Friday, April 14, 2006

The Ghost of Easter Past

My sister JeanieBeanie GollyGee (middle child in center with white cap, white shoes, and mischievous smile) sent me this antique photo about a year ago. She said it's about 1958, but it looks more like 1956 to me (lower right with finger in eye). That's eldest sister AnnaBanana GollyGosh behind me, arms folded and already a kindergarten teacher at 12. Third sister JoJo GollyBadly, who later became my main ally in the culture wars, is next to Jean in white gloves, poised to kick someone.

Standing guard behind their little flock are Ellen and Chas Golly themselves, better know as Mom and Dad, or nowadays Grandma and Grandpa. Only rarely did Mom wear a hat, and she must have had heels on because she looks taller than her actual 5'8". We're all dressed up for church on Easter Sunday, facing straight south into the glare, probably thinking about chocolate bunnies and painted eggs. The girls look quite spiffy in their new dresses; Mom probably had the sewing machine humming for weeks. No doubt I felt quite grown-up in my jacket and clip-on bow tie. This was like six years before Rock Golly (gleam in Chas's eye obscured by shadow) was born, so I was still the baby of the family.

Our house on Market Street in LaCrosse, Wisconsin, had a nice screened back porch where we would sometimes eat supper in the summer. The back steps behind us served as home plate in an endless series of imaginary baseball games where I played 18 positions plus doing the play-by-play, fielding whatever bounced back when I pitched to the porch. Usually it was the Milwaukee Braves against either the Dodgers (regular season) or the Yankees (world series): "Here's the three-two pitch, Aaron swings, it's a long drive deep to center, it's going, going, no! Mantle makes an amazing leaping catch at the fence to send it into extra innings!"

This was the first back yard I can remember, having moved there when I was three, and the scene of countless games of cops and robbers, re-enactments of World War II (with voice-over by Walter Cronkite), Indian battles, and pastoral cowboy dreams. The wilderness where my friend Mike and I would build forts. The field on which I threw my first spiral, caught my first grounder, and hit my first homer.

Coloring eggs was a big event, and my sisters were really good at it. JeanieBeanie especially would do elaborate watercolor designs on the hard-boiled eggs. That was the Saturday night project, then we would eat the eggs on Sunday morning, dye seeping through to stain the white, with a carefully controlled ration of chocolate.

1 comment:

David said...

Really beautiful!

And a wonderful photo as well.

Thanks VERY much for sharing.