In anticipation of our upcoming road trip to Texas, I’ve made a sizeable investment in Big Red. (For those new to Lund at Large, Big Red is our 14 year old Lincoln that is crowding 200 thousand miles but still looks and runs fine. Well..sorta.) For years, Big Red has growled at us for no reason. Just walk by the car parked in the garage and Red will let out a deep grrrrrrrr sound. We eventually got used to it and found the element of surprise for passengers to be quite entertaining. I eventually figured out the noise was coming from an air compressor recharging the air assisted rear shock absorbers which help give Lincolns that fabulous ride. But lately, Red was growling constantly so after a little investigation on the interweb, it was clear that the airbags had sprung a leak and needed replacing to the tune of about 600 dollars. That plus some service work to the engine and cooling system and, well, we should be set for another 100 thousand miles or more.
Anyway, I’ll offer up a couple blogs from our road trip including the NASCAR race and San Antonio’s River Walk and Alamo. I’ll wait until we get home to post the promised story of a Woonsocket, South Dakota farm girl I found out about who became a corporal in the Army during World War II and played a significant role in the D-Day invasion.
In the meantime, I’ve been going through the Lund archives to re-share a favorite memory from Easters past.
My mom, bless her soul, used to boil up a couple dozen eggs and, after they’d cooled, let her three boys dip them into dishes filled with food coloring. Then we were told the Easter Bunny would be stopping by sometime during the night to hide them for us to find on Easter morning.
I don’t ever remember seeing that rabbit but he must have been a fair-weather hare because he always opted to conceal the eggs INSIDE our home.
I don’t think my brothers and I ever really bought into the whole Easter Bunny thing. We had enough on our minds trying to figure out the Holy Trinity much less a connection between Jesus’ resurrection…chicken eggs and a rabbit.
Anyway, we played along and on Sunday morning, mom would say, “Time for you boys to get up now and find where those eggs are.”
After a couple years of this, we knew most of the hiding spots: behind the mantle clock, above the kitchen stove (two were usually there) in the fern plant, behind the telephone, under the doily on the folk’s nightstand etc.
Once we’d gathered them up, Mom would make sure all the eggs were accounted for then we’d get ready for church. (The Easter bunny must have filled her in on the correct number)
One year, though, mom became concerned because the totals didn’t add up. One egg was still missing.
We looked and looked; even Dad joined in the search but no luck.
Eventually, we concluded that the count must have been wrong and we soon forgot all about it.
By the time the month of May rolled around, though, it was hard not to notice a foul aroma coming from the bathroom area. We just blamed Dad at first but it kept getting worse even when the old man hadn’t been home for hours.
Finally, Mom had had enough and said we were going to find the source of that stink if takes all day. So, all five of us wound up walking around the house sniffing the air like a pack of bloodhounds.
Eventually, one of us zeroed-in on the floor lamp by the bathroom hallway.
Sure enough, when the light was turned on the silhouette of an oval-shaped object was clearly visible in the globe.
It was the missing Easter egg that had been fermenting to a nose-curling stench for over a month.
Mom grabbed a section of newspaper, snatched up the offensive smelling orb and took it directly out to the trash barrel in the alley.
“How come the Easter Bunny didn’t tell you where he hid that last one?” we asked her with a laugh.
“If you think it’s so funny, she said, just wait until next Easter when he doesn’t show up at all.”
Come to think of it that WAS the last time…for us anyway.
He didn’t return until our own children got to spend Easter at Grandma’s house.
After the hunt, though, Mom always made sure to double check the hall lamp.