Its a Good Friday

Easter this year is a bit of an anomaly.  I always like Good Friday because it is an extra day off of work, and a play day.  I often spend it cooking for Easter or dyeing eggs or tee shirts.

This year, Easter will be different without my mother's touch as family matriarch.  She was a gracious hostess and a good cook.  Most of all, she had boundless energy and never was there a holiday where the cake was not themed, or any such thing.  I, on the other hand, somehow inherited the 'guy' genes in my family consisting of two girls, and usually I'm asked to bring the soda pop.  For years there, relatives told ME that the get-together was an hour earlier than 'real time' because I was habitually late... being the type of partygoer who just starts preparing for the party when it is time to be there.

Maybe I exaggerate.  I've been reputed to bring brilliantly delicious dishes from time to time.  And scarcely mediocre ones at other times.

My best Easter was when my sister lived down the street from my parents on Victor Street, and had 3 girls just of the age to wear wonderful Beatrix Potter empire waist chintz floral dresses with fantastic large sashes.  Back then, we had lots of children of the age to race across the yard in competitive Easter Egg Hunting.  Oh the pink velvet and lace tights!  One niece wore a shirt from her grandfather, "Just Say No To Hollow Bunnies."  We were a large extended family of 5 aunts and uncles, their children and grandchildren.  Every person on Earth should have the delight of such a large, fun, funny, handsome, competent, and loving family.

Nieces and nephews now have grown up and there is an equally charming age cluster of Oklahoma University cohorts consisting of not less than five of them this semester.  Now the darling dresses are replaced by crimson and cream jerseys with the number 14 on them.  (For those who may not know, that is Sam Bradford, OU's former great quarterback and Heisman Award winner, who happens to be Cherokee like all of our OU students in the family).