The Price of Jelly Eggs in Hollyhill

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.