Growing up, we never had candy at Easter, certainly nothing close to the extravaganzas that people go in for nowadays. Our friends would have candy eggs and I think Lizzy Wolverton gave me one of hers one time.

In my small town, there was a so-called Easter Egg hunt put on by the Chamber of Commerce. It that involved someone strewing a bunch of the smallest brown paper bags in an area of the park. Some of them had a candy egg, and some of them were stamped with the names of various merchants in our town. We'd take the bags to the merchants and they would reward us with a penny. It think the idea was to encourage the adults to visit the various stores in town. One year, when we were 9 and 10, the town lawyer 'hired' us to sit in his office and pay out the pennies. Our pay was a roll of pennies each, and we were thrilled because we didn't expect to be paid. (We were good kids, trained by our mother to do things for people.)

We didn't go to church as a family, and certainly never on Easter. I remember the other kids at school talking about their Easter outfits - new shoes, full-skirted dresses, even hats and gloves. My mother made all our clothes, so of course going shopping like that sounded very exotic to us.

But we did dye Easter eggs with my dad.

First, we'd get line up 8 coffee cups, each with its own spoon. A tablespoon of vinegar went into each cup, and then boiling water, not too much. Then, the fun began. The Paas decorating kit came with decals and crayons so we could be artistic. After we'd colored the dozen or eggs my mother had hard boiled, we dyed all the uncooked eggs in the refrigerator.

Our egg cartons back then were square shaped, that gray pulpy cardboard, and I can still see those beautiful eggs in that box.

Here we are with my cousins, some of them in 'Easter' dresses. My sister and I are in the front row in dresses my mother made. We are only very close together in age, and she often dressed us alike, with slight color variations. My sister's dress has pink accents, and mine has blue.

The cousin in red next to me is the mother of the bride at that wedding I went to in Laredo, Texas earlier this year.




Here is that same group a few minutes earlier (or maybe later).





Note that the little straw hat in my hand in one picture was on Cathy's head in the other.





I know, a little redundant, but I think it's funny to see all the steps.