Not as Tough These Days

While I haven't felt particularly tough these past few weeks, fighting through both an illness and knee surgery (probably shouldn't have had the surgery with the illness ongoing), Easter Sunday coming up reminds me, as always, of how we used to gather in the kitchen on Saturday night before Easter and color some dozen or so Easter eggs for the Easter egg hunt on Sunday afternoon. Most times, we had an Easter Sunday service at the church followed by a pot-luck lunch at a local park. Everybody brought gloves, bats, softballs, and we had a softball game. Frisbees were thrown, some caught, some missed. Much, much food was eaten. And, of course, several dozen Easter eggs were hidden, and surprisingly the large majority were found.

Now picture for a minute if you will these colorful eggs. Boiled up, colored, and refrigerated the previous night, these eggs left the coolness of the 'frige around 9:30 Sunday morning to be hidden around 1:30 Sunday afternoon. Under bushes, against the grassy sides of trees, hidden to be hunted down by a couple-dozen kids. After the hunt, the eggs were brought back, counted (to see who found the most), then passed around, cracked and eaten. Yep, eaten. Out of the 'frige for over four hours, in the heat of the day for at least a couple of hours, and then eaten.

When we began the task of hiding eggs for our kids, we always treated these eggs as poison pills - you were not allowed to eat them suckers. And while my kids are now beyond the Easter egg hunts (though the participate in the hiding), the younger nieces and nephews aren't allowed to eat them either. But in thinking back, I don't recall anyone falling down dead from having a sun-warmed Easter egg back when I was a kid. It must be kids just aren't as tough these days.