Spring Has Sprung……Things Have Changed

By Patricia White

The Easter season is almost over and I’m just not quite ready for Summertime and all that comes with it.   I’d rather bask in the memories of Easters past and the things from my childhood that have stuck in my memory and in my heart. When I was a little girl, during Easter week, my sweet daddy would load my two sisters and me into our army jeep (our only mode of transportation) and drive us just a few blocks to a nearby lake, where he would point out over the still water to the big white shiny orb, free-floating, in the silky blue sky over the State Capital Lake in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. It was magical. Daddy called it the Big Ole Easter Moon, and said it would be there every Easter, and it always has been. My grands and greats are not so enamored with it when I tell them the story, but the sweet nostalgia and tradition are mine, not theirs. Things have changed.

We always had new Easter dresses and shoes, no matter how much money there was. My mama could take fifty cents worth of material and copy and make any dress she saw in the display window of Tots and Teens on Third Street. The five of us always showed up at St. Agnes Catholic Church on Easter Sunday, marching in with McDonald pride. Things have changed.

On Easter morning, our baskets were filled with dyed eggs in every vibrant color in the rainbow. Sprinkled in the green store-bought grass were jelly beans, malt-ball eggs and maybe a Goldbrick egg or Heavenly Hash egg or two. Sometimes, we got those large sugar eggs with a peep hole in the end where you could look inside the egg and see an Easter scene.  As we got older, there was always a specially-wrapped gift beside our basket that contained a pretty pair of silky summer jammies or some other treat my Mama knew we’d love. I thought we were the luckiest girls on earth. I was the oldest of The Three musketeers. I’m not sure I always deserved or wanted the pressure of being the oldest, but I was the self- proclaimed chairman-of-the-board for as long as they allowed me to be. Too many bossy personas. Things have changed.

Easter usually entailed an outing with my parents, a group of friends and their kids. When we moved to a house with five acres in the country, our home became the gathering place. But in the 50s, we were the lucky family with acreage on the Old Hammond Highway and an outdoor brick barbecue pit. We thought we were rich. Wish I had a picture of that relic. It was roughly constructed of white bricks and mortar with a tall chimney. The grill was huge and could hold at least ten chickens and fifty hot dogs. Friends came out from town to spend the day bringing every kind of food and dessert, not to mention adult beverages. We had a basketball goal, croquet set, badminton gear, a pond with a homemade raft and a 45-record player. Those gatherings were so much fun. We played games and danced all day. Things have changed.

One memorable Easter Sunday, as we were driving to church after a hard rain, the roads were muddy in places. As daddy neared our church, he hit a puddle and splashed muddy water all over three little girls walking along the road in their Easter finery. We were horrified, and Daddy was so ashamed but couldn’t bring himself to stop. Mama was speechless, but I’m sure she and Daddy had a come to Jesus meeting when we got home. I prayed to God in church and told Him that he didn't mean it. Daddy never forgot that day and reminded us of what he’d done every Easter Sunday for as long as I can remember. I still think of that awful sight every year on Easter and wish there were some way I could pay it back to those children. If you were one of them, I’m sure you will let me know. 

Shortly after Easter, we started thinking about the end of school and summertime and all the fun we anticipated. Many years the summer included a trip to Grand Isle for a week. We swam, crabbed and played on the beach all day. When the sun set, we dolled-up  to go with our parents to the island juke joint, Tony’s Rendezvous, where we danced with the local boys and girls, and where we learned to Shimmy.  Hubba Hubba. The nuns would not have approved, but they weren’t there. The adults sat at another table and enjoyed their adult beverages and gaggled on. They kept (maybe) one eye on us, but we were to be seen and not heard on those occasions unless someone was bleeding or unconscious. 

During the years that we stayed home all summer, the days and nights were filled with adventure as we roamed the State Capitol grounds by day, riding the elevator to the 34^th floor (the observation deck) and taking the stairs back down, stopping to sneak into the empty Senate chamber, then as a finale, walking around the ledge that circled the huge State Capitol building (about three stories from the ground). It was more fun than a roller coaster with many Hail Mary  moments. Hours were spent devising a plan with needed tools to get into the old Fort that sat behind a mysterious ivy-covered brick wall. Our only summer rule was, Be home for suppertime. After checking in and eating, we were back out into the neighborhood until dark-thirty, after at least ten games of hide ‘n seek. With no air conditioning, we took a cold bath to cool down enough to go to bed. Dressed in our Easter jammies, we crawled up on the bed in the room we three girls shared, to listen to Baby Snooks, The Great Gildersleeve or The Shadow Knows. Daddy switched on the big fan he’d built into a frame for the window. That fan magically drew the cool night air from the window across the room as we listened to the radio or talked about the next talent show we would produce in the back yard. If we were lucky, every now and then we got a bowl of ice cream before we settled down to sweet dreams. No cell phones, color TVs, or video games. Can anyone say imagination? Things have changed.

Daddy was a do-it-yourself man. He told us, If Daddy can’t do it, nobody can. Once, we asked him to make us some stilts and the next day, he came home from work with lengths of wood and nails and by nightfall we had three pair of stilts, made to order. He smoothed the wood, so we never had to worry about splinters. We spent days learning to walk on those stilts, then dance or cut didos. He taught us to make walkie-talkies out of tin cans, buttons and string. What happened?  Nobody makes anything anymore. Along came Amazon. Things have changed.

I remember once when we were on an outing with other families Bar-B-Q-ing and hanging out in the woods. I needed to go to the bathroom. Daddy walked with me until he found a fallen tree with a forked branch for me to perch on. That’s the way he was. He always found a solution for everything. He was a can-do person. He set the bar high, and when I became a parent, I always tried to be the mama who made things happen too. Only the Shadow Knows for sure. 

When I was a growing up, happiness was a pair of skates, a table radio, jacks, a bolo paddle, a book of paper dolls, a pair of stilts and Grand Isle. For my kids it was bikes, forts, fishing, tent camping, s’mores and Florida. Things haven’t changed much for me.  Give me a book, a skein of yarn and a crochet needle,  a Motor home and Laptop on the lake’s edge and I’m happy. 

For kids today summertime means………. the battery on my I-pad is dead, I don’t have anything to do. I can’t even relate.  It’s going to be summer before long and a long summer for some Mamas. Somewhere on that long road, things have changed!