When I was a child one of my most favorite parts of Easter was a yearly trip to my God Mother's house. We rarely had the opportunity to visit she and my uncle at their home it was almost always a matter of seeing them at our house or my grandparent's. They weren't relatives by blood, but we always referred to them as Aunt and Uncle probably more so out of respect than anything else. Uncle Joe had worked for my Grandfather since the time he was a young boy and stayed on learning all he could about being an electrician at the hands of my Grandfather. His wife became my mother's matron of honor and eventually my God Mother. Unfortunately my memories of them are scarce but there are a few distinctive ones.
One such memory was the name "Mushy Joe". I'm not quite certain where it came from. I always thought it had something to do with a character off of the bazooka bubble gum wrappers. Remember those? They had the little cartoons and you were always real careful to unwrap the gum so as not to destroy the wrapper and miss out on reading the latest adventures of Bazooka Joe and his friends. If I remember correctly, you could collect them as well and when you had enough collected you could mail them in for some cool prize like coveted X-ray vision glasses of which I do believe I am still waiting on. "Mushy Joe" always had bazooka bubblegum on him so to us young children he was of a God-like status. On the occasions when my mother would take us to our grandfather's business we excitedly got out of the car in hopes that Uncle Joe would be there. We were never allowed to call him Mushy Joe. Even though my cousins were able to get away with it, my mother would have had our hides as she would never allow us to address any adult in a disrespectful manner and that was disrespectful as far as she was concerned. I will admit he did have a mushy type expression on his face, but he was a kind and dear man whom I adored.
His wife, my Aunt Louise was an absolute favorite of mine. A beautiful woman with a warm smile and distinctive voice. She always looked so glamorous to me. Being her God daughter, I always got a little something special from her at Christmas time because she made certain to bring my birthday gift over as well. My birthday is two days after Christmas and her gift was the only one I could open early so that she could be present as I did so. There are two gifts that to this day I remember as though it was yesterday. One was my first watch, a Cinderella watch with a beautiful pale blue band. It was far too large for my wrist so for years I would just admire it in my jewelry box. The other was a beautiful doll that I adored. To this very day, my heart still aches for the fact that when she stopped working my mother sent her off to the "doll hospital" for repairs and that was the last time I saw her. I can not tell you how many days I sat anxiously waiting on Mr. Johnson our mailman to bring her back to me, but he never did. Hmmm....maybe it's time I have a long talk with my mother about that supposed doll hospital or put out an APB on Mr. Johnson.
One of my fondest memories of all took place every Easter. It was one of the few times I can ever recall going to Uncle Joe and Aunt Louise's house. It was the highlight of my year however as they had an Easter Egg Tree in their front yard. Legend has it that it was a one of its kind from what I was told. The Easter Bunny himself had planted it. From down the block as we made our way in the family station wagon the site of it beckoned us and all who drove past. It was magical! A special tree that "bloomed" plastic Easter eggs. I'm sure there were probably just a few dozen eggs strung on that tree, but in my memory there were hundreds! Each child had the opportunity to pick just one egg. If you were real lucky...you got the one egg that actually had money in it!!! My Uncle and Aunt never had children of their own and so I know this yearly egg tree tradition was a labor of love and the opportunity for them to do something special for other people's children bringing them much pleasure.
Okay yes...you know what I'm thinking... I'm sure there is some kite string somewhere in my garage and after hosting 2o plus Easter Egg hunts for my children over the years, I have a ton of those plastic eggs available. We haven't gotten around to trimming off the bare limbs on the crepe myrtle out front and it would make for a perfect Easter Egg tree.....to be continued???
