Egg hunting lessons

Maybe you heard, as I did, about the Colorado egg hunt that wasn't.

It was in the news recently. An egg hunt in Colorado Springs was canceled due to overzealous parenting. Parents, determined to make sure their egg-hunting kiddies got eggs, jumped a rope barrier and dove in. Organizers simply had enough of the hunt turned hockey game and called the whole thing off.

I bring this up not because I'm eager to shoot fish in a barrel, or in this case helicopter parents in the skies over the Rockies. The story made me laugh, because I thought of my mother.

We had egg hunts too, on the slow-thawing tundra of north Iowa. Maybe there was a little snow on the ground. Maybe we squished a springy muck between our sneakers. There was always a stiff wind, and Easter baskets clutched in mittened hands.

We didn't have 80 degrees in March back then. Al Gore was a nobody.

Some civic-minded group or local business, I honestly forget which one, would cover a large grassy area with assorted candy and eggs, some real and hard-boiled. And a few of those eggs were adorned with an “X.” Find one, and you'd win yourself a real live rabbit, or a chick, maybe dyed purple or pink.

The wind howled, the pastel chicks likely shivered, noses were wiped and rewiped, anticipation rose to a fevered pitch. Then someone yelled “Go!”

My mother was right beside me as I staggered forward into the breach. But her mission was nearly the opposite of our infamous Colorado rope-jumpers. Whenever I found one of those coveted X eggs, she made darn sure I didn't pick it up under any circumstances.

“No, you don't want that one. That's not a good one. Let's find another one,” she would say. I was too cold and egg-shocked to question it. It was all a blur of screaming and running and sniffling.

Mission accomplished. We never went home with a purple pet. An Easter miracle. Bummer for our cats.

I would not fully understand the value of this parental wisdom until later. The girl down the road won a chick, and was eager to show all the neighborhood kids. Another girl down the road, older, and a little clumsy, was eager to show us what she learned at cheerleading.

The chick was running around on the ground. The cheerleader was jumping and yelling. Yeah. Sadly, both the cheer and the chick ended tragically.

So I guess my point is that close parental egg hunt supervision can sometimes save lives. Or maybe chicks and cheerleading don't mix. Either way, Happy Easter.