It’s Easter Sunday 1964 in Concord, California, it’s a beautiful spring day and I’m eight years old. I’m wearing the beautiful, new Easter dress and white shoes my mother bought me, an outfit we really couldn’t afford but one she bought anyway because company was coming. I didn’t particularly like dresses because I was a tomboy, but I posed proudly in this one to make my mother happy.
The grandparents and my aunt and uncle are visiting, the drinks are flowing and the hors d’oeuvres are being gobbled up. Meanwhile, the kids are outside playing and enjoying the unseasonably warm weather. The boys go out back into the huge field behind our house and I follow. They discover the dirt is still soft and wet from last week’s rain storm and the soil is just right. Just right for a dirt clod fight.
We divide up into teams and start hurling dirt clods at each other. All you had to do was grab a handful of the tall grass, twist it and yank it out of the ground, dirt clod attached. One swing over the head and it was ready to fly. Bombs away!
Oh, that was a good time. A good time until I got home. My new, white shoes were ruined and my dress was muddy. My mother scolded me and said, “That’s the last Easter dress you’re ever going to get,” and she held true to her word. She never bought me another Easter dress and she certainly never bought me any white clothes again.
Written by Susan 4/1/18