By Mike Weland
There’s a bit of magic underway in Bonners Ferry and while some of our neighbors know their roles in the mysterious dance now being orchestrated, there’s only one who knows the whole story.
And while kids will be meeting the Easter Bunny in person before and after the mad dash that is the Bonners Ferry Rotary Club’s Annual Easter Egg Hunt at 11 a.m. Saturday, April 19, don’t think that sly old bunny will tell any of you any part of the secret, not even if you ask nicely.
There may be Easter Bunnies elsewhere who talk, but in all the years our Easter Bunny has paid his annual visit, and it’s a lot, not even the oldest old-timer has ever heard of the Easter Bunny saying a single word. He just twitches his nose and smiles.
Nobody nose … ahem … knows just where all the eggs come from, not yet Easter eggs, mind you, but lots and lots of them, but they turn up by magic in a secret kitchen a lot of Boundary County Easter helpers have been inside through the years, but none have seen the outside.
The helpers aren’t sure just where it’s at, and the Easter Bunny won’t say, not even if you ask nice as nice can be … he’ll just wiggle his nose his eyes will sparkle and he’ll smile.
This year’s helpers; Paula Petesch, Jenny Fessler, Pam Barton, Glenda Poston, Linda Alt and Sandy Johnstone found themselves in the magic Easter kitchen earlier this week with lots and lots and lots of very special Easter-eggs-in-waiting, almost 2,000 of them, needing made ready for the metamorphosis that would transform them from plain-looking eggs into the vibrant and colorful Easter eggs that kids everywhere love to hunt.
And you would think that readying that many eggs for their journey would be a long and toilsome prospect, and you’d be right, but for two things; many hands make light work and, as I said, there was and is a bit of magic underway.
These wonderful ladies were done in no time at all and back home with no one the wiser … save for the Easter bunny, who smiled in thanks and twitched his nose whiskers.
And tomorrow, those Easter-eggs-in-waiting will be seen in public for the first time, ready at last after a few day’s rest for their for their colors to be put on. Legend says that anyone who can handle an egg without breaking it can color an Easter-egg-in-waiting, but for some reason, they are just prettier if the work is done by old people and young people working together, and the place to find old people who won’t break the eggs is the Boundary County Restorium.
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So the Easter-eggs-in-waiting will be delivered there early tomorrow morning, and at 9:30 a.m., the older kids (we’re all really just kids at heart) at the Restorium will be joined by younger kids, this year invited from a Boundary County day care and together they’ll adorn those eggs from Easter-eggs-in-waiting into Easter Eggs, ready to hide but hoping to be found.
And again, you would not be wrong to think that with so many Easter-eggs-in-waiting, it would take almost to the brink of forever to color that many eggs, but you’d be wrong, and I’ll bet you can remember the two reasons why — many hands make light work and there is hippity-hoppity magic afoot!
Why, there will even be time for the kids to have a special Easter egg hunt of their own, only not with real Easter eggs just quite yet, of course.
There are two last mysteries in the tale of the Easter eggs that will appear as if by magic Saturday morning, dotting the fairgrounds lawn just in time for the Easter Bunny to step out of the way at precisely 11 a.m. when the Rotary Club Easter Egg Hunt begins.
If anybody knows how all of those Easter Eggs got there, nobody is saying … not even if you ask real nice.
And the biggest mystery of all … how is it that Boundary County kids can make so many colorful Easter Eggs disappear so fast?
And these mysteries don’t just apply to the Rotary Easter Egg Hunt either … because the very same sort of magic will be going on at the Curley Creek Community Hall Easter Egg Hunt, 7155 Old Highway 2 Loop, sponsored by the Curley Q’s Homemakers and 4-H Club at 10 a.m. Saturday!
Don’t ask the Easter Bunny how … he’ll just smile and wiggle his nose.
