Remembering Easter in the 1950s...

By Mike Rizzuto

Sun Times Editor

Celebrating Easter in the 1950s was a lot different than it is today, especially for a gullible youngster like me growing up in the country south of Gueydan.

My mother made sure we knew “the reason for the season,” so my older brother, Bobby, and I generally said prayers each and every afternoon with her to make sure we didn’t forget it. For growing boys, praying, when you could have been playing baseball, football, or basketball, did seem like a sort of penance, but it also kept us holy and out of the family’s vegetable garden where we both hated to work.

Bobby and I weren’t even ten-years-old then, so we could both get pretty antsy the night before Easter. We were firm believers in the Easter Bunny, but like Santa Claus, we couldn’t figure out how a littler critter like that could travel all over the world delivering tasty goodies to everyone in just a few short hours. We often waxed philosophically about that possibility, but, alas, were not yet sophisticated enough to surmise the true answer.

Besides, why fool around with menial details like that when you were reaping a fortune in candy each year for believing?

We were told that the Easter Rabbit was a sort of magical creature that was far bigger, taller, and heavier than regular rabbits. I envisioned him as a mystical animal that was half man and half rabbit, dressed to the nines like the flamboyant piano-playing sensation Liberace in a sparkling array of mind-blowing colors and glitter.

I also always pictured the Easter Rabbit wearing a tall pink hat, although I couldn’t figure out quite where his elongated ears would fit in. I always wanted to sneak a peek at him when he entered our home one early Easter morning, but was too scared to risk losing my precious pirate’s share of chocolate loot he delivered every year. Besides, I probably would have soiled my trousers if I ever saw what I envisioned him to be.

The night before Easter had my brother and I dying eggs while closely supervised by Momma. We made a thorough mess of things, combining colors with reckless abandon on the hard-boiled chicken embryos. The only nice looking ones came from Mom, who was far more artistically inclined.

The bad thing about boiling eggs was the foul, sulfuric smell that filled the house and was the source of many bathroom-humor jokes from us brothers. By the time the eggs were dyed, our bodies were tie-dyed with a kaleidoscope of weird colors that we had never imagined. We didn’t that again until the 1960s rolled around and all of those hippies started wearing similar colored stuff. In fact, I had an outfit--purple corduroy pants, green and purple paisley flowered shirt, and white shoes--that I sported many a time to the local singles bars years later. It might have scared away more girls that it attracted, but was a typical teenage phase of life.

But back to Easter. My brother and I each had a large Easter basket, probably handed down from our ancestors. His was bigger than mine, which caused a lot of jealously each year. I asked him once if we could change baskets every year, but was given an emphatic “no”. He loved his basket and figured it was bigger because he was older. Even at that age, I had my brother pegged as a “capitalistic Easter pig.”

After a tense night of fitful sleep, we both raced out to see what the Big Rabbit had brought. The massive haul in the baskets included jelly beans, malt balls, gumdrops, peppermint candy sticks, Gold Brick eggs, and solid milk-chocolate rabbits that we couldn’t wait to put in the refrigerator to get cold. That was the way we preferred them before we started our orgy of chocolate passion. The whole affair kept our sugar levels at all-time highs, and later in life, made our dentists rich filling cavities.

Things have really changed since then. Now, in many families, you can find Easter baskets filled with plastic Easter eggs, sugarless candy, and even vegetables! It’s no wonder why baby-boomers like myself feel the end of days may be near.

Some things, like large, ample Easter baskets, filled to the brim with sweet, delicious Easter goodies, should never be trifled with! It’s one of the few days of the year, like Christmas, where kids reign supreme and the adults take to the sidelines to witness the fun.

And it’s also a time of prayer, especially for all of those atheistic, progressive, Christian-hating bigots in this world who constantly bash The Almighty and treat Him much like the fictional Easter Bunny of my youth. By trying to diminish sacred things, American traditions, and religious holidays by exhibiting jealous fits of anger, rage, and contempt toward all things holy, perhaps they need more Christian attention than anyone.

Even more than a growing child’s wish for a bountiful basket full of sweet, delicious Easter candy like I remember way back in the 1950s!