Splashy-colored Easter baskets and plastic eggs are everywhere. The 21st century seems to be updating a lot of the “old ways,” but I still remember some of them.

It was a sunny spring morning, and the long walk to the school bus seemed shorter than usual. The reason had to be the Easter egg hunt that would headline the school day.

Our class would rush the morning work and hurry through lunch on the cafeteria picnic tables so we could get to the big event. High school students would volunteer their study hall time to take the baskets of eggs onto the playground. It would be a BIG hunt because grass never grew on the playground, and there were just so many eggs one could hide under the see-saws. That meant we would go beyond the playground into the tall grass and weeds.

The goose egg would be hidden last and with the most care. After all, it was the grandest treasure of all eggs and meant an instant money prize.

While the eggs were being hidden we would be hiding our eyes with heads down. The giant windows facing the playground were too great a temptation to peek if our arms weren’t wrapped around our heads on our desks.

The teacher would try and keep order as we exited to the hunt, but it was a challenge. At the signal, every student tore for the playground edge via the see-saws which did little to hide their prizes.

I encouraged myself on the way to the bus. I was a year older and a little faster. The older kids had always beaten me to the high grass and the goose egg, but somehow I felt this was THE year of my hunt.

My high school brother, Jack, walked ahead of me to the school bus and began teasing me about my “big basket of eggs.” It didn’t bother me; the teacher had limited our amount to three, and my three were perfectly beautiful. It was a one-time-a-year-task, so I put my best into it.

The bus was late or we were early, but the extra time only allowed for mischief. First it was a “did too” — “did not” word fight. A slight shove or two followed.  “There’s the bus,” Jack yelled as the last shove rocked one of my eggs onto the gravel drive. It plopped without a roll, but I knew it was a serious tumble. As I stooped to pick it up, the other two dumped out, and they didn’t roll either. The screech of the school bus brakes drowned out my moans and wails. All three eggs were cracked into tiny mosaic globs.

That egg hunt was a dismal failure. I knew I had brought the ugliest eggs in school, and I didn’t find the goose egg.

However, Sunday morning made up for all the failures and disappointments I would ever experience because Christ had won the greatest victory, and since I belong to him, he had shared that victory with me. He was and is the true Treasure, and I didn’t have to hunt for him. He found me!

Letters to Camille Anding can be sent to P.O. Box 551, Brookhaven, MS, 39602, or e-mailed to camilleanding@gmail.com.