More and more, perhaps because the older I get THERE SEEMS TO BE MORE AND MORE; I find myself reflecting on “THOSE, BACK IN THE DAYS,” occurrences which pop into my mind, causing a smile to grow from my gut to my brain, attach itself to my heart and appear on my face. Corny perhaps, but a little kernel of corn tastes a whole lot better than a mouthful of snark! (And I should know because there are way too many people, who need to have the SNARK smeared all over them…and I have no hesitation in doing so!)
Picture this, (as Estell Getty might say as she relates a story about her youth, in the TV show Golden Girls!) Pittsburgh the decade of the ’50s, the Saturday before Easter, my Jewish mother, unpacks her four dozen teacups of various and sundry assortment, places four grocery bags from the Star Market on the table, each containing at least 12 boxes of PAAS Easter Egg Dye, begins to boil 30 cartons of eggs, delivered to us by the Dairy Guy who would sell his farm goods on the weekends! She then has my siblings and I go into the dark recesses of our cellar (where we are sure the nastiest of spiders are lurking) to gather together old plastic tablecloths, from the Year One to be placed on the floor of our dining room, where we have removed all chairs from the dining room table, placed the two table leaves extending the table from east to west, with absolutely no way to walk around the table except underneath it. If it is still Passover, my mother had baked Pesach Brownies at least 6 trays, which are being housed in neighbor’s freezers, and if Passover has ended she has baked 6 chocolate cakes, half with homemade chocolate icing and half with vanilla icing.
It is NOW Easter Sunday, the majority of our neighbors are Jewish, but already salivating, as they come to the Buncher’s to dye their dozen Easter Eggs. My father was a policeman, and most of his work friends were not Jewish, and about 15 extra kids would join us after Easter Mass. My mother would welcome everyone and would say: “Today may mean different things for every single person here, but the one thing we all have in common is to be creative…she would pause, (my little sister and I, when we were a little older would roll our eyes) and THEN my mother would add, and be as MESSY as you can! Happy Easter, Happy Fun, and Happy Mess!
