Easter (Last Installment in This Series)

Before Easter, my mother kept her eye on the incubator, which stood like a thick table in the screened breezeway between our house and the smokehouse. She candled chicken eggs and duck eggs with a flashlight. Inevitably, an egg or two went bad, and, if not caught in time, left an unpleasant odor even after removal. All of this occurred back when I was in grade school.

Completing My Easter Sunday Wardrobe

With a Pair of Hollywood Celebrity Sunglasses

Memories of Easter crowd my mind. Every day when I walked home from the public school across the highway, I lingered beside hyacinths, daffodils, and tulips that my mother had planted as a border between the driveway and the white board fence surrounding the yard. The variety among the daffodils appealed to my artistic sense. Yellow, white, and orange. Tall and short. Large blossoms and small blossoms. The variations were many, making it difficult to choose a favorite. I delighted in the heavy perfume of the hyacinths, and I loved the delicate fragrance of tulips—a fragrance reminding me of Easter candy.

She may have taken her inspiration from a magazine, or she may have developed the idea from her own creativity, but my mother wrapped two cylindrical Quaker Oats boxes in green aluminum foil, glued construction paper decorations on the foil, slipped a stuffed bunny toy inside each box, and ornamented the lids with foil and bows. She claimed that the Easter Bunny himself had left the boxes for my brother and me. I kept my rabbit toy for many years, but, eventually, I must have lost interest in it before losing it altogether. I wish I had it now.  

There is one memory that tops the rest. In my bed at sunrise on Easter morning, I gradually awoke from my dreams because of a persistent peeping. As the nights were still cold, I had pulled the covers up to my chin. Dancing on my head were tiny feet. As my eyes opened, I saw my mother’s face nearby. She was smiling that beautiful smile that time cannot erase from my recollections. Her hands were stretched protectively toward the fuzzy yellow duckling that was peeping and sprinting across my forehead.

“You can hold it, but be careful not to squeeze it,” my mother invited. I slipped up into a seated posture and lightly held the duckling between my hands. It had just been born in the incubator and was full of life. My joy knew no bounds!

To this day, when I think of Easter, I think of that duckling and my mother sitting on the edge of my bed. She passed away in 1988, but I trust that she is full of life, smiling, and raising chicks and ducklings in a dimension just beyond my dreams.

Lincoln's Birthday

In 1971, the Uniform Monday Holiday Act established three-day weekends for all major holidays and annual commemorations. In many states, Presidents Day became associated with one of the weekends. Before 1971, my hometown in Indiana celebrated Lincoln’s Birthday on the 12th of February and Washington’s Birthday on the 22nd of the same month. (The 22nd is an adjustment made when the country switched from the Julian calendar to the Gregorian calendar, which is explained on several websites.) When I was in grade school, we took time to honor Lincoln on his day and to honor Washington on his.

A Pencil Sketch of President Abraham Lincoln

That I Drew in 1965—Similar to My Pastel Portrait

That Won the School Art Contest

Every year, the art teacher invited the junior high and high school students to make portraits of Lincoln that were judged, with the announcement of the winner during the Republican Lincoln Day Dinner in the gymnasium. Several of the older students were blessed with artistic talent and skill, and their portraits of Lincoln were exceptional. The best of the best were displayed in the cafeteria, and I admired them. When I was in seventh grade, I was determined to create a portrait that could compete with those of the high school students. I chose pastel chalk as my medium, and I spent hours and hours meticulously forming Lincoln’s face. I refused to permit myself to hurry (my natural tendency), and I devoted many evenings to the slow development of my art. I compared several images of Lincoln that I had collected at school. My portrait was not a direct copy of any one of them but a compilation of features I observed in several of them.

As my mother spoke glowingly to me about my finished work, I developed confidence that I could enter my portrait of Lincoln in the contest. Even though my mother had reassured me, I was shocked through and through when the art teacher confided in me that my art had won the competition!

I wore a suit and tie to the dinner, and, blushing with joy, I stood before the applauding audience while my portrait was announced as the contest winner.

I often think back to that occasion and also to the days when my classmates and I worked with crayons to color purple-dittoed American flags while listening to our teachers as they read to us about Washington and Lincoln. Such activities instilled in me a respect for the dignity of the President of the United States and a patriotism that I feel today. Somehow, I can hardly help questioning whether the abandonment of Lincoln’s Birthday and Washington’s Birthday in favor of Presidents Day in 1971 may have caused important values to have become lost. I wonder if February comes and goes without stirring the hearts of children the way my heart was stirred when, so many years ago, the red, white, and blue month of Lincoln and Washington rolled around.  

Christmas

A child in the late 1950s, I was accustomed to Christmas presents that were fewer and less expensive than those received by children of the generation after mine. One of the best presents that Santa left for me was a collection of hand puppets. For years, I told stories with them. Those cuddly toys helped me become a writer later in life.

My Family Visiting Santa at Sears in the 1950s

But I am ahead of myself, for this blog is about the days leading up to Christmases when I was a kid. Each year, the music teacher at the school planned a program of celebration, and, as a piano student, I was expected to perform. Each year, in the week before the event, I fell ill with flu and stayed home. Throughout grade school, I was never well enough to attend the Christmas program. I was not shirking my responsibilities; I was just a flu target.

I always recovered a few days before Christmas. Every year, my parents zipped my brother and me into our parkas, bundled us into the back seat of the 1957 two-door Chevrolet Bel Air, and took us to see the Christmas lights in Pine Village and Oxford, Indiana. As I could get car sick in the back seat, I had to take precautions, secretly rolling down the window a little so as to obtain fresh air, but I always enjoyed seeing the lights. In those years in such small towns, the light displays were modest. Outdoor strings featured large bulbs in primary colors. Wrapped around a living pine tree, such lights filled my heart with delight. Often, we could see the family Christmas tree with smaller lights and lots of crinkly metallic tinsel just inside a bay window or a picture window. I still remember the year when the Oxford doctor outlined the roof and windows of his ranch-style house in blue lights. We marveled at the color, as we had previously seen only multiple-colored strands. Also, we had rarely run across a house with its architectural features outlined in that way.

A day or two closer to Christmas, my parents took my brother and me to the Masonic lodge rooms on the second story of an old building on State Route 55 in town. The stairs were in the back and were dimly illuminated. I found them scary, creaking at every step. When we entered the main hall, we found the huge pot-bellied stove radiating tropical heat, melting the frost on the tall windows. The chairs were pushed back around the walls, and we kids sat quietly, waiting for Santa. Soon, we heard him ho-ho-hoing. He burst upon the gathering to the applause of the adults. Quickly, he handed small toys and candy to the assembled children. I looked upon him with awe.

On Christmas Eve, my family visited the Methodist Church. I recall the flickering light of candles in the stained glass. The scent of evergreen wafted into the sanctuary. In the candlelight, everyone’s eyes appeared large and mysterious. The adults wore smiles but were quieter than they were at a typical service. In the hush, the minister invited the congregation to sing carols to the tune of the organ. Tears well up in my eyes when I recall my mother’s soprano voice singing good old Christmas songs while she stood beside me and held my hand in that church so long ago.

At home in bed that night and barely able to shut my eyes from anticipation, I was always surprised to discover that I had fallen asleep and that the sunshine of Christmas morning was streaming through the windows. Tossing the covers aside, I dashed into the living room to find that Santa had indeed visited our house and had left presents for my brother and me!

My father in his overalls had already done his chores on the farm and had shaken the snow from his boots. He sat in a chair beside the Christmas tree with his coffee cup in his hand. My mother had already served breakfast and helped us kids to open our gifts. My grandfather, who lived in Indianapolis, was on hand. His eyes sparkled with the joy and hope of the holiday. I wish I could help you see them all as I see them in my vivid memory, for they were wonderful people. Later that morning, my grandmother and my great aunt joined us for “dinner,” as the noon meal was called. And what a magnificent dinner it was, with yeast rolls, fresh butter from our dairy, ham, peas, carrots, corn, and every good thing that my mother had canned from her garden.

If only I could return to that close family circle again! The promise of the Christmas story is that, one day, I can, and I hope I will.