Happy Day of Easter,

 The long day of the past is just that past. I used to wake up early in the morning to hide eggs and lovingly put baskets out for my daughter. Now I don't see her and she is a teen I haven't been so lucky to experience the Easter thing lately but what a great time we had. When I was little my mom and neighbor lady Gma Vi and occasionally my real Grandmother Edna would start with the egg dying on the day before Easter using the little box of dyes or i tubes to make all the eggs a rainbow of colors. I would try to make them as creative as I could, we would use soap to put names on a few eggs, the special ones. Then wax to make the contrast lines in the eggs. We would laugh as the small kitchen would fill with steam from the boiling egg water. Many a years the Easter season would fall on a time where the nights were brisk to freezing a few years the bright eggs and baskets would be hidden in light snow or in the torrent of wind and spring rains. My mom was creative she could cut hair, draw and paint she would spend time crocheting. When she hid eggs she was definitely creative, There would be eggs in the trees, on bushes, in cans and on window sills. Her baskets oh her baskets I will always be thankful for the baskets. She made them personal, putting in things that she new I liked or would appreciate, some years they were abundant other leaner years they contained more handmade things. They would have candy and peeps because we all know peeps are a food group not candy. The baskets would be wrapped in material not cellophane like baskets today. Once the baskets and eggs were collected we would head off to church, St.Pauls where the lady's would all be dressed in their finest and HATS, Oh goodness the hats they would be big and small, gaudy with feathers, birds, fruit you name it and many just pill box hats with the mesh that the older women wore. Always pinching cheeks and wanting to give the cute little boy a peck with red lipstick that would not come off. My mom was and outcast, not married and with a child, Sickly and on welfare. Many of the lady's were sooo nice on the outside till doughnuts and coffee was served in the church basement, then the little did you see or did you hears would be whispered. Funny as an adult and think back I know it is just words and just said because at one time my mother was a business owner and did all the ladys from the churches hair,as well as many of the "society" in the Tri Cities, My great grandfather a large contractor, was the main contributor and builder of St.Pauls episcopal church building the church for free, why because that was the type of man he was. 

I tried to follow in her  footsteps, my moms, I would go from bus stop to store to store to bus stop and find the personal things that would make up her basket and wrap it like my mom in material found at St.Vincents or Goodwill all pretty. One year I found a fishing pole, "Scooby Doo" for my daughter her favorite cartoon, she liked it at the time but I didn't have the money for it. So by the time Easter came around I had done enough odd jobs to get it. Her eyes were so bright when she found it hidden in the swing chair on the porch. She immediately wanted to go fishe' being a sunday I had no way to take her. The folks I was staying with Louise and Bob were more than happy to take us down to the kid's pond off of the Columbia it just so happened to be opening day,The pond full of trout raised and released for the hook of young anglers and seniors we fit both descriptions. We loaded uncle Bob and his wheel chair into the family truckster with my daugher and Louise at the wheel. They had made a nice ramp for wheel chair access and Bob a gifted fisherman set the hook his first cast. My daugher and I sitting down the bank were watching the bobber with fever, humming and singing the easter tune here fissy fissy..... The bobber went down, the pole was gripped and my childs eyes and face looked like they would explode she was so excited as the fish broke water and the real on trusty Scooby doo came off and fell in the water. I gave it a mad dash and saved the pole and in came the first fish my baby girl caught. I was so proud of her so young and so excited. Those memories live in my memory, in the past as if it was today, now