April 10, 2023. A mainly sunny but often chilly in the 60s and 50s this past Easter weekend in New York. And very quiet with many New Yorkers out of town.
In discussing plans for today’s Diary, JH, as is his habit, does a little research of our files and archives just to see what we’ve already done on those days in the past 23 years online. Anticipating this year’s Easter Weekend he came up with the Diary for April 9, 2009. It was called “Remembering the Moon” as it so happened that year that the Full Moon on April 8th highlighted the Christian holiday as well as the beginning of Passover.
Thinking about Easter always takes me back to the beginning when I was a kid, when Easter Sunday was celebrated by everyone or so it seemed in my small, mid-century New England world. It was as much a fashion holiday as religious. All the girls — from little on up — were all dressed, often alike, looking especially spiffy in coats and hats in pastel colors of blue and pink and yellow coats; all standing outside in front of their houses, waiting for Dad and Mom to come out also dressed — suit and tie for him, a special dress and coat for her and go to church.
This year in considering the possibilities, I was reminded of little David, age 6, who attended the annual Easter Egg hunt in the park at the end of our street. My recollection was of the embarrassment that followed my participation. Public embarrassment from a kid’s point of view. Funny in the memory, naughty from a mother’s point of view, but nevertheless …
Ironically, or rather coincidentally, JH came up with the entry that was all about this very incident. So we are re-running it. Aside from what I’d written, in thinking about the incident from childhood seven decades ago, I was reminded that life for that child had the limitations of my parents as well as the times and economics, as well as the normal everyday diets for Americans back then. Simpler. Easter to us young-uns back then spelled “chocolate” which was not (allowed to be) as plentiful to one and all as it is today. So what risks a candy-enthusiast would take were bound to be memorable, even embarrassing …
April 9, 2009. Full moon over the East River last night, cool early Spring day in New York; everyone getting antsy for some of those warm sunny days where people take the Park to bask.
Yesterday was the beginning of Passover for my Jewish brethren. Maundy Thursday today, for the Christians among us, the day before Good Friday; and then Easter Sunday.
Growing up in that small New England town, the Easter weekend (starting with School’s Out) on Good Friday, was a colorful and joyful time just making the baskets of colored eggs. The boys and girls dressed for church with its sanctuary filled with lilies and H. Lawrence Buddington III hovered over the multiple keyboard of the pipe organ, with the entire structure as well as the parishoners vibrating. Onward Christian Soldiers, we sang. I never quite knew what that meant, (“If they were Christians why were they going to war?”) and today I would almost prefer not to know. But it was a great hymn to sing (and still is!). Much earlier on those Easter Sunday mornings, I went with my big sister to the Sunrise Service (6 a.m. – no Daylight Savings either) held on the hillside of someone’s farm (with snow still on the ground) several miles outside of town.
In the Chauncey Allen Park at the end of our street, there was an annual Easter Egg Hunt on Sunday afternoon. The cut-off age was five. I was six but still greedy for those chocolate eggs that were the hidden prizes. I entered the race to the prizes, along with the hordes of my juniors (four and five?!). I then actually found one of the winning eggs, and turned it in for a big milk chocolate rabbit. The Judges asked me my name and my age. And like George-Washington-I-Cannot-Tell-A-Life, I told ‘em: Six.
Oy. The next day the local paper reported on the event and listed all the winners (there were dozens) including this writer; name and age, and the comment: “Hey! You’re too old!” I can still remember the moment; reading the paper on the living room rug. I was mortified. Shame. I had been exposed for being the cheater I was. Milk chocolate rabbits can do that to some people. They also provided my first lesson on the pitfalls of greed. I don’t think I ever got over it, although I’ve had a couple lessons on that same topic since.
These days, I don’t go to church; alas, alack and all that. (I’m not against it, incidentally.) The closest I’ve ever got to a house of worship in the past few years on an Easter Sunday was the parade out in front of St. Patrick’s Cathedral. We covered it somewhere in these pages a few years ago. Having the antique notion of the Easter Parade, suggested by Irving Berlin in his American standard (“In your Easter bonnet with all the frills upon it … etc.”), I was surprised to see that the best dressed “ladies” in this parade were all drag queens. Even more surprising was the “real” girls who were mainly in sweats and leisure clothes.
One thing this holiday means is that the social calendar takes a breather until Monday morning. These are good things, as godly as that moon up above.
We also came across Bob Schulenberg’s millinery creations for the Easter Parade which also ran on the same day as my Easter bunny rabbit expose; the artist/illustrator brings new life to the bonnet …
