Riding my bike when I was a kid growing up was pretty much a daily occurrence. The youngest of eight kids, if I wanted a bike, I had to grow into the bikes my older siblings outgrew. Being the “baby” of the family, I first had the peddle car, then grew into the big wheel, but the bicycle was the goal, the prized possession. I wouldn’t get one until one of my older sisters outgrew her’s. The spring I grew into my older sister’s bike, I was startled, but proud to do it, the day my parents told me I could ride my bike with my older brothers and sisters “out to the PP&L”, a station about one quarter mile “out the road” from our farm house. Sitting on the front porch, mom and dad watched as excitedly, I drove my hand-me-down bike “out to the PP&L” and back as fast as I could, wanting to show them that they were right to let me do it. I could do it. Back at the house, I excitedly ran up to the front porch to show them I was already back, but stopped in my tracks when I saw brightly colored Easter eggs hidden in the grass in front of the porch. Mom and dad were still sitting on the front porch, and were just as surprised as I was. How did the Easter Bunny get those eggs there right in front of the porch and around the yard in bushes, by the swing set, in apple trees, without them seeing it happen? They were watching me and my brothers and sisters, they hadn’t noticed anything.
Those Easter eggs were very personal to me and my siblings. Each of us always found one with our name on it. Wow! The Easter Bunny knew me by name, and I must have been very good to get one of my very own. This was something hard to come by in a hard-working family of ten. This was one of the only times each year when I got something all my own, only mine…not handed down. The Easter Bunny knew me as me, not as the last of eight children, but me.
Each spring of my adult years, when the air reaches that magical temperature, the first warm hint of air infusing into the cold, I breathe in deeply and smile. The feeling of spring in the air brings Easter egg memories flooding back. I find myself giddily looking around the yard as I open the front door, imagining those colorful eggs hiding in the grass waiting for me, only me.