Jenna

The Great Egg Hunt of 1986 (the first and last)

Several years ago, on an Easter morning while driving the family to church, I heard on the radio that the president was having an Easter egg hunt on the front lawn of the "White House". Well, I thought, I'm as smart as he. Sooo... I announced to the family that we, also, would be having an Easter egg hunt on our front lawn.

Well... that got Ruth (10) and Amy (15) excited in anticipation of the "Big Hunt". And Bev, gave me that surprised look, you know, the kind the wife gives when she thinks you don't know what you're talking about.

Well.... after church and dinner, the girls each selected a container into which to collect their treasures. Amy a small basket and Ruth a 5-gallon pail (Ruth was gonna find eggs "Big Time"). So off they went in search of the elusive egg.

Meanwhile, back in the house, Bev says to me, "When did you hide the eggs?"

I give her that puzzled look.

She says. "Well...ahh...ahh... you didn't? What will the girls say when they don't find any eggs? They'll be upset!"

"I'm not so sure they'll not find eggs," I say, "after all, no one has ever found any in our yard before. So they must all be there yet." You have to understand, Bev was a city girl, not at all familiar with hunting.

So I explained, "Hunting is like this. You go out and look for what ever it is that you're hunting. For instance, when hunting rabbits, you pursue rabbits, you don't go out and hide rabbits. When hunting deer you try to find deer. Or bear hunting you seek bears. The same goes for egg hunting, you search for eggs, you don't hide eggs. Hunting is hunting. Let's see what Webster has to say about hunting.....

"Hunt \"hnt\ vb 1: to pursue for food or in sport; also: to take part in a hunt 2: to try to find : SEEK 3: to drive or chase esp. by harrying 4: to traverse in search of prey hunter n

"..... I see words like pursue, find, seek, search and nothing about 'hiding'. I think that is why it is called 'hunting and not hiding'. I'm sure, the president of this United States has better things to do than to go about 'hiding' eggs on a Sunday morning....or any morning for that matter....

".......I've done a lot of hunting of various kinds through the years, and I didn't always find what I was hunting for and I've turned out pretty normal. Its just part of growing-up! When hunting, sometimes you're successful and sometimes you're not."

Well, the girls didn't find any eggs that day, Ruth was the last to give up, and they did seem a little disappointed. In fact, I've suggested egg hunts every year since but have had no takers. Only comments like "Yeah, sure dad" and "I've got home work I should be doing". Nowhere near the enthusiasm of that first hunt....

Through the years I’ve done a considerable amount of reading about hunting and stuff. I’ve discovered that wolves in the wild are only successful in 5% of their hunts. But the wolves still went out every day to hunt. They didn’t get together and say, “You know... we didn’t find anything yesterday so... I ain’t going hunting anymore!”

I did volunteer to do an egg hunt for the Sunday School kids a couple of years ago. But Bev told them they didn't want me to do it. Maybe the grandkids will take up the egg hunt. I can't figure it out, seems that if there are eggs on the lawn at the White House there're surly be eggs on our lawn.............

2003