HARD BOILED EGGS

To my knowledge, folks in Wright City NEVER ate hard boiled eggs. I don't mean they shorted themselves on "deviled" eggs or in a potato salad or whatever recipe. I mean I never heard anyone say, "You know what, I'm gonna boil me some eggs and pop them suckers in my mouth!"

Except at Easter.

Sure as shootin', every Easter Mom would boil enough encased chick embryos to feed an army and dye them the colors of the rainbow. Somebody would "hide 'em" and me, C, and J would hunt them little multi-colored treasures like our life depended on it. Then us kids would take over and repeatedly hide them puppies and re-find them until the eggs were a broken, smashed mess (sometimes we would find one a month or two later and it would smell like, well you don't want to know).

Dad had his own personal ritual at Easter that I never figgered out. On that special Sunday celebrating the resurrection of Jesus, he would always spend the day eating hard boiled eggs. Go figger, you couldn't pay him to eat one 364 days per year, but come Easter, he would peel that cackle fruit, douse it with salt and pepper, and make them disappear one after the other.

I haven't dyed eggs at Easter in so many years that I wouldn't know how, but most Easters I will "hard boil" an egg or two, splash a dab of salt/pepper on it, and think about Dad.

Good memories.