Easter yesterday and today

     Coloring eggs in five different bowls, using the cardboard package as the egg holders. The whole house smelled like vinegar, and the laughter between siblings rang out as creative mixtures of various colors produced some wild looking eggs. Yesterday mom and dad secretly brought in bags of tomorrows goodies and hid them until the night before Easter when we were fast asleep. They treasured those moments together filling our baskets with jelly beans, chocolate eggs and one big solid chocolate rabbit for each of us. They would hide our baskets in the house where we would search for what seemed an eternity before finding our colorful baskets filled with sweet delights. Back then the colored eggs we made the night before were also hidden inside of the house, in plants, under the couch, in a closet and other places I’m sure they enjoyed hiding them as much as we did finding them.

     Easter Sunday meant going to church dressed in our finest clothes bought for just that occasion. My mom would help the girls with their hair and made sure their dresses were everything they had hoped for. Dad put on my bowtie, slicked my hair back with butch wax and showed me how to brush my shoes with his horsehair shoe brush that I still have some fifty-five years later. We sat together in church my mom looking at us with love in her eyes, but also a sternness letting us know to sit still which wasn't easy after eating a hundred jellybeans. Later came Easter dinner with ham and all the trimmings each of us kids now in our play clothes, so dinner didn't mess up our church clothes. We would wear those clothes every Sunday until we outgrew them.

     I carried on many of those Easter traditions that I remember so well. Now my kids do the same. Plastic eggs are hidden now, and the colorful baskets are still filled with jelly beans in twenty-seven flavors. The big chocolate rabbits are hollow but still taste good, and the Easter outfits are new sneakers and some matching shirts and shorts. That's ok though as times change but the traditions live on in one way or another, and I'm just glad I can be a part of it. Happy Easter to everyone

Mike

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