Miss and Mr. Cassette have been so busy with our family over this holiday weekend that I must beg your forgiveness in getting this out rather late. I hope you have had a good weekend as well. If you do not celebrate Easter, I hope that you were able to relax, doing something you love.

 

I’ve been thinking about the Easter Egg Hunts from my childhood lately. I had mistakenly thought that they had fallen out of favor and were no longer, but Father of Miss Cassette corrected me today. He suggested that I was the one out of the loop. After doing a brief search of current  Easter Egg Hunts in the Omaha area, I can see that they are still as popular as ever, both internationally and locally. It is true that I have not traveled in the Egg Hunt circles in a very long time.

 

Although I was not at this particular Easter Egg Hunt, sponsored by the great radio station, KOIL, in 1972, it looks very similar to the ones that I would later go to once we moved to Omaha. My grandmother brought me to one years later and it seems like it must have been in midtown or in south Omaha, judging from the length of car ride from our home in Benson. Of course any kind of car travel to an event That Exciting seemed to last forever—so maybe I was not the best judge of location.

 

I remember having to line up behind a fence or boundary of some kind. There were many children there and I did not know a one of them. I was terribly shy at this point in life. We all had Easter baskets or bags or pillow cases for our potential haul. Surely a whistle was blown or someone yelled, “Go!” and it was every child for herself or himself. Intimidating to say the least, but the promise of that sugary Easter goodness motivated me to certain steady, systematic, swiftness—a rarity for me, if not highly inspired. It was not often that Mother of Miss Cassette would allow me to have candy in those days. But after all, these candies were placed there by the Easter Bunny himself.  I was victorious that day. We all were.

 

I think that the best thing about the Paas Egg Dying kit was probably the illustration on the box because the actual dye wasn’t that great in memory. The copper colored wire egg dipper…precarious!

 

The children at this 1972 Easter Egg Hunt would have seemed like very big kids to me back then. They must be about 52-56 years of age by now. I wonder if anyone remembers the KOIL sponsored events? Brach’s Candies, evidently, was a sponsor also.

 

All of these great egg hunt photos are courtesy of the Amato /General Museum Collection at the Durham Museum Photo Archive.

 

Look at this great photo merge that Ben Perlman of Omaha sent me. He used one of the 1970’s photos from the article above and he took the lower photo at the Dundee Easter Egg Hunt in Elmwood just this year. Thank you, Ben. Fantastic likeness!

 

I welcome your comments and memories. Please click on the header title to enable comments. Thank you, Omaha friends.