Basket Full of Easter
By
Gerry Niskern
Easter is next week and everyone will be recording the events with their cell phones; memories saved for anytime they want them.
I have a basket full of memories of Easter as a kid, but most weren’t recorded in photos because cameras and film development was too expensive. My mother started a roll at Christmas, took a little at Easter and maybe finished it to be dropped at the drugstore after a birthday party. So, special memories you just learned to keep in your head and close to your heart.
When I was just past two my uncle had a Candy Store. He sold chances to win a large stuffed rabbit at Easter time. I don’t know if it was just a coincidence, but my mom won that rabbit for me. It was taller than I was. Mr. Rabbit stood upright with orange and green stripped trousers, a green tuxedo coat and very long ears. The rabbit got dirty very quickly in that little coal mining town with me playing with him all the time. One day I looked up and saw him hanging on the clothes line by his ears. Mom had washed him! I was heartbroken because I thought she was hurting him and she couldn’t convince me otherwise.
My dad had serious surgery that year and everyone who came to visit brought him one of those big decorated chocolate covered Easter eggs. Mom always said that every time they went to have one they found a tiny tooth mark where a bite had been taken out of each end of every one! I think I took “the fifth”. I don’t recall that memory.
Up until I was nine I had to wear brown hi top corrective shoes. I hated those shoes. One Easter memory that I fondly remember is when my dad said, “Hey, while we are waiting for everyone to get ready for church lets play a game of checkers. Get the board.” I reached up high on the mantle and resting on top of the board was a pair of brown and white low cut saddle shoes, for me! My very first pair of low cut shoes like everyone else was wearing and that made my Easter!
When my kids were growing up their grandma and grandpa colored dozens of eggs and left early to hide them out in the Carefree area among the boulders. When the kids and their cousins arrived there was a wild Easter Egg hunt. Everyone was fine every year until they noticed Grandma taking the youngest toddler that year and showing him where the eggs were. “ No fair,” they complained. “Grandma is showing him where the eggs are”. Of course she was. She was the Grandma!
So, do you have any memories in your Easter basket that are not recorded in photos and are yours and yours alone?

PLAYDATE
By
Gerry Niskern
I had a play date last week.
The kindergartener arrived with her dad. The old toy box came out and she got busy cooking on the little stove. She served us up a tasty breakfast of bacon, eggs and even decaf coffee for me! Then, even though it’s been over a year, she suddenly remembered that I had the dining room chairs you can spin round and round in.
Then it was outside for some Frisbee tossing but in the excitement of the moment she ran head on and took out the screen door. After a few tears she was fine but getting over the shock that you really can’t run thru screen doors! After Frisbee she swept the leaves off my patio, watered my plants and then we had a really fast game of “Go Fish”. She won the game, all while chair spinning.
My visitor filled my Easter candy dish with Jelly beans and promised to wait to eat some only after lunch.
During lunch, in between spins, we engaged in some school gossip. I learned who the smartest kid in her class was; turns out she is also the class bully! My playdate was real interested in hearing about the boy bullies on my school bus when I was a kid.
She confided who her “crush” was and I said that was nice that she had a boyfriend. But she replied, a little sadly, “But I’m not his “crush.”
Her Dad decided to go take a nap so we thought it would be a good time to analyze the jelly beans. She brought me the colors one by one. After much testing, it was a tough call but we decided that the white ones tasted like coconut and were the best.
She wanted to know how I painted the images hanging on my walls; “exactly how!” So we had a little discussion on the difference between acrylics and watercolors. I realized that she knows “where the funny is” when I told her about one time when a man bought one of my large paintings and put it on his car and drove away. She thought that was hilarious.
I had been waiting for some new art work from her for a long time and she did two great images for me. Even gave me long eye lashes in one! She wanted to know my full name and then sounded it out herself and wrote it exactly right! Afterwards she found the Scotch tape and put them up on the fridge for me.
On her suggestion that we “go outside and get some fresh air” I asked her to clean out my large geraniums and get rid of everything that was dead. She was working hard and doing a thorough job when her Dad came out and said it was time to go. My great-great- granddaughter, Iris Mary, had to leave way, way too soon!

“Winning Ways”

By

Gerry Niskern

Do you enjoy the baseball games in the spring and summer? . I like to watch the five and six year old girls starting softball. I remember one opening practice game a few years ago.
First up was a chubby blonde. After every pitch the umpire had to signal time out to explain she didn’t need to brush off her socks when the catcher’s scuffling threw up some dust.
Next was a redhead. She was about 34 inches high. She connected for a grounder that rolled through three girl’s gloves. She decided there was enough time to stroll to first while her dad pleaded, “no, honey, run…run!”
The gaggle of boys watching the girl’s game were falling off the bleachers laughing.
The players waiting their turn at bat weren’t wasting their time watching the game. They braided each other’s hair, traded jewelry or played with someone’s baby sister.
When they took the field, our pitcher was sturdy and low to the ground. What she lacked in accuracy, she made up in power. The other teams’ hitters had to jump straight up, three feet back or just plain run for cover as she blasted balls towards home late.
Twins, playing center and left field respectively, had softball confused with keep-a-way. When one got the ball, she ran until she was tackled by her sister while the coach implored, “Please…throw the ball.”
I remember, a few year ago, watching my granddaughter’s game in an older girls league. A sharp crack of the bat brought me to attention. They were practicing their hitting. The pitchers were sending sizzlers down the sidelines. The confidence and determination of the thirteen to fifteen year- olds was exhilarating. Uniforms were regulation, including cleats.
It was obvious when they took the field; they had found their positions.
When our pitcher stepped into the pitcher’s circle, her windup gave us an Instamatic flash of form as her right arm started up, the left glove raised too. She was the picture of grace up on her right toe as her left foot left the ground and she turned on the power in true Joan Joyce style! The first baseman stretched out and snagged a wide throw from left field to rack up their first out. Nothing was out of her reach.
One of their opponents hit a sharp grounder between short and third. The red haired third baseman dove for the ball and on one knee managed a straight throw to first base.

The few hits the pitcher gave up were quickly taken care of by the catches of the fielders. They took turns circling the ball yelling, “I got it. I got it…and they did!
It was apparent the girls had developed a keen batters’ eye. In the last inning, the redhead was up first. She strolled to the plate and whacked the mud from her cleats while the fielders moved back. She swung at the first pitch…a crack…the ball jumped off her bat for a hot grounder past third. She dashed to first and then later, a bruising slide to second to avoid a tag. Later skinned elbows were ignored as she stole third.
The pretty blonde up next hit a hi- bouncer over the pitchers’ head and got on first.
The opposing pitcher was throwing mitt dusters when the sturdy pitcher came to bat. She swung…the high ball went off as if from a rocket launcher and sailed over the left field fence. This time there was no ridiculing from the crowd of young male fans. They were on their feet as the winning runs came in…whistles through the teeth and clenched fists thrust skyward.
The hugs and hi fives in the dugout couldn’t begin to match the smiles of triumph on the faces of older women in the stands who remembered when the ball diamonds were for Boys Only!