A Visit to Easters Past

Easter is in two weeks.  In seventy-two years, I’ve celebrated a lot of Easters.

This is a picture of my sister and me when we were teenagers and all dressed up with hat and gloves for Easter.  I’m on the right.  It was the mid-fifties and we thought we were stylin'.

I remember one Easter when my kids were little.  As we left the house to visit family, there was about ten inches of new snow on the ground.  It made a good background for the colored eggs I’d hung from the branches of a bare tree.  This was April in Connecticut.

Every Easter afternoon, my then husband and I and our two young girls would go visit Jack and Irene.  They were like parents to my husband and grandparents to our girls.  They were Hungarian and we could always count on having boiled eggs and kielbasa for dinner.  One Easter, Irene met us at the door with a big grin and said, “Look at my  new Easter outfit!”  I looked at the old shirt and sweat pants she was wearing and wondered what she considered a new outfit.  She saw my puzzled look and said, “I’ve got new sneakers!”

Now here’s my favorite Easter story.  One Easter we were all in their living room after dinner, the TV was on and the girls were keeping themselves occupied.  Jack and my husband were celebrating by downing a couple of shots, maybe more.  I sat in an easy chair and Irene sat on the footstool  in front of me.  The girls and I were dressed in our Easter finery as we had been at our Baptist church services that morning.  Irene, being Catholic, wanted to impart her theological wisdom to me so she leaned in close, looked around, and in a low voice whispered, “Jesus was a Jew you know.”  Then she sat back up and declared, “But it’s okay because he turned Catholic before he died!”  I almost fell out of the chair I was sitting in.  

Have a good Easter everyone!

Today's Quote: Life is full of beauty. Notice it. Notice the bumble bee, the small child, and the smiling faces. Smell the rain, and feel the wind. Live your life to the fullest potential, and fight for your dreams.
Ashley Smith