To the Editor:

This summer I’ll be age 84. Where has time gone, and why so many changes during just in my lifetime?

When I was very young and little, my parents were dairy farmers in Pawling, NY where I was born. They were Presbyterians and after milking the cows early on Sunday mornings, my parents, two siblings and myself would wash up and put on our “Sunday Best” clothes, get into dad’s white 1941 DeSoto car and drive to church at nearby Patterson, NY.

While my parents attended Bible study, my siblings and I attended Sunday school with our black cover Bibles in hand. None of us ever missed each Sunday classes or following church services. Our church was nearly full with worshipers each Sunday. Seldom were any pews completely unoccupied. Sunday School… As each year was completed, we’d get a breast pin to start, second year, a wreath surrounding the pin and each year after that, an attachment bar commemorating the third year and subsequent years to follow.

Rain, shine or depth of snow, somehow we’d all get to Sunday school and church service.

As kids, our objective was to have as many attachment bars as some of the much older Sunday school students wore.

When I turned age 13, (that’s a pin, wreath and six attachment bars), the Sunday prior to Father’s Day in the month of June, Sunday school children were “Confirmed” as “Members” of our church parish and were allowed to partake communion. That Sunday was known as “Children’s Day”, or “Children’s Confirmation Day” and was so printed and identified on calendars back in those years of my young life the Sunday before Father’s Day Sunday.

I don’t know the reason why manufacturers of today’s calendars cease to print and identify the second Sunday in the month of June as “Children’s Day” as everyone of us are “children”, no matter what the age, to a “mother” and a “father”, but by golly, there’s a “Juneteenth” now printed in the month of June.

Ask yourself why are there so many shootings and killings going on in these United States of America nearly everyday of the year? Maybe… just maybe, the lack of our youth, and let’s include the parents and grandparents, that have forsaken Bible Study and children not attending Sunday school, forfeiting their lack of faith for luxury and leisure…maybe… just maybe, our God, along with His Son, Jesus Christ and Prophet Moses, who was given the Ten Commandments to guide humankind, may be showing His wrath. Think about it? And… think about demanding “Children’s Day” being listed back on our calendars…it was there a long time ago. It should be there forever… again!

Henry Wallis Walters
Potsdam