Thursday, February 14, 2008

Art of Alzheimer's-Easter Edition



It may be a little early for Easter, but I wanted to tell the story while the Aunt Teeter post was still relatively recent.

Every Easter, we would have a huge Easter egg hunt at Great Aunt Teeter's place. Mom and her sister, Mary Anne, would hide eggs all over the farm. They would always forget where they hid them, so eventually they learned to make a list. Back in those days, they hid dyed hard boiled eggs, not the plastic eggs of today. So if we didn't find one, the raccoons enjoyed a little breakfast.

Fast forward twenty years or so. My older sister carried on the tradition for everybody when her kids were young. She hid plastic eggs filled with candy, or balloons or little toys. Her kids are now all grown and have children of their own, but she is still hosting the Easter Egg hunt for all and sundry. There are usually 20 to 30 people there, all participate in the hunt, not just the kids. She spends days filling hundreds of plastic eggs. She also has little contests with prizes, like, the person with the most pink eggs wins a toothbrush or whatever. She doesn't make a list of where she hid them, however. (Do you sense the foreshadowing?)

We always open the eggs into a bag so we can leave the plastic eggs for next year. One year, I was dutifully opening an egg, and out came some foul, brown liquid, and a little package. It was an egg from the year before! The little package was the remnants of the tiny Snicker's bar in the egg. This little monster was my consolation prize for finding an egg from the year before.

One year, I hosted the Easter Egg hunt. She supplied the filled eggs, I just had to hide them before everybody came. I was up at 6 am hiding eggs. It was really windy that day though. I kept looking out the window and seeing little eggs rolling by. Oops!

That year was also a good one for garter snakes. The one field was covered with hundreds of tiny snakes. I still hid eggs there, and warned everybody not to step on my baby snakes! My brother, the trickster, caught a little one, and managed to put it in one of the large (like, ostrich sized) eggs. My nephew (17-18 at the time) walked up, and my brother handed it to him very nonchalantly. So we stood there chatting for a while, the rest of us eyeing the egg because we knew what was in it. Finally my brother told him to open it, just to see what was in that big egg. My poor nephew jumped about a mile high and screamed like a girl, while the rest of us held our sides from laughing so hard. (No snakes were harmed in the making of that practical joke.)

Now five generations later, we still celebrate the Easter Egg hunt started at Great Aunt Teeter's farm.

11 comments:

Anonymous said...

great story, annie. and i hope to keep hearing more about aunt teeter, but the question is, did you or your mom put the stuff in the pans?

i'm back in austin for a while staying with my other sister. i have easy internet access here and hope to stay in touch better.

btw, happy belated v-day.
(not sure why my blogger account isn't showing up to post as cornbread...so i'll try anonymous)

rick

Anonymous said...

Annie, I'm laughing out loud at the snake in the egg story! Thanks so much for sharing your memories with us! :)

Annie said...

Rick, I always serve blue monster with a side of carrots, don't you? Who needs to floss when you eat Easter grass?

Cinn, thanks.

Looks like Mom is ready to get back in bed. Woohoo!

Robin said...

Fantastic story!! I love Holiday traditions.

Anonymous said...

Great story - and i loved the garbage mittens tale. My mother once preheated the oven with an Easter basket hidden in it. A lovely gooey plasticy mess....

stringplay said...

I'm glad to hear more Aunt Teeter stories as I really enjoyed the previous one. I'm not as fond of snakes, however!!

I found you via a blog contest at
http://snitnknit.blogspot.com/
Mary's contest asks commenters to mention a blog they enjoy and yours was listed.

I would love to give some Hollyhock seeds to my mother, but I'd like to be able to at least send you something in thanks - or at the very least the SASE postage.
(I'm no green thumb so I can't send you any seeds from GA!)
Sonja Poor

Annie said...

Rick, how rude of me. I forgot to wish you a Happy belated
V-day too! Early morning, blonde, take your pick.

Mary Lou, what a pleasant smell that must have been. Argh!

Stringplay,
I'm glad you stopped by. Pull up a chair and stay a while!
Please e-mail me (Annie at maplecorners dot com) and we can work it out. A SASE would be fine, I just like spreading the hollyhock joy!

I might be plumb out of Teeter stories. I can't think of any others right now.

rilera said...

I'm not a big fan of snakes. EWW. I had one at the front door of my condo one summer and was afraid to use my front door. I had the suburban wildlife guy come and set traps.

Sounds like Easter egg hunts are pretty fun with your family! What great memories.

Happy belated Valentine's Day!

hopalong682003 said...

Hiya, Annie. I loved this story, too. Like Rick, I'm also wondering if your Mom put the toys in the pans. Both photos made me laugh. :-)

On a side note, I subscibe to bloglines, so I have a rather hefty list of blogs that I read. Sometimes, there are 30 blogs that have new posts. I always make sure that I skip to yours first. Thanks (again) for posting. I can tell how special your Mom is because I see how special YOU are!

Unknown said...

I love your blog.

Miss T said...

Great story!