An Easter Story

Easter weekend dawned crisp and bright. The crisp part was completely welcome in an area of the country where the temperatures can easily be in the nineties in April. As the most holy of the holidays prepared to settle into the year, we were invited to a special celebration luncheon at Miss Charlotte Anne's home located in the sleepy historical district in a town of 100,000 citizens.

Visiting Miss Charlotte is like stepping back in time. Not only does she own a historical brick house with a large dias-shaped porch and balconies; Charlotte herself is a lovely, walking salute to history. At eighty-seven-years-old, you would never actually guess her age. She moves around like an eager hummingbird on a pollen search showing that this lady is the consummate hostess.

Out on the patio, there were several tables cloaked in beautiful, colorful tablecloths along with glass and metal pitchers filled with water, tea, and lemonade. Two fine bottles of wine rounded out the drink table. The whole setup was straight out of Southern Living magazine. The second story balconies along with the huge oak trees gracing the large lawn home to rose bushes in bloom beckoned us back to a simpler era.

Miss Charlotte grew up in this town and is a native of this small city. She had lived in this massive brick house since 1955. She is a natural filament in the historical district here where the houses all around us were all built sometimes in the 1920s or 1930s.

“It was 1944,” Charlotte was saying as my eyes swept over the luscious lawn, then back to her. “It was 1944 when the principal called all the classes into the auditorium in September. There was one, big radio there in the school. We carefully watched as the school secretary, Mrs. Hudson, walked up the stairs to the stage, her small hills clicking up the wooden steps. She turned the volume up. As the static adjusted, the radio brought us the Yankees vs. the Orioles from umpteen states away. Just like being at the ballgame,” Charlotte chuckled.

“What a neat story,” a luncheon guest replied.

“Yakee fans here?” another questioned.

“Right,” said Miss Charlotte. “I was surprised to find Yankee anything here!” she laughed. “You know, when Adam was alive, we went to at least two baseball games every summer. The Rangers. He liked baseball,” she added wistfully looking into the distance, beating back the strokes of time that had descended upon the neighborhood.

The great-grandchildren then spilled out onto the lawn in their fresh, blue Easter clothes and impeccable hair.

“Oh, time for the egg hunt!” said Charlotte cheerily.

“Turn around!” her daughter said to the children as they were still hiding a few eggs out in the grass. The daughter then walked to the edge of the patio and hoisted a few colorful eggs into the air, laughing as they rolled away. “A shortcut,” she explained to us.

Then the children were off, scuttering about to find the candy on a lovely day still cool enough not to melt chocolate recalling for many of the guests memories of their own childhood and the ghosts of families faded into the misty perimeter of photographs.

There are many facets of life in the lower states that get a bad rap and rightly so, but the gentle comradery, compelling stories, and a peaceful afternoon underneath the massive canopy of oak trees is not one of them. A quiet, reflective afternoon, special day for the devout, treasuring a bit of history within history as a guest of a hostess who lived part of it, what a gracious day indeed.