“C’mon, you bunnies and bunnettes, we have eggs to hide! Peter, get your cottontail hopping and take your troops! We have kids to delight! Now, go!”
The Hippity-Hop Queen had assembled her bucks and does for the preparation of the annual Oak Street Easter Egg Hunt. Somewhere in the neighborhood of a million kids were expected to scour her back yard — and her neighbor’s back yard — looking for the eggs her long-eared minions were going to hide there. The Queen had taken a few more days than usual to get ready for the hunt and was frantic to get the last details in place.
Saturday, March 23rd, was crisp and sunny, and I dragged my granddaughter down University Avenue to Oak Street. We sang as we walked: “We’re going on an egg hunt.” But Myah laughed and said that she couldn’t remember the “bear hunt” words to substitute for the egg hunt. This was going to be her third year at that egg hunt, which we discovered after we had spent some time clipping the Hippity-Hop Queen’s flowers, a bright decoration along Oak street. The Queen, when I apologized and asked for permission, told me that Myah could clip her flowers any time that she wanted. And then, oh, by the way: There’s an annual Easter Egg Hunt thing.
March 23rd, 2024, was Myah’s third year of participation in the egg hunt, and as we walked north on Oak Street, we saw children and parents gathered on the Hippity-Hop Queen’s driveway. We climbed the slight incline toward the tables laden with gifts. There was a giant Easter Bunny moving quietly among the children. The Queen advised the children that they could select either slap-bands or costumes as preliminary gifts. She looked at Myah and gave her the choice, and Myah chose a slap-band. She later scammed a costume, but the Queen noted that she had chosen a band, so we gave the costume to another child. When the time for the hunt was ripe, the Queen assigned children 5 years old and under to one yard, and those older, to another. Myah cried out, “I’m 5!” When the hunt was started, she bolted into the proper back yard.
I followed Myah and watched as she foraged in the underbrush, turning over plants and exposing bright eggs. She had brought a basket from home and filled it with those eggs. Her relentless searching, along with the other children in the yard, kept turning up eggs, but when the Queen announced that the time had come for the adults to search for eggs, some of which had gift cards, the adults dragged their children to the front of the house. Myah took the paw of the giant bunny and walked to the front of the house, where a riot of adults was tearing up the yard. The Queen had instructed all the participants to empty their eggs of the contents and return the “locked shells” to her and the hunters complied. Each child was then allowed to select a gift from the “swag table.” The participants and parents then gathered on the Queen’s front lawn for a group photo.
The Hippity-Hop Queen, Dawn Cox Briggs, has been pressing her family into service for 15 years, sponsoring the Oak Street Easter Egg Hunt. This year, they frantically filled 700 plastic eggs with candy. Dawn glowed in the sun of the smiles from that crowd of children and their parents and guardians. Myah topped off the day with her traditional gift from Dawn: She got to clip some daffodils.
Thanks, Dawn. And your bunnies and bunnettes.
cjon3acd@att.net
