Easter Memories

A dog walk before daylight can easily leave you defenseless to stepping in the random dog pile that a laxidasical pup parent failed to retrieve and dispose of properly. This happened to me just the other day and the experience made me think back to Easter Egg hunts -- of all things!

My mother told a story of how every year when she was a child and there would be the neighborhood egg hunt with eggs hidden in the neighboring pasture, one child -- the same one that is -- would always manage to step in a cow patty, except for one year when he slipped and ended up sitting in one.

On a summer when I was visiting my cousins in Texas, my Aunt Pete and I had a long conversation about holidays -- which ones were our favorite and why -- and she admitted to actually dreading Easter because she hated and feared egg hunts, "It was usually hot and smelly searching for eggs," she said, "and, it seems, I could never seem to find any eggs, so I worried over it days in advance."

I always think of a year when my nieces were very, very young that my mother, Nancy and I took them to an egg hunt at Avondale Pattillo Methodist church. They were each in different age groups and both retrieved the most eggs. In fact, quite a few more than the other children. I think Amy, the youngest, had collected all the eggs hidden in the under 2 year old group. The adults had to redistribute them fairly. Each girl had a strategy, while Carrie maneuvered the field like a living vacuum cleaner, never raising her head, Amy found a hilly place and scoured the field before running to where she saw them. They were the cutest little strategists you ever saw!

Easter is just around the corner and I will always associate it with cow poop, Aunt Pete and bright, egg hunt champions.