The Easter King and Queen of Pineville

The Easter King and Queen of Pineville

By John Dawson

Well, Spring’s sprung and here I sit, hat in hand – ha ha, not really, it just sounded like a nice way to start the story -  on the porch, ponderin’ the mysteries of Easter because it’s comin’ up.  Easter, you know, is shot through and through with symbolism, tradition, and religion, so there’s a lot to think about.  There are several things about Easter I’d like to know, and maybe you would too.    

For one, and this may not seem like much of a mystery to you, but I can never remember what they call that green crinkly fake grass stuff they put in Easter baskets.  I keep wantin’ to say Eureka but I know that ain’t right, so I’m havin’ one of them tip-of-the-tongue deals.

  Another mystery is who declared purple the official Easter color?  Well, my research – primarily Easter Around The World from the library -  reveals that theologians  can’t ever agree on anything, so what it amounts to is that they have their own opinion on every single subject under the moon which they think is right and believe – respectfully, of course – that everybody’s else’s is flawed.  The perplexin’ puzzle over purple is a good example.  One goes purple means blah blah blah, and the other one goes no, that ain’t right, purple means blah blah blah.  Buddha says po-tay-toe, Allah says po-tah-toe, you know.   

As for the origin of purple, once upon a time  some ancient Greeks got all agog when they discovered, and I’m not sure exactly how they found this out, that the mucus of a snail – a spiny dye-murex  if you’re fact-checkin’ me - could be used to make purple dye.  And since they were rare snails, the purple snail mucus – think blowin’ your nose and purple slime spewin’ out - was real expensive and only the rich Greek Pharaohs could afford it.  So it became their official color.  I expect naggin’ Greek Pharaohesses enter into the picture somewhere too.

Some say purple symbolizes royalty and justice, and if you ask the Queen, she’ll tell you it’s her official color too, if we can remember.  But that doesn’t explain how purple progressed all the way from Egyptian snail snot to Easter, which is a porphyrogenitustic puzzle if I ever saw one, if you don’t mind a lil’ purple prose.  

Junior says it happened when the Hallmark brothers were sittin’ around one day havin’ a few drinks and brainstormin’ up some new ideas.  Joyce, on the one hand, was wonderin’ aloud what on earth they were gonna do with all the purple ink overstock in the warehouse which was threatenin’ to drive ‘em into red ink.  Rollie, on the other hand, was   tryin’ to think of a way to sell a boatload of cards in their slack period between Valentine’s Day and Mother’s Day.  Well, the Hallmark boys were pretty cagey about stuff like that, and before you know it, we got eighty-two million lacy lilac Easter cards out on the racks every March.    

An Easter ritual here in Pineville is that you’ve got to dress up in your best clothes, so you see all the gals at church on Easter Sunday in their burgundy, grape, heliotrope, lavender, lilac, violet, magenta, mauve, mulberry, orchid, pansy, plum, purple and solferino dresses, shoes,  accessories, jewelry, and flowery hats.  It’s a sight, kind of like you all of a sudden put on rose-colored glasses and stumble into a bunch of Queens walkin’ around Macy’s.

 Aunt Mary re-gifted me a pair of purple socks for Christmas one time, but the light in here ain’t too good so when I go to rummage ‘em up and put ‘em on once a year,  usually one’s black, the other’s purple, the other purple one havin’ mysteriously –  symbolically, maybe  – disappeared somewhere.

  

Then, back to Easter riddles, we got the chocolate rabbit question.  Who started that and why?    

And on that topic, have you ever noticed that the worst candy in the world is at Easter?  Those yellow chicken things, for one, they’re about the nastiest things that ever slid down grandma’s gullet.  Plus marshmallow bunnies, crème eggs, and all manner of sickenin’ sweet sugary ducks and bird eggs and stuff.  I think what Brach does is scrape up the factory floor once a year and press all the leftover goo into egg and bunny molds, slap ‘em in shiny purple packages, and foist ‘em off on an unsuspecting public

But, Easter-wise, my problem, like the laundry maid said, is two-fold.  To be honest, I wasn’t actually payin’ much attention to a lot of what Sister Elizabeth tried to teach us back at St. Gregory’s about Easter – distractions, you know – so if you were to ask me, for instance, the significance of Easter and its overall role in the global scheme of Religion, I’d have to tell you your guess is about as good as mine.      

The fact is, Easter as we know it today is a smorgasbord – think Chinese buffet - of traditions from different countries and religions and eras.  A little of this, a little of that, a bunny here, an egg there, toss in some purple.  Mangle ‘em up over a few centuries and here we are.  So it shouldn’t be a surprise, if you can follow the historical wagon trail of the deal, that we celebrate the Ascension of the Almighty by eatin’ candy rabbits and decoratin’ hard-boiled eggs and hidin’ em’ out in the yard.  It took a few centuries to get us here, but there you go.

The de facto, as Perry Mason might say,  excuse we have for  Easter is to commemorate the time when Jesus disentombed himself  and sprung up into heaven – no offense for my particular vernacular, it’s just the way I talk -  on the third Sunday in April back in around 30 A.D., accordin’ to what Luke says.  So far, so good, but then it gets complicated because different countries developed their own takes on the deal and how they celebrate it.  You know, Angola says toe-may-toe, Zaire says toe-mah-toe.      

In Brazil, they have an Easter Carnival with a big torchlight street party.  They go singin’ and dancin’ and totin’ their Saint statues through the streets all night long, wearin’ Mardi Gras costumes and drinkin’ a lot of cachacha.  You see it in all the old movies when the main characters – let’s say Cary Grant and Audrey Hepburn – meet up in Rio de Janeiro amidst a sordid background of international intrigue.  One minute, they’re relaxin’ in the Plaza de Simon Bolivar discussin’ the plot, and next minute, boom, they’re swept up by a rampagin’ native Easter parade.   

In Australia, they’re antilagomorphic – I’m not sure why - so they got the Easter Bilby – a bilby’s a bandicoot, if you’re not up on your marsupial omnivores - instead of the Easter Bunny.  Imagine that, walkin’ up to the mall and seein’ a guy in a life-size bandicoot suit handin’ out sugar chickens and coupons out of a basket.  It’d be like bein’ in a Road Runner cartoon.  In Bulgaria – Europe somewhere - the playful Slavs don’t eat their eggs, the throw ‘em at each other, like Egg Dodgeball.  In France, they ring all the bells in all the churches at noon and then go home with somebody else’s wife.

Different branches of Religion celebrate Easter in unique ways, too.  I can tell you from experience that Catholics need a lot of holidays to haul out all the fancy candles and vestments and incense and flowers, and at Easter they go whole hog at it.  But Catholic Easter ain’t just one day, like Christmas or St. Patrick’s Day.  Easter goes on and on for  all these weeks leadin’ up to it.  Easter season, you know, like football season.  Easter season ends on Easter Sunday like football season ends on Super Bowl Sunday.  Same principle.  

   That’s why there’s Septuagesima Sunday, Sexagesima Sunday, Quinquagesima Sunday, Shrove Tuesday, Maundy Thursday,  Ash Wednesday, Good Friday, Holy Saturday, and Palm Sunday,  all gearin’ you up and gettin’ you on the edge of your seat for the Big Day.  Think regular season, playoffs, conference championships, and finally Super Bowl.  And then to help you come down from your Easter buzz, there’s Pentecost, which, like the Pro Bowl, comes post-season.   

  Lent (pre-season) is the time leadin’ up to Easter when you sacrifice watchin’ TV,  playin’ video games,  or  havin’ your afternoon cocktails  for forty days because Jesus wore a crown of thorns for your sins. 

That’s another deal there’s scholarly disagreement about, but what it amounts to   is that we’re tryin’ to co-share Jesus’ pain and since it would be impractical for us to wear a crown of thorns – I got big bougainvillea out back though, if you want to try – we empathize with Jesus every March by forsakin’ one of our preferred indulgences, thus wearin’ a metaphorical crown of thorns ourselves and sufferin’ through the ordeal of not havin’ a Snickers for forty days.

 One year for Lent I gave up gawkin’ at Eileen Applebottom in class, but I only made it one day before Satan persuaded me that since I, myself personally, didn’t ask Jesus to wear a crown of thorns for my sins – I wouldn’t even presume to do so in the first place - it was perfectly OK to keep doin’ it, and so I did.   

Palm Sunday is the week before Easter when the Pope corners the palm-frond market.  He ships ‘em out to all his churches, who in turn hand ‘em out to everybody on Palm Sunday, who in turn take ‘em home and tack ‘em up on their doorways or Saint pictures, which in turn they rot and fall off a few months later.  This mystical rite started back in the bible when Jesus went to Jerusalem on his ass one time and everybody started wavin’ palm leaves at him.  Why they did that, history is conflicted, as usual, and it depends which Easterologist spin-doctor you agree with. 

 Ash Wednesday comes next, and the Pope wants you to go to church even though it ain’t Sunday.  So you go in and kneel down and Father Flannigan strolls by smearin’ ashes on your dang forehead.

 I happen to have the facts on this.  A long time ago durin’ the Bible, Gregory the Great had him an epiphany – that’s a big, inspirin’ idea, I think - that smudgin’ ashes on your forehead should symbolize that you’re atonin’ for your sins.  I don’t exactly follow his line of reasoning to be honest with you, me not bein’ Thomas Aquinas or somebody.  But, I guess there’s a good reason for it, because I doubt they’d have called Gregory great if he hadn’t had some bang-up ideas.       

            Next comes Good Friday, which commemorates the day the Italians put Jesus up on his cross.  So why they call it Good Friday instead of Awful Friday doesn’t make any sense either, but esteemed theologians worldwide do agree that they don’t know either.  After that comes Holy Saturday, which marks the time to start cookin’ your hard-boiled eggs and fixin’ up your Easter baskets.    

Eggs are Eastery because they symbolize new life, is what the most esteemed Easter experts will tell you.  I don’t know, call me a pagan if you want, but all eggs ever symbolized to me was chowin’ down on a cheese omelet for breakfast.  But what they’re gettin’ at is that instead of crackin’ the egg open and fryin’ the lil’ embryonic squawker up, you let him hatch and – voila - a brand new chickie sashays on out, burstin’ with new life and yellow feathers.  So - the thought follows - it’d be a bang-up resurrection symbol for Easter, wouldn’t it?  That’s their liturgical logic.  

Easter baskets started way back in antiquity (that’s a safe way of sayin’ nobody knows) when people every vernal equinox – something to do with the sun bein’ overhead in a certain place -   started haulin’ a basket of food to church.  This symbolized the planting of new crops and stuff and the gratitude of the brood for food.  Over the years, the Baptists evolved that into casseroles.  

 Well, history marched on like it does, and sometime somewhere people started sneakin’ candy in their baskets too.  My research doesn’t reveal exactly why – Easter Around the World is coy about it - but I suspect it had something to do with the Easter gents wantin’ to get on the Easter girls’ good sides and knowin’ they all got a sweet tooth.  Anyway, that somehow turned into what we got today.  You put a bunch of chocolate bunny rabbits and Cadbury crème eggs in a lil’ basket, stuff some green crinkly fake grass stuff in it and give it to somebody and wish ‘em Happy Easter.  Done for another year.   

That tradition – fake grass in your basket - got started when the Old Dutch stuffed some real grass in their egg baskets so the eggs wouldn’t break while they were cloppin’ around in their clogs on the way to the Easter Party down at the fjord.  Incidentally, speakin’ of the Dutch, it was the seafarin’ explorer Jacob Roggeveen who in 1722 named Easter Island out there in Polynesia because his boat washed ashore on Easter Sunday.  It was either that or Roggeveen Island, I guess.        

The Easter Bunny, as we know and love him, originally comes from Germany.  He’s supposed to come to your house the night before Easter and lay eggs in your basket, sort of like a floppy-eared oviparous Santa. 

Whenever I think of the Easter Bunny – not often - I think about the time Floyd got drunk and shot the heads off all our big Easter papier-mâché rabbits downtown because he was mad at his ex-wife.  It was a sight, too, seein’ headless life-size rabbits standin’ on the street corners – aimlessly, it appeared - with their grinnin’ heads roly-poly bouncin’ down the street.  We still got traumatized youngsters over that. 

Today though, the Easter Bunny is the official spokesperson for all the candy and card companies – a worldwide twelve billion dollar industry, my research reveals - and you can see his smilin’ face everywhere up until the day after Easter, when he goes on the sale rack and then he disappears down his hole for another year.  Children all over the world, unless they’re leporiphobic, love him and look forward to his yearly visits in a gluttonous, uncomprehending sort of way.

            So what I’m sayin’ is that Easter and all the rigmarole that goes along with it is important to a lot of people, includin’ all the countries and religions that started it, as well as the purveyors of purple Easter paraphernalia that perpetuate it.  No wonder it’s such a big deal.  I mean, how can you – as a holiday I mean - go wrong when you’ve got Tradition, Religion and Big Business behind you?  Christmas, same deal.

Havin’ relayed all my research now and hopefully gettin’ you in the Easter mood, what I set down to tell you about is the annual Easter King and Queen Pageant out at the old folks home.  I went out there about a week ago - I was thinkin’ about writin’ this story – and dang if when I walked in the place it was like I all of a sudden crossed a threshold from an ordinary, mundane, colorless world – boom – and I was in Disney Magical Fantasy Easter Wonderland or somewhere.  Pink, yellow and green all over the place.  A chick chick here, a duck duck there, here a chick, there a chick, everywhere a chick…you get the idea.  Candy eggs and fake grass and rabbits of all stripes infestin’ every cranny and most of the nooks.  I had to be careful I didn’t sit on a chocolate bunny or step on a floppy-eared gnome.  And you know those mobile deals you suspend from the ceiling and they hang down and dangle at you?  They got ‘em all over and you got to watch out or you’ll run smack dab into a duck and get all entangled in the dang thing like I did. 

The old folks don’t need much encouragement for a special occasion in the first place – they have Groundhog Day games if that tells you anything - and you ought to see ‘em scurryin’ around all Easter-centric and het up to here bunny-wise.  Theodore, Mildred, Millard, Cecil, Chet, Beatrice and everybody, they’re snippin’ and rippin’ pastel streamers left and right and formin’ an assembly line for spray- paintin’ rabbits out of the holiday stencil kit.  Except, that is, for Ali Babalu or whatever his name is.  Somebody dumped the old cross-eyed A-rab coot off on the front doorstep a few months ago.  He don’t celebrate Easter, in fact just about all he does is sit on his rug half the time starin’ into space with his good eye, mumblin’ somethin’ in Farsi or whatever it is.  He’s gets grumpy too if the cook messes up his koussa mahshi.

The raison d'etre - my French readers will know what I mean -of Easter at the home is the Easter King and Queen Contest.  Now prestige-wise, Easter King and Queen is second only to Prom King and Queen every July, so naturally, the weeks leadin’ up to the Big Event are fraught with spine-tinglin’ suspense.  Imagine Perry Mason and the Case of the Bewildered Bunny.  You’re wonderin’ who done it, is what I’m sayin’, only in this case they’re wonderin’ who’s gonna do it.  Win the titles, I mean.

The weeks leadin’ up to the pageant have as much shenaniganism as a boatload of drunk monkeys on Spring Break.  The competition for King and Queen is mighty fierce, and some people – I ain’t mentionin’ names but Mildred and Beatrice come to mind – engage in what you might call eyebrow-raisin’ election practices.  Not exactly cheatin’, you know, but not exactly keepin’ your nose clean either.    

Mildred’s got her old heart set on bein’ Queen after losin’ out by one vote to Eunice last year, who common knowledge has it that she only won due to funny business in the first place.  She’s been sufferin’ the agony of defeat all year long so she’s focused like the dickens on this year’s campaign strategy. 

“Why hello there, Theodore,” she says to him one morning, puttin’ on her Audrey Hepburn-gettin’-jiggy-with-Cary Grant-look, “I’m wonderin’ if you’ve decided who you’re gonna vote for this year, and, by the way, you do like apricot puddin’ don’t you?”  She knows full well, of course, that Theodore loves apricot pudding so much he’s got a standin’ offer to trade a Oxycontin to anybody who don’t want theirs.  

“Eh?”  Theodore goes, on account of he’s deaf as a rock.  So Mildred repeats her offer loud and slow, and it eventually dawns on him that she’s sayin’ if he votes for her, she’ll give him her apricot pudding every Wednesday night for a month.  Quid pro quo, is how Perry would put it if he were hammerin’ out the deal.  

 “Well I’ll think about it, but Beatrice asked me to vote for her and she’s leavin’ her door unlocked Thursday night,” Theodore goes, raisin’ an eyebrow and gettin’ right to the gist of things and hopin’ the idea ain’t lost on Mildred.  It wasn’t, and she knew for a fact that Beatrice was gonna be busy Tuesday and Wednesday night too.

Beatrice, meanwhile, cornered Walter after cribbage.  “Hey there, you handsome Romeo you, who you gonna vote for?” and she twinkled her cataracts up at him.  Walter, after a long career in ladies shoe sales and thus as tactful as a Mormon missionary among  testy cannibals,  allowed that he was at present undecided but  wishin’ all the girls the very best of luck.

 Beatrice chewed that over for a minute.  “Oh, that’s right nice of you, Walter.  By the way, Miss Pringle asked me if I knew who snuck into the kitchen before breakfast yesterday and ate those six blueberry muffins that turned up missin’”.

Walter gave a lil’ start.  “And,” she goes, directin’ a piercin’ glare at him, “I thought it odd how your lips were purple when you sat down to eat.”

“Er, what did you tell her?”

“Nothing…yet!” and she turned and wheeled away.

The boys are just as bad.  Oswald told Theodore that if he’d quit the contest and endorse him for King he’d give him a Viagra.  Theodore told him I don’t have any use for Viagra, Oswald, and Oswald said hmmm, Theodore, that’s not what I understood from Ida.

Walter treed Cecil in the TV room before Hawaii Five-0 the other night, and with a meaningful, accusatory look – picture Perry cross-examinin’ the reckless young heiress about her alibi -  told him he knew who it was who stole Theodore’s sparkly TV Guide cover last month -  but -  that a vote for him might make him forget all about it.  Cecil told Walter why that’s extortion you old coot, and Walter said yep, that’s just about the size of it, Cece.

             

There was a spark of controversy as to whether rabbit stew would be appropriate for Easter dinner or not.  The anti-rabbit contingent – Elsie - said she felt guilty chowin’ down on a rabbit at Easter and it might give her nightmares or somethin’.  Plus, it just didn’t seem right.

    But, everybody was tired of meat loaf, nobody wanted to cook a turkey or a ham, and the woods out back of the home are full of fat, lazy rabbits.  They fought tooth and claw over it for a while – Elsie’s persnickety when she gets of a mood – but Miss Pringle finally told her if she didn’t want to eat rabbit Saturday night she could just go make herself a ham sandwich.  

Speakin’ of whom, she - Miss Pringle – was as busy as a Spring beaver too, tryin’ to see that the Pageant results were fair and untainted.  She even went to the library and got Jimmy Carter’s book, which tells you all about how to avoid voter fraud in Ghana when you’re electin’ a new tribal goat catcher or somethin’ and she’s puttin’ it to good use.    

 She made electoral rules for the next week.  No swappin’ deserts, no changin’ places in the medication line, and no switchin’ from regularly-viewed shows in the TV room.  She decided only the men could vote for Queen, and only the women could vote for King, because that lessens the chances of internecine hanky-panky.  An untainted, post-Jimmy-Carter-Ghanian-type election is what she was aimin’ at, even though this is Pineville.

The Ballroom – the rest of the year, it’s the Francis Snavely Memorial Recreation Center - was transformed into what a unprosaic poet might call a Paschalian paradise, and as your gay and magical Easter-Ramas go, it was right up there.  Maybe not Disney-Easter-good but close.  They laid down all old Astroturf they peeled up from Puma stadium when they got new grass a few years ago and it looks just like the village green in song.  They got so many colored eggs scattered all over the place it looked like a chicken coop gettin’ ready for a hen party.  And, the luscious aroma of rabbit stew permeated – if that’s the right word for stinkin’ up – the whole place.     

Walter and his Rising Sons Jazz Orchestra were wailin’ away on all your Easter standards, includin’ Hippity-Hop Boogie, Ten Little Bunnies, Little Bunny Foo Foo, and He Arose Today.

 There was some last minute clandestine vote barterin’ goin on, too, but Miss Pringle was watchin’ real close, especially Ida, who’s got a record.  She remembered that time when there were three pieces of cherry pie lined up at Ida’s place at dinner and suspicious noises comin’ from her room all night long.    

 Well, tryin’ to make a long story shorter – I’m verbose with Purple Fever, I guess - pretty soon it came time for dinner, so Walter and the boys struck up the all-time big dog of bunny songs:

Here comes Peter Cottontail

Hoppin’ down the bunny trail

Hippity-hoppin’ Easter’s on its way

Bringin’ every girl and boy

Baskets full of Easter joy

Makin’ your Easter bright and gay

The Servin’ Committee paraded out of the kitchen bearin’ their savory tureens of rabbit stew and all the fixin’s.  (Esther Zing had got her feelings hurt because she wanted to be a server,  but Miss Pringle told her that until they got her Parkinson’s medication straightened out, she wasn’t gonna be servin’ anything to anybody, so she put her in charge of stirrin’ the brownie mix).

  

The main course was a big success too, except, of course, for the rabbits who were in it.  But while everybody was smackin’ their lips and focusin’ on proper mastication, Millard snuck over to the punchbowl and upended a quart of hundred-proof Captain Morgan rum into it.

The thoughtful among us may debate whether this act symbolizes the inexorable downfall of civilization.  Some may choose to raise a critical eyebrow at Millard’s morals.  Puzzled youth may question the ethical choices of their elders. Still others may wring their hands, peer heavenward, and plead for guidance.

Well, they can do all that but it won’t do any good.  Millard was back in his seat munchin’ on rabbit rump before anybody even knew he’d got up.  Even Evil Eye Pringle didn’t notice anything, that’s how quick and slick he did it.  Of course, before retirement Millard was a book publisher, so he’s used to pullin’ the wool over people’s eyes like that.   

In due course, of course, the delicious dinner and delectable dessert was over, and Walter and the band got up and started playin’ their 1960’s after-dinner medley, which, not that it’s important but just so you’ll know, includes Mashed Potatoes, Gravy Waltz, Jambalaya, Watermelon Man, Sugartime, The Frim Fram Sauce, Cotton Candy, The Eggplant that Ate Chicago, Green Onions, Hot Pastrami, Little Green Apples,  The Banana Boat Song, Lemon Tree, The Candy Man and I Wish I Were an Oscar Meyer Weiner.  Everybody got some fresh punch and started dancin’ and socializin’ and twitterin’ and titterin’ full of excitement about the vote, which was comin’ up anon, as Shakespeare would say.  

I don’t know if you’ve ever been in a room full of geriatric folks who are slowly gettin’ themselves drunk as skunks on Captain Morgan and don’t know it.  But it didn’t take too long for cacklin’ laughter and general hee-hawin’ to break out all over the place.  Everybody was tellin’ jokes they first heard forty, fifty years ago and had forgot and were enjoyin’ all over again. Plus, makin’ a beeline to the punchbowl.

The boys were flirtin’ with the girls, the girls were flirtin’ back at the boys, and imbued with their Easter spirits, everybody was workin’ on their Spring romances, because just because they’re old don’t mean they’re dead, is what they’ll tell you. Anyway, after awhile Miss Pringle gets up and blows her whistle and announces it’s time to vote.  Everybody goes “Woo-hoo!” and the anticipation became palatable or palpable, I can never remember which.  

Earlier in the day, she’d prepared the ballots in secret because she didn’t want any tamperin’ goin on like this was pre-Jimmy Carter Swaziland or someplace.  So she has everybody get up and stand in line, and one at a time, they mosey up, get their ballots, mark their choices down for King and Queen, and toss ‘em in the fishbowl.   

  Not that it matters, but the fishbowl hasn’t had any fish in it ever since Scooter Applebottom went off his medication and got hungry for fried fish – Neptune and Lorelei were their names -  one night.  Scooter died last year, and I hope he atoned for that before he went because everybody liked Neptune and Lorelei.

Anyway, pretty soon everybody’d voted and Miss Pringle stole away into her office to fish the ballots out and have a little nip herself.  The front-runners for Queen, Elsie, Mildred and Beatrice, clustered together up front and held hands like the final contestants do on Miss America when they’re about to bust with the suspense of who’s gonna win.      

After a few spine-tinglin’ moments, Miss Pringle finally came out – a little unsteadily I thought, but nobody else seemed to notice.  She toted the ballots up to the podium like she was Ernst and Ernst, nodded to Millard who gave about as good a drum roll as Gene Krupa, his idol, would’ve if he’d been ninety-six himself and sufferin’ from arthritis.

“For Queen,” she paused about five seconds just like they do on the Oscars, you know, hangin’ you up on the dang tenterhooks.  “Mildred!”

There’s a slew of whoopin’ and hollerin’ and Mildred stamps her dainty lil’ foot in excitement.

            “For King…”  “Theodore!” 

“For Queen….Elsie!” 

“For Queen….Beatrice!” 

“For King….Walter!”  

There ain’t much point in relatin’ the rest of the votes to you – you probl’y aren’t even keepin’ track at home – so imagine for a minute one of them wacky clocks that move real fast, you know, and instead of tickin’ off a minute at a time the hands whirl around and around non-stop.  Symbolizin’ a longer passage of time, you know.    

OK then, here’s how it stands:

For Queen:  Mildred – sixteen  

                    Beatrice – fifteen

                    Elsie – two

                    Everybody else – four

For King:     Theodore – twenty one

                    Walter - sixteen

There was one vote left, and as Miss Pringle slowly unfolded it you’d swear you were in Westminster Abbey when they’re about to investiture - or whatever it is they do to - the Queen, it was like that.  Solemn, you know. Hushed.

 Mildred and Beatrice glared at one another.  They weren’t holdin’ hands any more, but you wouldn’t expect Miss Texas and Miss Oklahoma to either.  

Everybody’s figurin’ since there’s only one ballot left, it was gonna go to Mildred, in which case she wins, or to Beatrice and there’s a deadlock.  Since that’s never happened before, nobody knew what was supposed to happen.  The boys were hopin’ they’d just get down on the floor and have a good old catfight over it. 

“And the winner is…Mildred Strawberry!  Ladies and gentlemen, presenting our Easter King and Queen, Theodore Hogg and Mildred Strawberry!”

The band struck up Easter Parade, Art picked up the microphone, and in a rich baritone began croonin’.

Never saw you look quite so pretty before

Never saw you dressed so lovely, what’s more

Somebody brought up the gold crowns with the bunny ears on ‘em, Miss Pringle gave Mildred a bunch of purple flowers, and The Royal Couple took the traditional stroll around the ping-pong table. 

And my heart beat fast

As I came through the door, for…

In your Easter bonnet, with all the frills upon it

You’ll be the grandest lady in the Easter pa-raa-a-a-a-de!

It was magical.  Art finished with a bow and the band went into double time. 

But over in the corner, Beatrice was havin’ a heated argument with some of the boys.

“I said only if I win,” she’s sayin’ to Oswald.

Oswald goes “No, ma’am, you didn’t say nothin’ bout’ winnin’, and I’m gonna be there Tuesday night.”

“Don’t you dare, Oswald Dinkle, I’ve got my daddy’s shotgun.”

“But you said….”

“I did not say…”

            Elmer says “Well then, I guess I’ll see you Tuesday night then,” and Beatrice says “No you won’t, you old coot.”

“But…”

“What about Wednesday?”  Burl asked, but without much hope.

“No sir.”

“But…”

Well, the party went on up to about midnight when everybody finally got petered out and went to find their rooms.  But, punch with a gallon of Captain Morgan in it bein’ what it is, there was a lil’ confusion.  Eunice spent five minutes in the broom closet before she wondered where her bed and dresser were.  Elsie wandered around for half an hour lookin’ for Errol Flynn.  Millard climbed up on the roof and drummed on the air conditioner for an hour, accompanying the Harry James Band in his mind and havin’ a fine time.  King Walter and Queen Mildred were sparkin’ out on the terrace and finally Walter took his scepter in hand and they went on upstairs. 

Miss Pringle went to her office, locked the door, took her shoes off, put her feet up, sighed, unwrapped a Cadbury crème egg and took the new Trends in Retirement Living Management and a bottle of Jack Daniels out of her bottom drawer.

However, it’s my sad duty to report there wasn’t much joy in Rabbitville.  Nobody’d seen Woggly or Sniggles since early this mornin’ and they had a Muffins Alert out for ‘em. 

Me, I’m just sittin’ here on the porch like I said, and here comes Aunt Mary, hippity-hoppin’ down the Pinecone Trail and totin’ an Easter Basket for me, like she does every year.  Dang it, it ain’t like I’m a fool kid or somethin’ anyway, but every year, just like clockwork, here she comes trottin’ down the street right in front of the neighbors and danglin’ my basket like I’m four years old and I’ve  been up all night waitin’ on the Easter Bunny.     

And he ain’t showed up yet, either.  

  

EPILOGUE OR WHATEVER IT IS:  Please don’t tell the Irving Berlin Company that I used his Easter Parade song here because he’s real touchy about people usin’ his songs and I can’t afford to pay him any royalties for it.  It’ll give ‘em some free publicity, is the way he ought to look at it.