April 20, 1965
Jocie Brooke here reporting from Main Street, Hollyhill, Kentucky where if you went to church last Sunday on Easter, you'd better have been wearing a hat or something closely resembling a hat. At least that's what Aunt Love says.
She even told Tabitha she'd have to wear a hat although I'm not sure she was happy when Tabitha found this big floppy hat that could work as an umbrella if it rained. That's Tabitha. Always flamboyant. But after all, she lived in California for a while. That's bound to do something to a person.
Aunt Love used to only wear black or deep purple hats to church, but then after she told me and Wes about something that happened way back when, she started wearing this bright red hat to church all the time. Bright red! Something like this one. Who would have ever thought that?
You can read all about that in the book, Scent of Lilacs. By the way, somewhere in the future that book is still free for download on e-readers.
Of course we did think Zella would have to have an Easter hat that beat everybody else's hat. And then she just went with a black pillbox hat something like President Kennedy's wife always wore. Looked great on Jackie Kennedy. But Zella looked like she was wearing half a painted oatmeal box with a hairnet on it.
Dad did tell us that hats weren't a contest and that everybody looked great in their Easter hats, but you can bet the ladies at churches all around Holly County were checking out every hat that rode in on a head. I felt like a total nut wearing that white hat up top. I wanted to look good in it and all grown up, but I just looked like a butterfly net was stuck on my head. Sigh. Some people have style. Leigh, that's Dad's girlfriend, she says I'll get style, but somehow I doubt it.
Hats aren't the most important thing about Easter anyway. We need to quit worrying about who's wearing a hat and who isn't. The Lord rising from the grave. That's the important part of Easter.
But since we're talking about hats, did you wear one on Easter? This year or any Easter?
March 30, 1964
Jocie Brooke reporting. Yesterday was Easter here in Hollyhill, Kentucky. We did something new here in Hollyhill on Saturday. The local businesses decided to sponsor a kids' Easter egg hunt at the Fairgrounds. Wouldn't you know they'd wait until I wasn't a little kid anymore before they got around to doing something like this?
So instead of trying to chase around and beat all the other kids to the candy eggs, I chased around taking their pictures. Dad said I got some good ones too that he can put in the Banner. Pictures of kids sell papers. Then next year we can use them to advertise the new annual Easter egg hunt.
That is, if the merchants keep it up. Did you see what jelly eggs cost in the A&P ad in the Banner last week? 25 cents for a pound! Chocolate cream eggs were even worse! Three for a quarter. Daddy says a quarter doesn't buy much anymore.
Aunt Love says grocery prices are getting ridiculous and that if I want chocolate, then I can just make some fudge. She doesn't get the whole Easter basket, chocolate bunny thing. Says that a new hat and shoes are fine, but she can't see what eating chocolate has to do with Easter. I guess old people like Aunt Love don't have the same sweet tooth us kids have. The two kids in the picture that Dad ran in the paper knew about having a sweet tooth. They couldn't wait to start eating their candy. One of them even gave me a piece. Not a chocolate egg, mind you, but one of those candy Easter eggs that are nothing but pure sugar. It was so sweet it nearly choked me. But beggars can't be choosers and I couldn't stand not having at least one piece of Easter candy at the Easter egg hunt.
Actually I had more fun taking pictures than I would have had hunting Easter eggs. I never was very good at that when we had Easter egg hunts at school. Every time I spotted an egg in the grass, some other kid would beat me to it. Unless I tripped him before he got there. All's fair in love and Easter egg hunts.
That's what Wes told me when I was complaining about not getting any Easter eggs. He says they don't do Easter egg hunts on Jupiter. They just shoot each other with guns that have paint for ammunition instead of bullets and they all end up looking like an Easter egg for the day. Can you imagine that? A gun that shoots paint! The people on Jupiter have some pretty strange ideas, if you ask me. But maybe you'd better ask Wes. He's the one who claims to be from Jupiter.
I guess I need to be remembering the Golden Rule instead of tripping people to beat them to an Easter egg. That's what Dad will tell me when he reads this. But I didn't trip anybody Saturday and even managed to sit ladylike in my Easter dress all through church. That wasn't easy. The crinoline was scratchy and the sash kept coming untied. I'm too old for dresses that have sashes, but it was a hand-me-down from one of the church members' kids. So I had to wear the flouncy pink thing all decked out with lace. I hated it, but it fit and didn't cost anything. And with what groceries cost these days, Aunt Love says we have to pinch our pennies. Not to mention the quarters.
Hope you didn't have to wear a dress you hated on Easter. Did you take pictures? Wear a new hat? Let the news of the empty tomb shake your insides? Aunt Love's right. That's what Easter is really about. Resurrection morning! John 3:16.
