Easters Past

Being caught up in time past lately, I remembered a few Easters of yore. As a kid, I was always the recipient of a new "Easter outfit." This included a hat, coat, dress and shoes. Worn to church and dressy events for the rest of the season. Unthinkable to go without one. This lasted even into high school. Those pictures that I won't post, because you would laugh yourselves silly, maybe even sick.

We were at Wrentham Mall and I wondered if folks were Easter shopping. It was so freaking cold we looked for sweaters. Found really cool ones at the Nautica outlet, and a nice hooded sweatshirt at Gap Kids.

For years as a kid I composed a "Hallelujia" for the piano every year. Still have the composition, but not the piano. This is kind of touching. I like my old self more and more, the self with no carapace, no irony and many illusions. Youth!

In junior high, our Sunday School teacher, Mrs. Ohlssen, who was a WCTU member and a farm wife, always invited our class for an Easter Sunrise Breakfast. This was in Colorado and we usually ate outside. Not in Boston, you wouldn't. She had fantastic sticky buns, made from scratch I'm sure. The farmhouse was right on route 6 between Brush and Ft. Morgan. I don't recall a Mr. Ohlssen, but there must have been one. We watched the sun rise over the high plains and pigged out. There must have been prayers and Bible reading, but that's not what I remember.

A friend who emailed after a long absence recalled eating an Easter dinner at our house in Wellesley many moons ago. My mom was there. The friend brought a fellow batchelor, and it must have been some gathering. I always collected strays at holiday gatherings. Lots of conviviality and sharing. We had a ham, of course, and the friend was a picky eater, but very keen on ham. Today we're having a smoked pork butt from an old NY Times recipe. It's cooked, sliced and baked again on a bed of creamed spinach with a sprinkling of bread crumbs and parmesan cheese on top. Drizzled with butter. We're having asparagus and broccoli with it and a fruit salad for dessert, doing penance somewhat for a week of eating high on the hog, wherever that is.

Yesterday we trekked to the Border Cafe in Harvard Square. Catfish tacos that can't be beat, and they allow me to substitute corn for flour tortillas. Pretty good margaritas, too. And everything cheap. Good guacamole. What more do you want?

Tonight is the beginning of the last season of the Sopranos. My next post will deal with mob related stuff. Personal and kind of interesting, I think. After that we'll talk about today's NY Times and some articles from this week's New Yorker. I read the whole Atlantic yesterday. Still reading Three Trapped Tigers, so it's been a literary week with no writing but some thinking.

Happy Easter.

Grapeshot