Easter is coming around, and with that I have several stories to relate.

I remember as a young boy when Auntie Kay would plan the Easter egg hunt by talking about it. She would get us excited about the event then would bring out the hard boiled eggs, and the dyes.

Once the pots were filled with hot water we would stir in the dyes. When the dyes were ready we would carefully place the eggs into the pots one at a time and roll them around with a spoon. When you got the color you wanted then the egg would be removed and allowed to dry. I liked the blue ones best. When all were colored we were ready for Easter, at least we children were.

Easter morning, Auntie Kay would hide the eggs in the house and outside of the house.
We children would awaken, dress, and eagerly begin the hunt.
A favorite place to look was the lilac tree because there was always one there. There was always an egg or two on the window sills inside and out. There were a few in among the plants too. We didn’t have to venture far from the house to find the eggs.

Once the hunt was finished we would eat breakfast, but we wouldn’t eat the colored eggs, I’m not sure what Auntie Kay did with them.

Auntie Kay also had an Easter basket which had candied eggs in it. Some were chocolate and some were colored candy with a soft, white, sugary center. She made sure we all got a candy. I always liked the chocolate ones the best.

When Easter fell on a Sunday we all had to go to church, I never did like that. The pews were hard and uncomfortable and I had great difficulty sitting still.

On occasion I would take an apple in my pocket and eat it while the preacher spoke, but the crunching embarrassed one of my sisters, she would poke me and I would poke her back and continue eating.

Moving on to years later when I was living and working in Walla Walla Washington, I was married at the time and we had a four year old daughter in play school.

In preparation for Easter, her class had dyed and decaled hard boiled eggs. She brought three of them home and told her Mother that her teacher said that the eggs could be eaten. My wife agreed with the teacher and stepped out of the room to go do something.

Upon her return to the room, she discovered that our daughter had eaten two of the three eggs, shell and all, she didn’t know she had to peel them first.

My wife called the poison centre and was told that our daughter would be fine except that she would have loose stools for the next couple of days. Daughter was fine and saw another Easter, and so did we.

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