Mixed Metaphors

Like most holidays I celebrated as a child, Easter was a hybrid of religious traditions, the social culture from the generation in which I grew up, and our own ethnic and family rituals, which we repeated in some fashion every year.  

Easter Holidays Past

Note: Includes excerpts from Poop Eggs & Lamb Cakes

Today is the Easter Holiday and Passover. Growing up in the 1950s and 1960s, my family had many traditions which we repeated every year, some with glee, and others with complaints. On Easter Saturday, we’d color eggs, which the Easter Bunny would hide that night. Mom boiled two or three dozen as our family grew. She’d cover the kitchen table with newspaper and the kids would crowd around it with our crayons, the white wax marker to write our names, a spoon in hand ready to dip the eggs in the assembly line of Easter egg dye in her Corelle coffee cups.

Dad would observe and periodically check on our progress, his can of Hamm’s Beer in hand (this too will figure into this memory). After we were finished, one egg would remain and Dad would be ceremoniously beckoned into the kitchen. The last egg was his to transform into the revered Lenzke Family Poop Egg!

Dad, with great fanfare and practiced technique, would begin to dip the egg into each of the colors until it began to change from purple, to green, to burnt orange and brick red. He’d then pour all the egg dyes into the large Pyrex liquid measuring cup until the color changed to inky darkness. To that he’d add the secret ingredient, the remainder of the Hamm’s Beer from his hand. The egg would swim in this concoction until it emerged as the Poop Egg — a perfectly brown egg — not exactly chocolate in color, but more — yeah you get it!

Before we’d go to bed that night, each child would hide their empty Easter Basket for the Easter Bunny to find, and when we woke in the morning, we’d first search for the hidden eggs, followed by our filled baskets. The Poop Egg would be the prized egg to be found on Easter morning. No additional gifts or luck would be attached to it, simply the knowledge and family bragging rights that you found the Poop Egg that year (to read more about Poop Eggs & Lamb Cakes, see the link at the bottom of this essay).  

In the morning, as a young child growing up in the 1950s and 1960s, after the Easter Egg Hunt and finding our baskets full of chocolate, jelly beans, a plastic egg with money, and a toy, children our ages would get dressed up in new outfits for church and a family Easter lunch with our extended paternal family.

This usually precipitated complaints. I’m from the generation when girls would wear dresses with crinoline slips underneath (translate, ‘scratchy’), lace anklets, patent leather Mary Jane dress shoes, white gloves, a new purse to hold a handkerchief, and an Easter bonnet. Photo sessions by my parents, using their Kodak Brownie Camera, would follow. We’d wave at the camera posing in our new outfits. Afterwards we’d pile into the family car, always a Chevrolet, and head off to St. Patrick’s Church.

After Mass we’d take the three floors up to the Gram’s downtown walk-up apartment in Racine Wisconsin, the last one at the end of the staircase at the very top floor of the building. To this day, I can remember the smell of the hallways and stairwell, the particular steps that would creak, and the feel of the polished wooden stair rail on my hand. When we approached their door, you could hear the laughter and voices of our extended family: The Grams, aunts and uncles, including Cookie and Louie, Uncle Fudd and Alice, Betty and Vern, and all the cousins.

Sometimes Uncle Elmer and Aunt Anne would stop by with their three girls. Uncle Wally and Birdie were missing, though they lived just one floor down from the Grams. There was an unspoken history of some past family drama. Uncle Joe and his family couldn’t be with us, they were tending their bar across the street from St. Patrick’s Church, our Parish. The Irish priests needed someplace to go after Mass for their whiskey and beer and Flanigan’s Club 1100 was their favorite destination, where Uncle Joe would often listen to their confessions.

The Gram’s small apartment-sized kitchen was large enough to hold a bounty of holiday fare, including ham, egg buns, baked beans and potato salad, Jell-O molds, celery and carrot sticks, chips and French Onion dip, and the centerpiece of the table, the Easter Lamb Cake. How I loved the Lamb Cake, the white cake with coconut frosting, jelly bean eyes and nose.

 

 

My absolute favorite thing about Easter at the Grams was the afternoon movie matinee. The Grams apartment was probably only 750 or 800 square feet and when it got packed to the max with all the adults and children, it became next to impossible to move from one room to the next. The adults would also begin consuming beer and their conversations and laughter grew louder as the cousins grew more restless. Pat, the eldest cousin would effectively lobby all the parents into allowing the kids to attend a movie matinee, often a Disney film at the Venetian or Rialto Theater in Downtown Racine, walking distance from the Grams. We’d see movies together like Flubber or the animated feature of the year.

Home Alone Easter Holiday

These memories and rituals remain important to me. I will celebrate the holiday alone in my home and prepare and enjoy an Easter Brunch. I’ll call my father and enjoy the photos and stories posted on social media by friends and family as we shelter-in-place with loved ones. A reminder for all of us — it’s even posted in the elevator in my apartment building — “This too shall pass.”

I’m a little stir-crazy since I’ve been staying at home, plus the normal itchy restlessness of Spring Fever is taking its toll. This photo pretty much sums up my status this 2020 Easter & Passover Holiday. Again, this year I’m confident someone in my family will color eggs, including the Lenzke Family Poop Egg, hide baskets, wear new outfits and have their pictures taken. However, the difference will be that we won’t gather as a family in our homes or churches. We will still be together in spirit as we share the stories and memories of our family.

Easter Brunch Menu for One During the Pandemic
(Includes a week of leftovers)

For the past few years as adults, my bio family would gather to celebrate Easter and the April and March birthdays of our father and niece Gemma and nephew Quinn. Since my mother died, I volunteered to make the ham, cheesy hash brown potatoes, and cherry Jell-O that my father loves. Other family members would make baked beans or macaroni and cheese, our mother’s recipe for tuna fish salad, and deviled eggs. Birthday cake would be dessert. Some years I would make an Easter Dinner at home and sometimes invite a friend.

Years earlier, my ex-partner and I struck a deal. We’d alternate between celebrating the holiday with our bio families in Wisconsin and Texas, Easter Brunch with friends, or Easter Brunch at home or a restaurant buffet followed by binge-watching TV series like The Soprano’s or The L-Word, or enjoy the sun, lakefront, and University of Wisconsin Union Terrace.

This year, I’m making a traditional Easter Brunch for One, as I shelter-in-place. Here’s the menu:
• Honey-glazed spiral ham
• Cheesy hash brown potatoes
• Deviled eggs
• Applesauce
• Cherry Jell-O with whipped cream
• King Hawaiian sweet rolls & butter
• Lane’s Bakery blueberry-cheese Racine Kringle.

What Does It All Mean?

I just got off the phone with my father who recently turned 90 on April Fool’s Day. He’s sheltering-in-place at home with help from my sister Kelly and her husband Bill. Dad and I have a standing weekly Sunday phone date. Today, we reminisced about Easter holidays in the past. Since his beloved wife, best friend, and soul mate of 67 years, our mother, died in 2016, Easter hasn’t been the same for him without her. We talked him into Easter celebrations the past few years when we combined them with his April birthday, and the March birthdays of nephew Quinn and niece Gemma. For him, they still weren’t the same without our family matriarch.

Besides our family traditions that we recreate every year during the holidays, our memories of them, especially those we shared with loved ones no longer here, they remain some of our most valuable possessions. They’re not material, instead ethereal, living in the ethernet of our spirits.

Today, Dad reminded me about the traditional Good Friday meal that Mom would make each year. One of his favorites. Because we were Roman Catholic, Fridays were meatless. She’d make salmon patties with her famous whipped potatoes, and creamed peas. Dad also told me that on Ash Wednesday, Mom would make French Toast or pancakes. I’ve noticed during this shelter-at-home period, people are posting photos of the meals they are preparing at home, breads being baked, food carried-out from restaurants, and this week, many breakfast-for-dinner photos featuring pancakes. Families are sharing meals together.

Today, some people will connect to their religious communities and families using Zoom and other virtual tools. We will prepare the foods that represent our religious beliefs and traditions. Easter is a time of rebirth and renewal. It is a season of hope.

Though we are in the midst of dark times, we will rise again. Individuals, families, neighborhoods, religious communities, healthcare providers, first responders, and essential workers are keeping us healthy and safe, physically, emotionally, mentally, and spiritually. Regardless of one’s religious beliefs, or not, this is a time to express our gratitude and love for ourselves and each other.  

Wishing friends and family continued health and the renewal, rebirth and hope the holiday and season promises.

Stay-at-home. Stay safe. Stay healthy.

Related Reading from Mixed Metaphors, Oh My!

To read the entire Dispatch from the Hideout Wisconsin Historical Society COVID-19 Journal from most recent to oldest, click link below:

Dispatch from the Hideout: Endemic Edition

Additional Holiday Reading

Poop Eggs & Lamb Cakes

The Orphan Holidays