LETTERS FROM HOME: BRUISING EASTER SEASON LAYS AN EGG

April 19, 2001

Dear Julie,

The blessings of Easter have always been mixed for me. When I was a kid it was one of the holidays when attending church and Sunday school was not optional. I didn't like Sunday school. Old ladies in old lady shoes told matter-of-fact stories about miracles. Jesus and the apostles lived in a rocky land but everybody wore sandals. None of it made sense. Maybe I just didn't like anybody's shoes.

Sometimes Easter Sunday started with a fight at our house.

The Easter I was 20, I tried out a girlfriend's motor scooter and landed in the hospital with stitches in my head and a raspberry back. Now the approach of Easter leaves me wondering what might happen next.

One good thing about Easter now is the annual arrival of the Cincinnati kids. It's becoming more difficult to call them that. Nephew Kyle is driving now, has his own car and plays guitar in a rock n' roll band. Carly and Kim don't seem to care about dolls anymore.

We played a father-son match at Bent Creek Golf Course. Even though Kyle hardly ever plays, he put his second shot three feet from the cup. At the last hole, with my father and I leading by a stroke, they faltered. Sometimes age prevails.

My brother and his daughter were in town, too. All the uncles, aunts, grandmothers, sons and daughters, daughters-in-law and sons-in-law congregated for a picnic one evening at the VFW Lakes. Maybe food tastes better outdoors because all of our senses are stimulated by the natural world. Sun and trees and wind and birds orchestrate sublime dinner music.

The ensuing maiden voyage of my father's new remote-controlled motor boat was the object of dinner discussion. He assured us he'd charged the battery for five hours. We tried to think of a name for the boat.

All 15 of us went down to one of the small lakes to watch the launch. The boat ran for a few seconds and then stopped dead in the water 30 feet from shore. My father and mother debated who'd screwed up while a nearby fisherman pretended we weren't scaring away his catches.

Fifteen people started helplessly at a motionless miniature motorboat in a lake.

We considered throwing rocks to create waves that would wash it back in our direction, but the fisherman probably was already cursing us. There was no wind to base any hopes on being patient. Finally we tried to convince the youngest, Brandon, to go into the mossy green water to fetch it. He was having none of that.

We realized we needed a boat to retrieve the boat.

Fortunately the caretaker at the next shelter had his on a trailer behind his truck. Five minutes later he paddled out to the boat we christened the Titanic II. He held up the little motorboat so we could take pictures of his prize catch.

We tried Wiffle ball instead of boating. I doubt I'll ever be too old to play Wiffle ball. It's ingrained from so many boyhood summer evenings playing against the neighborhood kids in our back yard on Montgomery Street. We played homerun derby mostly. On the roof was a homerun, but if you hit one you hoped the Wiffle ball didn't get caught in the gutter. Game over. Wiffle ball made sense. Eventually, so did Bible stories.

The Cincinnatians went home after church Easter Sunday. DC and I decided to put the screens up on our front porch. Rain the night before made the screens bind a bit. Struggling with one, I fell off the ladder onto the sidewalk. Bruises abound.

Just another Easter Sunday.

Love, Sam

Sam Blackwell is a staff writer for the Southeast Missourian.