An Easter Tale

this is for the anti-Easter contest Easter gone awry!

Words: 1,446

An Easter Tale
By Lisa Noe


It was 1975 and was coming up on Easter time. Mama loved Easter, as did I. It was my favorite holiday, even better than Christmas, because I loved all of the bunnies, ducks, chicks and sweet things such as that.
Not to mention that it is a glorious day, in which the Lord arose. I was very close to my family; daddy called me his shadow because I followed him everywhere he went. He could never seem to rid himself of me. I had an older sister named Tammie. She and I would argue for hours on in, she loved to be little miss bossy. She would bully me and I would always end up in tears. Oh we loved each other but it was just hard to detect. She was always there for me when I needed her. This particular Easter was shaping up to be one of the best yet, or so I thought.

Daddy had planned a picnic for us all on Barksdale Airforce Base, in Shreveport, Louisiana. This base was spectacular, it was a real nature haven. It was the perfect place to have an Easter picnic. The base was sort of a wild life refuge to some extent, as they housed tame deer, alligators, even coyote and believe it or not road runners. Yeah, I said it road runners. The day was a glorious day in which the sun shone so bright and the temperature was near perfect, at least in the beginning. Mama had made potato salad, and we had dyed Easter eggs beautiful pastel colors, placing stickers of little bunnies, chicks and such on them. The “lucky egg” was always a fake egg filled with money. I remember waking up the morning of Easter and running in to make sure mama and daddy were awake and getting ready for our day’s journey. Daddy was fixing the cooler and mama was getting Tammie and I ready in our finest Easter dresses. Tammie’s dress was a beautiful sky blue with lace sleeves, she was twelve years old and very pretty with long blond hair and sparkling green eyes. She received a record player for Easter, because she felt she was far too old for an old Easter Basket. I on the other hand, wanted my basket. And boy did I get it, it was the largest basket I had ever seen. It had a stuffed blue bunny in it and all kinds of candy, a jump rope, bob jacks, even a coloring book. It was a happy day for me to be sure. I had a lovely solid white lace dress, with white crown of flowers in my hair, and black patent leather shoes. I recall the trouble mama had trying to put the crown of flowers in my hair, my hair was so curly blond, that she would always have trouble with styling it.

This particular Easter daddy got we girls a real bunny rabbit each, mine was a brown Japanese rabbit, while Tammie’s was a traditional white baby bunny. We sit out doors and played with our bunnies while we waited on our parents to get ready and get the car packed. We were just enamored with the rabbits. I was nine years old almost and it was a happy time in my life. We drove out to the base, which was out far away from Bosier City, kind of out in the boon docks. When we finally arrived on the base we went to visit the deer, which we dubbed, Bush Camel Deer, because the facts that it ate Camel cigarettes and drank Bush beer. We just loved to feed the deer, we always brought food for the deer and the ducks. After feeding the animals, daddy and mama found a good secluded spot for which to have our picnic. They found a place where there was a grill and a picnic table, it was a nice wooded spot, with plenty of places to hide Easter eggs. Daddy grilled burgers and hot dogs on the grill while mom laid out the potato salad and the cup cakes she had baked and got the chips opened up and everything. I was so anxious to hide the eggs, hoping to find the “Lucky Egg”, that I was not at all interested in eating. Accept for maybe a cup cake. But mama made me eat and then we had to go and hide our eyes while daddy hid the eggs.

Daddy hid the eggs and sissy and I ran around like crazy trying to find them all, they would always color exactly twelve eggs, and then there would be the “Lucky Egg”, which sis usually found. I personally liked to hide the eggs for my parents as much as I liked finding the eggs. I was searching all over the woods, looking for the eggs, when one of them captured my attention and I went running over to the egg as quickly as possible, I was so excited. I reached down to retrieve the egg, and when I did, a Cotton Mouth lunged forward toward the egg. My basket went flying in the air and I started screaming and crying and running towards my daddy. “Daddy, Daddy, a snake!” I was in tears and shaking all over, the snake had struck at me and missed. Daddy ran to the car and got a .22 pistol he kept in the car and ran towards where the snake had been. However by the time he arrived the snake had taken the egg and fled the site. Daddy looked all over for the snake so he could kill it but he was to have no luck. I was tremendously upset and still shaking, mama comforted me and hugged me close to her, even my sister was being kind, well for a bit any way.

Sis and I got in the back seat, while mom and daddy packed the car following the picnic we girls decided we wanted to get some exercise by running behind the car on the long winding road leading from the base.
Daddy would allow us to chase behind the car while he would clock us on the speedometer to see how fast we could run. We did this quite often, at least a couple times a month, you would be surprised at just how fast we could go. We did this until we were tired and then he would stop and let us back in the car. Well we were so fortunate on this day that we got tired pretty quick and got back in the car. Tammie shouted,
“Look! What’s that daddy?”
Daddy looked out to the side of the car and there was a road runner running along side the car and I laughed when he told us what kind of animal it was, I ask him where the coyote was? We all got a big laugh and I eventually quit thinking about that darned snake. It started to rain on our way off base and by the time we reached home it was a down pour, the kind that you would find only in Louisiana.

When we arrived home, we changed into our old clothes and took off our Easter dresses. I had an accident with a cup cake and got my white lace dress all chocolate covered, so therefore mama was furious with me about that. Tammie went in to her bedroom and started playing her new record player with all that old hippie music, which is how my daddy referred to it. I in the meanwhile wanted to go out and play with my new bunny rabbit, tigger. When I went out side I found the bunnies, both of them, had been killed by dogs or something, which really did a number on them. There was not much left, I guess all the rabbit’s feet in the world could not have saved the poor bunnies. It had probably been the neighbor’s dog because the cage had been ripped in to. I began crying and I ran inside and got on my stomach on the bed screaming my bunny has been killed, Tammie came out to see what was going on and found hers was also dead. We were both inconsolable. Mama brought us hot chocolate and gave me my blue Easter bunny to lay down with until I cried myself to sleep, as did my sister. This had been the most memorable Easter ever, and I am sure that forty years from now I will still get choked up and emotional over the most bizarre Easter ever.

The End!