Easter Bone-ette (NEW)

What came first? The chicken or you make up your own joke.

This Easter saw the Bone-domain crowded with a regular hutch of rug-rats. Cousins in numbers odd and even converged ‘til every last couch and sleeping bag was pressed into service. It was a pretty good time considering that most of them stayed 3 days. Though I'll admit that there were a few times when I found myself wishing I could just sneak away and take the traditional 3 day Easter nap. Still, my kids had a ball and more and more that seems to be the point of it all. Gotta keep the monkeys happy.

Living across the street from the park as I do, made it convenient to treat the youngsters to a most kick-ass Easter Egg hunt. And kick ass they did. The majority of them are now of an age where they're competent if not downright aggressive hunters and gatherers and after they returned home lugging the fat baskets of their harvest – they just dumped their spoils in the middle of the living room. Goodness, we were all but struck dumb by the big rock candy mountain they'd created. It was enough to make your fillings ache to see that much processed sugar in one place. It was more than a little bit freaky. They went over to the park innocent little Sunbeams and came back pirates. By this time the house was half way trashed anyway, so I said what the heck, grabbed the video camera and let them roll around in it like a great pile of leafs. Any time I get the chance to turn a good ten or so CTR pilots into hedonistic pagans, I like to go for it. It was like being Robert Redford in that movie with Demi Moore and Woody.

Here's a theory. Almost all Easter candy has now just holiday-specific versions of regular every day candy – Whoppers, Jelly Bellies, Reeses, Candy Corn, Circus Peanuts, Sour Patch stuff, about the only truly old school Easter Candy that has survived this complete usurpation is Peeps. I have to admit that I've eaten my share of Peeps. Peeps fans, as we all know, fall into two camps – the Freshies and the Crusties. I'm a dyed in the wool Crusty. I like ‘em after they had at least 3 days to sit in the open air and get nice and stale. If it's not like eating "sugar jerky" they need to sit out another day or two. I think I've figured out why Peeps are an Easter-exclusive confection. It's pretty obvious that a normal healthy man would only live a week to ten days on a diet of nothing but peeps. Marshmallow coated heavily with dyed sugar - you won't find the nutritional information on the wrapper. Still Peeps continue to thrive at Easter and I think the reason is obvious. Think about it. Easter is the main time of year when you're reminded that even if you die you're going to come back to life. So what the hell, pass the peeps. Amen.

I don't want anyone to get the impression that I'm whining about the loss of the good old days. By pointing out the fact that Easter Candy has changed and is pretty much just regular candy shaped like a bunny or an egg – I'm by no means bemoaning the loss of yet another cherished tradition. Because when I was a kid, Easter Candy sucked ass. Sure there were jelly beans, but they all tasted the same and after 5 or 6 you were pretty much beaned out. Beyond the beans it got pretty grim. True, if you were lucky you might get one of those giant chocolate bunnies, but the chief Easter candy in those long-ago days were these nasty, hollow, oblong, pastel eggs that were made of some sort of karo syrup and sugar. They looked good, and they were fun to find. But once the hunt was over and you were staring down at a basket full of those rock-hard, sickie sweety empty ovals, it was depressing. You knew that by the end of the day the basket would be reduced to a not-so-festive tangle of fake grass stuck to the small biteholes at one end of those obwrong egg-things. Just as a testament to how awful they were, they were universally rejected even by children whom, like myself, were in the midst of a major candy-Depression. Not that there was a shortage of candy, there was just a terrible shortage of money to buy it with. Oh, there was plenty of awesome candy, everything from candy necklaces to candy cigarettes. If you had a quarter you were like a King. With a Dollar you could buy enough candy to last 6 months. There was a lot of great candy, but money to buy it with was scarce. If you found a penny on the ground, you were in business.

To illustrate further will require a difficult confession. I was maybe 6 years old, kicking around my Grandpa's farm out in the corrals, when I came upon a great burlap bag full of wool. I climbed up to the top of it and what to my wondering eyes should appear - but a dollar bill stuck to it with a nail. I might as well have found the Golden Fleece, you see I'd seen paper money before, but I'd never actually touched it. And this day, I'm ashamed to confess the devil won out that lazy afternoon and I took that forbidden loot and stuck it in my pocket. Here's the irony. As my little evil heart beat wildly driven to palpitations with the visions of the pounds of candy I would soon be lord and master of, I came to a terrifying conclusion. As I mentioned, I was probably only 5 maybe 2 and I do believe that I'd never had any experience with an amount of money larger than a dime. I wasn't altogether sure how money worked once it turned into paper. For example, I wasn't aware that you could buy a little bit of candy and get change back from a dollar. I had it in my head that a dollar had to be spent in one mad spree. And what was I to do with that much candy? There was no way I could concoct a lie brilliant enough to account for a dollars worth of candy – hell I was only 18 months old. How could one possibly conceal that much candy? I wish I could report that I had a crisis of conscience and took that accursed dollar and returned it to the wool. But I just hung onto it. One of these days when my wife's out of town I'm gonna blow that sucker. Or maybe even suck that blower, I haven't decided.