Sunday church service for the cottagers at Grand Bend was held in the open. There was a covered stand for the preacher and organist at the foot of a curving hill which formed a natural amphitheatre. There were a few benches but most of the congregation brought their own rugs and sat on the ground. Old Mr. Huston, tall, lean, bald, with a white goatee led the singing, his steel-rimmed spectacles perched on the end of his nose. What he lacked in musicianship he made up in fervour. Gospel Songsheets were used, which included also a few hymns common to all denominations.

On fine late summer evenings there were huge corn roasts on the beach where there was always plenty of driftwood for fires, and after the corn was consumed and the fire had died down, quantities of marshmallows were toasted on long sticks over the embers. The festivities ended with the inevitable sing-song. I remember no ill effects from these corn-and-mallow roasts though I am sure we all ate to excess.

Sam and Marguerite Carrière often went with us on summer evenings to the Casino, a dance-hall on the lakefront run by Mr. and Mrs. Eccleston. A large barn-like building [early dance hall on beach] with a good hardwood floor, railed off to provide plenty of space for spectators and for dancing partners to move about between numbers, it was a popular rendezvous for summer residents and for young people in the country for miles around. Occasional evenings were given over to square dancing- "barn dances" they were then called - and for this, old-time fiddlers provided the music. The regular dance band which Mr. Eccleston brought, in from London, Ontario, were all members of one family - dark, handsome youngsters of Italian descent who called themselves "The Lombardo Boys", though one of the "boys" was their sister. Little did we suspect that within a few years they would become world famous as "Guy Lombardo and his Royal Canadians". The whole family including, father, mother, sister, Guy, Liebert, Carman - and was there another? - used to live in a couple of large tents which they pitched in the woods at the edge of our lot. They were rather a trial to us for they kept late hours and were often noisy and quarrelsome, but we forgot about this when we heard them at the Casino.

Another kind of music, less sweet than the Lombardo's, was provided by a group of roisterers who called themselves "The Dutch Company". They serenaded the belles in various cottages. When any young couple got married, the Dutch Company organized a charivari, snake-dancing around the cottage, blowing horns and making a hideous din with old pots and pans, and calling on the bride and groom to come out and show themselves.

The big day of celebration at the Bend was July 1, the one summer holiday which farmers, villagers and townsfolk alike observed. Early in the morning they began converging on Grand Bend from near and far in buggies and democrats, but in my boyhood seldom in cars. They were decked out in their Sunday best and they always brought huge picnic hampers with them. As boys we loved to watch all this and share in the excitement, but to our parents and other summer residents these farm visitors were about as welcome as the plagues of Egypt. They had little respect for private property; they tethered their horses to our trees and unless we took preventive measures they would spread their picnic lunches right under our noses. We had to rope off our lot with stout clothes lines, but even then they trespassed. Mother would always let them use our pump if they asked permission, but woe to those who boldly marched up to our back door and started pumping without so much as "by your leave"! Horses whinnied and soiled the ground, the few public privies soon became a menace to public health, and late night revellers robbed us of sleep. But every year we looked forward to joining the crowds on Dominion Day.

The beaches were a veritable swarm of people all day long and all evening as well in the most incredible variety of bathing costume from the striped suits and bloomers with sailor blouses of the nineties to "Annette Kellerman" one-piece suits, then considered very daring indeed. Men never exposed their torsos; the day of swimming trunks and bare chests was yet to be.

During the war years when farm labour was short Ed and I did what we could to help, Ed working as a harvester on a near-by farm despite his hay-fever, while I spent my mornings working for Mr. Walker in his market garden. I don't remember what the pay was - a mere pittance, I expect - but breakfast was included. I would report to the Walkers', about a mile away, at 7 a.m., to be served by Mr. Walker with a heaping plate of oatmeal porridge, followed by bacon and eggs and mounds of greasy, fried potatoes. Then out to the fields we would go to pick beans, hoe potatoes, or tie up tomato plants, and no loafing on the job: Mr. Walker was a burly, rough-and-ready man in his fifties, married to a refined, rather delicate-looking wife who was never in evidence at breakfasts.