We spent each Easter at Aunt Edra Mae’s house. She had a big farmhouse on the west side of Jasper and her yard was the perfect place to have a massive Easter egg hunt.
Everyone in the family would start arriving after church dressed in their Easter frocks, new pants, new shoes ready for spring. When we were all in the yard together we were more colorful than a jar of jellybeans.
She had a spinning Ginny in her yard. A spinning Ginny is a home made merry go round. Uncle Herman had cut down a hickory tree in their yard and left a stump sticking up out of the ground about three feet. He attached a board about eight inches wide and twelve feet long with a big metal spike to the stump. It looked like a big propeller sticking out of the ground.
Kids would get on both ends of the board and other kids would spin them around. When we stepped off that Ginny we would stagger around as if we had drunk a quart of liquor.
At all our family gatherings we had a feast. All the aunts tried to outdo each other by cooking up their best and favorite recopies.
After lunch the men would hide the Easter eggs. The kids would try to watch them so they could figure out where the prize egg was hidden.
As soon as the eggs were hidden, Uncle Herman explained the rules and boundaries. He would take his sweet time driving the kids into frenzy. Once he gave the command to “let’em go, God help anyone who stood between those kids and the eggs.
One of the cousins was a ruthless egg hunter. His strategy was seek and destroy. If you both locked onto the same egg, it was every man for himself.
My mom always kept a watchful eye and she would not tolerate any kid who did not follow egg-hunting etiquette.
She always helped the little kids fill their baskets and made sure they found their share.
There was always a cash prize for the one who found the most eggs. I doubt if we ever found all those eggs. I bet if you went to the old farm today you might just find an ancient Easter egg.
