Happy Easter. I know nobody mentioned it so far today but I
put it down to everyone being busy with actual Easter Sunday Activities.
We did the normal. Went to Church. Came home and prepared an
Easter Meal. We couldn’t go out to Long Island to see the Family. We had done
that last weekend for Palm Sunday and it took a lot out of us. The whole family
got together and most of them are with their in-laws today. So we took a quiet
Sunday at home.
I remember how it used to be. The whole family would gather
at my Grandmother’s house on Henry Street. She would prepare a feast. Ravioli.
Meatballs and sausage. Lamb and roast potatoes. All kinds of delicious pastries
from the local bakeries. It was a feast.
Every year one of the local butchers ran a promotion. If you
bought a certain amount you got a free chick. Yes that’s right a baby chicken.
Some of them were dyed different colors like they came out of the Easter Egg
that way. Now it was a sad situation for most of those poor birds. The kids
played with them but were often rough and they didn’t last long. Mr. Joe next
store would buy them off of some of the kids and put them in his back yard. You
see he kept chickens and some of them would grow up for the pot. One year my
cousin Anthony and I decided we were going to set them free. We had just seen
the new Movie “Born Free” on TV so we became budding conservationists. So we
opened the window on the Parlor floor front Bedroom and put them on the ledge
so they could fly away and be free. It didn’t work out so well. For the birds
and for us when our parents found out we had done.
All of that kind of stuff went by the wayside long ago.
I took a
nostalgia tour yesterday. I went to a local coffee shop that my friends run. A huge
new joint has opened across the street. It is full of hipsters as it roast its
own coffee and is the latest thing. So it is going to drive my buddy out of
business. Some of the local guys showed up to show the flag but all of the
trendoids will be going to the new joint. I can't go there because I have to be loyal to my friends. So I got a couple of coffees and some gluten free scones and wished them the best.
Then I went past about seven stores
that were empty or had new business devoted to children or pets. The deli is a
doggie day care. The dry goods variety store is a child care joint. The only
place that was hopping was the vegetable were all the local hipsters were
buying one potatoes and one carrot for their Easter feast. How anybody is going
to stay in business is beyond me.
I went to Mastelone’s bakery later in the day to get a tea and buy a raffle
ticket. Every year they raffle off a giant chocolate Easter Egg that weighs
about thirty pounds. I busted their balls all year about the fact that I didn’t
win. The father and mother. The daughter when I was buying cannolis. The son
when we ran into him at Rite Aid the night before. I actually didn’t plan to
buy a ticket. But every time I ran into the father he would ask me if I bought
one. He has been out front a lot more recently. What really surprised me was
how empty the bakeries were this past Palm Sunday. It used to be that the line
would go out the door. But at 11am on Palm Sunday there were only three people
ahead of me. All my age or older. No young people buying cakes or pies. This is
the Holiday where he makes the most money along with Christmas. Easter is a
money maker with the grain pies and pastries and lambs made out of marzipan
cheese. Nobody has bought one as of noon today. They were lined up like broken
down B-17’s in “The Best Years of Our Lives.” So since he was so morose and
worried I bought a couple tickets. A funny thing happened.
I won.
So now I have a thirty pound chocolate egg that we can’t
eat. It is not gluten free so the wife can't have any and I shouldn’t eat it because of my heart. Luckily
it is Easter break and the nieces and nephews are coming for a visit tomorrow
so I will give it to them.
I just hope they don’t throw out the window.
