April 14, 2017
Dear Everyone:
Happy Easter!
May the
Easter Bunny bring you lots of brightly colored eggs, marshmallow
critters, chocolate bunnies, jelly beans and plenty of other candy to
celebrate the return of Spring.
(This message brought to you by the
American Dental Association.)
As a child, I was always mildly mystified by the combination of the
Easter Bunny and
Easter Eggs. After all,
bunnies don’t lay eggs. Why
would they bring us eggs?
Not that I minded, of course.
Hunting for Easter Eggs was a time honored tradition, even if I
didn’t know why.
Each year, when we returned from
Easter Mass,
there would be a whole battalion of baskets arrayed on the dining table,
one for each of us. We were
told what our assigned color was, six eggs each, and the race was off to
find all of our individual eggs and try to be the first to come back
with a filled basket. Even
in Easter Egg hunting we were a competitive crew.
With seven kids, our parents had to set limits.
After all, it takes some time to hard-boil three-and-a-half dozen
eggs. And to find seven
different combinations of
food coloring
to produce colors unique enough to avoid a possible food fight over
is-this-one-orange-or-pink?
And then find 42 different places to hide all those eggs.
If the weather was good, there was the whole yard outside the house to
conceal eggs. And hope the
neighbor’s dog didn’t find them first.
But if it was raining, the Easter Bunny knew to secrete all the
treasures inside the house.
Ever run the
clothes dryer with a forgotten hard-cooked egg inside?
Not recommended.
Getting back to the Easter Bunny and all those eggs of his…
In Pre-Roman Northern Europe, the Spring Hare was a welcome herald of
the end of Winter. When
Christianity
took over, the Spring Hare was renamed the Easter Bunny.
But that doesn’t explain the eggs.
Actually, the ancient Egyptians used to paint eggs to celebrate the
rising of the Nile
river which brought life-giving water and rich silt for planting the
year’s harvest. The river
rose because the spring rains filled
Lake Victoria
in central Africa
to overflowing.
And hares, or bunnies, and eggs are all symbols of fertility, which
abounds in the Spring time.
Likewise the chicks, baby ducklings and other small creatures that now
adorn the grocery shelves in chocolate, marshmallow and assorted sugary
incarnations.
So have a great Easter, everyone.
May you find all your eggs before the day is out.
Enjoy all the candy-this and candy-that.
(And be sure to brush your teeth before bed.)
Love, as always,
Pete
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