Going "Eastering"

I must preface this post by noting that I am -- and always have been -- a girly girl. The kind who had a pink frilly canopy bed, every Barbie ever made by Mattel, a pet toy poodle AND a Persian cat.

I also loved getting dressed up -- even when it wasn't necessary.

Easter was a thrilling event -- for the goodies the Easter Bunny left in my basket and because I got to go shopping for a "dressy" dress.

Easter 1964 found my family living in Edgewater Park, the subdivision adjacent to the enclosed shopping mall that had opened just the year before -- Edgewater Plaza Shopping City.

It was like living next door to heaven. There was so much to do and see there. That year we found two prospective Easter dresses for me: a pale pink chemise with a delicate, scalloped collar and embroidered pink rosebuds on the placket from Goudchaux and a puffed sleeve whisper of a dress in pale, pale yellow voile with a sash at Gayfers'. After much agonizing, we went with the pink.

But I couldn't get the yellow dress out of my head. Two days before Easter, my daddy came home with Gayfer's signature shopping bag. Inside, wrapped in tissue paper was the yellow dress.

Mama scolded him. I was already spoiled, and I had no where to wear both dresses. Obviously, we couldn't save one as I was sure to be up a size by the next Easter. She urged him to return it.

Nothing doing. I already had worked out the perfect solution: I would wear the pink dress to church and to Nona and Grandpa's house for Easter dinner, and he yellow dress for "going Eastering."

Noting my parents' perplexed expressions, I patiently explained that Eastering was the springtime equivalent of trick or treating (a gig I had just discovered the autumn before). Instead of wearing costumes and carrying plastic jack o'lanterns door to door, children dressed up in their Sunday best and carried their Easter baskets around the neighborhood collecting chocolate bunnies, jelly beans, robins eggs and marshmallow peeps.

Believe it or not, they indulged me (probably because in a few short months I would no longer be an only child). My mother gave the relatives and few neighbors a "heads up" phone call and I, wearing my yellow dress, went Eastering.

I got a pretty good haul, but I never went Eastering again. Surprisingly, my idea did not sweep the Nation. I can't imagine why. I still maintain that it's a darned good idea.

I get one every 20 years or so.

Happy Easter!