Easter!

Did you know the statues on Easter Island was discovered on Easter Sunday in 1722?



My mom has always been "anti-traditional". She loves anything that helps set her aside from the cookie-cutter image of being a wife and homemaker. Thus, she has never been great with keeping up the traditional holidays and celebrations. I'm sure we had more Easter memories than this, but the one Easter that stands out is the one we spent living in logging camp.

I was 13 (I remember this clearly because I was horrified when my Grandma sent me a birthday card saying "Happy 12th Birthday!") and we had made the move to logging camp so my Dad could finish his time at this job before we moved to our farm. Why, I don't know, he has nothing good to say about the boss, but yet he still worked there for another 8 months.

The camp was located off the north end of Vancouver Island and only accessed by float planes. We had named every plane that landed there and were able to recognize them, even before they landed, by the sound of their engine. Root Beer, Bumble Bee, and Goose. The six of us lived in a small two bedroom cabin, surrounded by old Atco trailers, broken down trucks and heavy machinery, several float houses, a dock and miles and miles of forest. One other couple lived in a bigger house beside us, but they had no kids and were our only company. The camp itself was up the gravel road a bit. Us kids were also able to tell who was driving towards our house because all the loggers had their own trucks, some with lights out, some running more rough. For the most part, all the trucks had their own sound which we came to distinguish between.

Knowing that Easter was coming mom sent some money into town with Marci, the lady that lived beside us, for candy. Marci would take the float plane into town, stay a few days and bring us treats back for our hunt.

Easter day finally came and Marci's plane landed, ferrying in from the inlet into our bay.

I can't remember if we were told to stay in the house or not, but somehow they hid the candy outside for us and we were set free to find it. At first we found the usual candy, Eggies, marshmallow chicks...then we started to find more! Soon several large chocolate bunnies were found (four each!), huge rainbow lolly-pops and jawbreakers, licorice and Nerds. Marci had had pity on us kids and had spent another $80.00 on candy without my mom knowing. Thinking about that now, I don't know how mom reacted, but we were blown away.

I'll have to write more about the logging camp later...

The biggest reason mom doesn't stick to the traditional celebrations and ways, is that she wants us to remember the real reason those celebrations happen. It's hard to keep that in mind while you're chowing down on chocolate or opening a ton of gifts. I don't blame her, but I think I'm going to do it a bit differently when I'm a parent.