.

Her boy friend testified this afternoon, saying that "everyone knew what the upstairs room was used for," and that "the reverend got a kick out of it."

Tells Dance Incident

The youth also told of an occasion at a church dance when he said he had seen two people leave the dance and go to the apartment. He said that he informed the Rev. Mr. Horsburgh, and that he and the minister "snuck up the stairs" to the apartment, turned on the lights and found a boy and girl indulging in intercourse.

He said they watched for "l0 seconds, until the man told us to turn out the lights." He said the minister turned out the lights and left.

The Rev. Mr. Horsburgh sat beside his attorney with a pad of paper, taking notes on the testimony, and at times looking with a slight smile at the witnesses.

CODA. I will transcribe the end of the Ottawa Citizen piece, because it makes me want to scream. In an "eat crow" gesture, Horsburgh claims he will return to Park Street United, making the jaw-dropping statement that he fully expects "reconciliation" with the congregation (meaning, forgiving and forgetting the whole thing). His reasoning is, he got off, therefore he must be innocent, and the church owes him this reconciliation because they now have to admit they were wrong. They owe it to him because they're supposed to be good Christians, after all, so how can they let this wrongful accusation continue to hang over his head? The truth has triumphed at last, so to feel any other way than welcoming is uncharitable and even mean-spirited. For God's sake, they should get over their pettiness so he can return to Park Street United in triumph!

"I have to attempt a reconciliation with the congregation at the church," he said. "At this stage reconciliation is more than overdue. It would be a shame if the congregation at Park Street couldn't find it in their hearts to achieve reconciliation with me. It would seem in keeping with the principles of Christian brotherhood."

Dig down one more layer in the Horsburgh horseshit, and you will see a self-protective agenda: if he "reconciles" with these people, and may God forgive them if they aren't willing to do it, he's less likely to suffer from any more accusations of wrongdoing. The boat could yet spring another leak as deeper abuses emerge. In these cases, even today, we generally only see the tip of the iceberg. Just twist it around like all abusive thugs do, turn the onus on the people to be good forgiving Christians, and they will likely keep their mouths shut forever.

POST-BLOG THOUGHTS. When I saw these three photos of Horsburgh, they nearly made me jump out of my skin. The first time I tried to find anything on him on the net - ANYTHING - I came up empty. Then years later, a postage-stamp-sized, grainy black-and-white picture. No articles. It took a hell of a long time to turn up anything from this sealed tomb of corruption. Finally I dug up a very detailed two-part article in the Chatham Daily News, and while it was overly sympathetic to Horsburgh (mentioning that he was about to welcome black families into the church and was shouted down), it did fill in a lot of details that made the mosaic of my memories more coherent.

Now we have these crystalline things, and where on earth did they come from? This man was completely forgotten. To see his face again was very disturbing, for he looks exactly the way I remember him. I take it he never "reconciled" with Park Street; that gullible they were not. By then we had long ago moved on, and attended a Baptist church for two years, one of the most hair-raising experiences of my life.

But that's for another day.

I will recount one bizarre piece of memory. Every week my family had something newly scandalous to grapple with, thinking they were out of my earshot, but my earshot was big as a satellite dish. One week the church bulletin looked very strange indeed. One whole page was covered with typewritten x's. I mean, the whole thing. My 20-year-old brother Walt, who thought the whole thing was just one big hoot (he never attended Park Street) held the bulletin up to the window and saw that there was text under the x's:

 “You ungrateful people should be ashamed of yourselves. . . . I am sorry I ever freed you from the tyrants and the papists. You ungrateful beasts, you are not worthy of the treasure of the gospel. If you don’t improve, I will stop preaching rather than cast pearls before swine.”

It was signed:

Martin Luther
Russell Horsburgh

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