homepage Forums Air Combat & Civil Aviation Battle of Britain + Battle of Britain II Here's what happened (Continued)

Folks,

We have 70 degrees F at 11 AM as I begin this text. I expect a toasty afternoon much like yesterday with temps rising to near the 80s. There is a 7 MPH breeze coming from the W at the moment that shifted from the SW when I wasn't looking.

My granddaughter brought me a pretty weed from the garden this morning and insisted I put it in a vase with water. I did that to humor her, and then I put in my sunny, south facing window. Spring is here for sure. It was about this time of year, for 40 years without fail, that my late wife used to go out in the back garden and find a four-leaf clover. She would proudly bring that to me for good luck. I thought of her this morning when I put that pretty weed in water. I have never had much luck finding a lucky clover. I miss that little but touching tradition today.

The annual celebration of Easter comes this weekend for many of us. Our kids are going to church this afternoon to make plain, everyday eggs into gloriously decorated Easter eggs. Surely you know, that is a rite of spring in which the adults hide colorful ,candy or real hand colored eggs in the tall grass of a field or well manured pasture. Then they turn loose a large and excited pack of kiddies who are in various sizes, colors, sexes and ages, to find said eggs. It is meant to be a pleasant outing for the whole family.

Naturally, the biggest kids hold the advantage and this causes distress in the minds of many of the parents of the smaller children. This requires those adults to rush in and rip the eggs from the grasp of several big kids and give them to their small children. Of course this intervention is usually followed by howls of displeasure from the mouths of the parents of the big kids who were just perceived to be robbed. That requires those adults to rush into the milling crowd of children and adults to forcibly return the eggs that rightfully belong to their older children. At this point things can sometimes dissolve into chaos.

The return of those eggs is not missed by the smaller kid's parents, who then rush back in to console their small, crying children. They wish to right the wrong done to them. There is usually much heated bickering amongst the irate parents of all the kids by now but that seldom comes to blows. While this is going on most of the kids have ignored the fuss and happily returned to the egg hunt in an orderly and friendly fashion. Before so very long this return to normalcy by the kids is noticed by the battling adults. Those not attending to black eyes or attempting to staunch bleeding scratches or reinsert pulled out hair just throw up their hands and leave the field of battle more or less friends again. It will be a memorable day for all.