It is Sunday, April 5.  Happy Easter!  Okay enough of that, now it is time to start getting ready for Memorial Day, the unofficial start of Summer, in 50 days.  Get out the shorts and sun block.  Today we remember the birthdays of Elihu Yale, Giacomo Cassanova and Arthur Hailey.  This is the day (calculated) that, in 2348 BC Noah’s ark grounded on Mount Ararat, it is the day in 1792 that George Washington cast the first presidential veto and the day in 1974 when the then tallest building at 110 stories, the World Trade Center, opened in NYC.  It is the first day of Summer in Iceland, Arbor Day in South Korea and the Death of Chiang Kai-Shek/Tomb Sweeping Day in Taiwan.

I have done some research to try and answer some questions about this holiday that I am sure others beside me have been wondering about for years and here is what I have come up with.  My first question was why is it called Easter?  Easter derives its name from Eostre, an Anglo-Saxon goddess of spring.  A month corresponding to April had been named “Eostremonat” or Eostre’s month, leading to “Easter” becoming applied to the Christian holiday that usually took place within it.

The next question was why is Easter on a different date each year?  Easter is a moveable feast, which means it does not occur on the same date each year.  In Western Christianity it always falls between March 22 and April 25.  The Council of Nicaea (A.D. 325) set the date of Easter as the Sunday following the paschal full moon, which is the moon that falls on or after the vernal equinox.  Why the paschal full moon?  Because that was the date of Passover in the Jewish calendar and the Last Supper (Holy Thursday) occurred on the Passover.

I have also wondered about the significance of eggs for Easter.  In Medieval Europe, eggs were forbidden during Lent.  Eggs laid during that time were often boiled or otherwise preserved.  Eggs were a mainstay of Easter meals and a prized Easter gift for children.  The coloring of eggs is an established art, used to celebrate the season.

So why a rabbit?  Why not a llama or an aardvark?  The inclusion of the rabbit into Easter customs appears to have originated in Germany, where tales were told of an “Easter hare” who laid eggs for children to find.  I was not aware that rabbits laid eggs.  Why would the Germans mislead their children like that?  Since eggs were such a part of the holiday, why not an Easter Chicken?  Anyway, German immigrants to America brought the tradition with them and spread it to a wider public.

When I was a kid, everyone went around singing the song “Easter Parade” which was from the 1948 movie (finally something older than me).  I remember the song and I know the words and I will bet some of you are humming the tune right now, but I have never actually seen an Easter Parade.  I often wondered where the whole thing came from.  Now I know.  After their baptisms at Easter, early Christians wore white robes all through Easter week to indicate their new lives.  Those who had already been baptized wore new clothes to symbolize their sharing of a new life with Christ.  In Medieval Europe, churchgoers would take a walk after Easter Mass, led by a crucifix or the Easter candle.  Today those walks endure as Easter Parades.  All together now – “In your Easter bonnet, with all the frills upon it …”

I hope that I have been able to remove some of the mystery that surrounded Easter things.  I have always had a hard time understanding the thing about how eggs connected to the holiday, but now I know.  I still do not see the whole thing with the rabbit.  The only reason I can see for using a rabbit is so that you can make chocolate rabbits and have ongoing jokes about eating the ears.  I would have thought that you would use something that actually lays eggs, like a chicken or an alligator.  I think it would be cool to have the Easter Alligator.

Think about the fun you could have turning your backyard into a swamp and having the kids slog around in the mud looking for eggs.  You could set up some kind of snapping contraption so that when they grabbed an egg, it could snap and scare the kids.  What fun!  Instead of Peter Rabbit , we would have Gator Scaly Tail.  Here is the new song (to the tune of Peter Cottontail):

Here comes Gator Scaly Tail, crawling down the gator trail, slither, slither, Easter’s on its way.

Bringing every girl and boy buckets full of muddy joy, things to make your Easter bright and gay.

He’s got scaly tails for Tommy, baby gators for sister Sue.  There’s a lily pad for your mommy and a big ole gator hat, too.

Here comes Gator Scaly Tail, crawling down the gator trail, slither, slither, Easter’s on its way.

Imagine the fun kids would have running around with green gator hats on, using their arms like alligator jaws and “chomping” on the body parts of friends and family and yelling Happy Easter.  Think about the fun of eating chocolate Easter Gators.  All the other things could still happen, like egg hunts, but you could dress up like you were going into the swamp looking for them.  The possibilities are endless.  It is too bad that the Germans way back when didn’t have better imaginations.

On a completely different topic, I saw something, recently, that had me shaking my head.  As you know, I am always going on about drivers and how they all seem to be crazy and completely unaware of what is going on around them.  The other morning, I was on my way to the kids’ house to receive a delivery for them.  I was driving on the approach road to the interstate, but the traffic was moving very slowly.  I soon found out why – we were being forced to the right because the left lane was closed due to an accident.  Get ready for it – a woman had driven into the rear end of a marked state trooper car.  How oblivious are you that you drive into a state trooper?  Every time you think you have seen it all, it turns out you haven’t, yet.

This week our fact tells us that in a test performed by Canadian scientists, using various different styles of music, it was determined that chickens lay the most eggs when pop music is played.  I get it, “pop” music.

Happy summer to all our Icelandic friends!