When I was growing up, Easter Sunday was a special day for my family. Beyond the fact that we were good Catholics and it was an important day for the Catholic faith, it was also a celebration of the end of winter.
The day would typically start with my sister and me hunting for easter eggs. Most of the time, this would take place inside because spring mornings in New England tend to be cold, but occasionally the eggs would be hidden in the backyard. These weren’t real eggs, of course, but plastic eggs filled with chocolate candy (usually Reese’s). Sometimes we also got easter baskets, again filled with things like chocolate bunnies, little stuffed animals, and tiny chocolate eggs. My family wasn’t really into healthy eating back then, but I don’t think many families were.
In the late morning, we would go to church. Since it was the beginning of spring, the women, my mother, grandmother, aunt, and sister, would usually be wearing brand new dresses. Sometimes they were store-bought, but other times they were homemade using the latest Simplicity patterns. My mother was not exactly a talented seamstress, so it was hit-or-miss as to how they turned out. One year, she made my sister this hideous, long, pastel-blue dress with pom-pom-like fur buttons that we still make fun of to this day.
Most of the time, I would be wearing a new suit purchased at either Milton’s or Robert Hall’s, but one year, my mother decided to make me a suit. I’m not sure if it was because she enjoyed the process or because she just didn’t have enough money to purchase one. She allowed me to have some input on what I wanted, and since it was the sixties, I asked for a Nero jacket, a decision probably inspired by my watching The Monkees. As I remember, she did a good job on it, and aside from the stiff collar being uncomfortable, I was really proud to be wearing it.
I also used to get the yearly hat. Back in the day, men wore hats when they dressed up, and my mother, always wanting to make sure I looked dapper and respectable, would see to it that I had one. These weren’t baseball caps or anything like that; they were old men’s hats, the type that you would see Clark Kent wearing in the old Superman TV show. Unfortunately for my mother, being a wise ass kid, I would pull the brim down and attempt to entertain everyone by doing my best Frankie Fontaine impression (he, he he).
In the late morning, we’d make our way to church, which for me was agony. Like most little boys, I had a hard time staying still for a long time. Easter was particularly bad because the Easter mass was much longer than the regular Sunday masses. There was one special year, though. There was a visiting priest performing the mass who was pretty ancient and very thin. During the mass, there’s a point where the priest holds the eucharist high over his head while reciting some incantation. The old priest did this, and as he raised the eucharist up, his pants fell to the floor. He went on as if nothing had happened, and after saying his part, he squatted down and pulled his pants back up without missing a beat. Amazingly, no one laughed or said anything during the mass, but afterward it was the main topic of conversation.
The best part of the day came after church ended. The whole family, my sister, mother, grandmother, and my aunt and uncle would load up into the car and make our way to a restaurant in Plymouth for an Easter meal. This was a big deal for us. We rarely went out to dinner since we were pretty poor (I had no clue how poor we were since the adults shielded us from it), but Easter was the exception. I wish I knew the name of the restaurant that we went to, but sadly, I don’t. I just remember it being paradise. It was a nautical-themed restaurant, with netting in the air, a giant tank of live lobsters at the entrance, and a giant wooden keg of water with a spigot from which patrons could serve themselves. My mother, though usually pretty strict, would let my sister and me go up to the keg by ourselves and get our own water. If that wasn’t enough, they had sugar cubes on the table, which the two of us ate like candy, once again proving we were not into healthy eating back in the day.
When it was time to choose the meal, I would always pick the fried clam plate. I loved fried clams back then, and I still do now, although they’re not half as tasty as they were back in the old days because state health codes require them to go through a purification process that reduces the risk of food poisoning, but at a cost of draining out all the flavor.
And that was our Easter. It probably doesn’t seem like much to anyone reading this, but to my family and me, it was a major event that I now look back on with fond memories.
