Easter Memories

Easter always brings me back to my childhood. My earliest Easter memory is of the Easter baskets Mom stored in the big cupboards in the old back shed we had. They were woven, with roped handles, and heavy.

As is still done today, the local service organizations provided thousands of hardboiled eggs for the annual Easter egg hunt at Hoopes Park, usually on the Saturday before Palm Sunday. Just before 10 a.m. hundreds of children with their parents and grandparents would pour into the park, waiting for the fire truck to blow its siren, signaling a mad dash all over the park for kids in search of eggs, specifically the two gold and silver colored eggs that could be turned in for a brand new bicycle. To protect the smallest children, the park was divided in sections by age, with the younger ones searching the east side and the older kids ransacking the west side. Within five minutes the entire park was stripped of all eggs, and a few bushes as well. For the tots who missed out, the Easter Bunny waited in the clubhouse with extra eggs to hand out.

Easter was not all eggs and chocolate bunnies, though. Through grade school we participated in Holy Week activities, from Palm Sunday to Holy Thursday processions, Stations of the Cross on Good Friday, and Easter Mass itself, pews full to overflowing with spring-clothed worshippers. Palm Sunday, of course, has the longest Gospel reading of the entire year, and seemed to grow longer every year. The fresh palm replaced the dried out fronds from the previous year.

The Holy Thursday procession required us to dress up, making sure we had white gloves and a clean handkerchief with which to hold the enormous lily in front of us as we walked from the school, outdoors in the evening dusk to the church, in through the front doors and walking double file down the main aisle - all eyes on us as we tried to look holy and not step on the heel of the kid in front of us as we processed our way to the rail before the altar then turned left or right (depending on which side we were on) and back out again. The church was packed with parents, and the air thick with a heady mix of lilies and incense and my eyes swam in the unaccustomed dimness of candlelight. In later years Holy Thursday meant weeks of after-school choir practice, learning hymns first in Latin and then (following Vatican II) in English.

After the color of Holy Thursday came the sombreness of Good Friday. During the school day we left the school building to make the Stations of the Cross in class groups. The choir sang a capella, no organ, just Gregorian chant. I remember one particular Good Friday that I was late due to a dentist appointment; I spent my time "singing" with my mouth numbed up from the novocaine.

Especially if it was a late Easter there was a special spring in the step as the fine weather heralded trees blooming and warmer weather. Hyacinths, tulips and lilies abounded, lining store shelves and overflowing the garden shops and nurseries.

Every Palm Sunday after church services we made our annual pilgrimage with Granny Costello to the florists and nurseries holding open houses: Cosentino's and Shaw & Boehlers across the street from each other on Dunning Avenue, a place out Clark Street Road whose name I've forgotten, and Dickman's. The aroma was overwhelming and the warmth of the greenhouses offset the early spring chill in the air.