I’m happy to report that the Easter bunny has plenty of back-up help from the “Easter ammo” available in our neighborhood grocery stores. As I cruised several of them on St. Patrick’s Day, I saw the rabbit wouldn’t need to travel far to fill hundreds of baskets.
First I found a huge selection of Peeps, those marshmallow confections, AKA the Dentists’ Delight.
Multiple colors and flavors graced the shelves: pink, blue, yellow and lavender, plus green ones in sour-watermelon flavor and a batch in primary colors, flavored like Fruit Loops cereal, according to their packages. Some were free-standing (er, sitting) while others were mounted on cardboard sticks, like giant lollipops.
Next came jellybeans, labeled “bunny beans” by some clever marketer. They came in small, medium and large, with multiple colors and the flavors to match.
And, of course, no Easter would be complete without chocolate – and lots of it. I saw chocolate bunnies of various sizes, in blinding gold foil and naked ones with zoned-out eyes in boxes with clear plastic fronts. I even spied a herd of lambs in white foil.
Pez candy dispensers with either egg or bunny tops waited on the shelves, too, popular since they come with a refill set of candies.
I’ve never figured out what a bunny is doing distributing eggs, but he won’t have any trouble finding them at our grocery stores. The eggs come filled with peanut butter, coconut or vanilla crème.
To my surprise, I found very few egg-coloring kits, but the season was young, so I’m sure they appeared later.
Back in the 1950s, our “kits” were a set of colored tablets which we dissolved in cups with boiling water and vinegar. Remember the little metal wand we bent to rescue the eggs from their colored baths? I dropped more than one creation before the bunny even got a chance to hide it.
Prior to dunking the eggs, I used the enclosed white crayon to write a name on each egg. But since it was white like the egg, I could rarely see what I’d printed. Finally, by junior high school, I got smart enough to use a colored crayon.
A favorite Easter as an adult was the year I got an Easter card from my childhood friend, saying “Watch out for those brown jellybeans in your yard.” I kept it for years. Let’s just say we flat-lander, Old School types don’t have the most refined sense of humor.
Reach columnist Carol McEwen at carolwrites4fun@gmail.com.
