Wayward memories

By Father Gregory Le Blanc

Pastor, Sacred Heart Parish, Pratt

Among my fondest memories are of my mother’s extended family gathering around the table at the farm for Easter dinner. Actually, to me, it was Easter lunch. Dinner in our house was the evening meal; my grandparents lovingly referred to it as supper. Whatever the nomenclature, we gathered around a table, shared food and drink, and celebrated the newness of life that Easter brings.

Yes, Mass had already been attended, (8 a.m. with 20 miles of driving one-way) -- Protestant grandpa included -- with a newfangled manner of distributing Holy Communion called Intinction. New complete outfits of clothing had been worn, pictures both before and after Mass had been taken, and Easter baskets had been delivered by the ubiquitously phantom-like Easter Bunny. Easter eggs had been hidden, gathered, peeled, eaten and thrown, and mischievously hidden again so that grandma would smell them later with the invaluable help of grandpa.

Grandchildren had been shooed out of the kitchen, windows had been opened, the tables (card tables for the children on the porch; the grownups got to eat in the dining room) had been set, the burgundy Manischewitz had been poured, and everything was ready.

Into this milieu, always one hour early, drove my Aunt Mary and Uncle John, grandma’s sister and brother-in-law. Actually they were my “great” relatives, as they were mother’s aunt and uncle by marriage.

Mary was a large, loud, bossy, brassy broad who made most of us clear the gangplank so that she could make her grand entrance. She always reminded me of Ma Kettle, voice included.

John was a high strung pipsqueak, always nervous, eyes aflutter, always antsy, always rolling his own cigarettes on the distant corner of the couch. He looked like Burt Lancaster and spoke like Walter Brennan.

They had children -- on their own already when I came onto the scene -- and they lived a decent life in town. John had a county job as the maintenance supervisor for the country roads. He sat. He steered. He waited.

Mary did the talking, and the answering as well, my dad would say. John sat silently, martyr-like in the corner, praying for the annual lovefest to be over, or if not over, at least much farther along that it was.

The driving down the lane was the second annual sighting, we might say. The initial annual sighting was walking on the sidewalk going into church for Easter Mass. Year after year for as long as I could possibly remember, hands, hearts and souls in tow we would march into church and be startled out of our very skins by Aunt Mary honking, waving and beckoning all of us to come over to the passenger side of their new car.

“What do you think of our new car?” she would ask to those who were not smart enough to run into church.

“Nice car,” Dad would say. “GM has a fine line-up.”

“Pretty color,” Mother would say. “Is it Desert Tan or Golden Sierra?”

“N-O-V-A; what does that mean ?” I would ask.

“I don’t know and could care less,” she would snottily respond. “Possibly Pig-Latin, but it’s ours!”

Thirty-one years later, I now know the meaning of NOVA; it’s Latin for NEW. Thirty-one years later I now know how appropriate it was for them to annually show off their new Chevrolet on the greatest of days when NOVA really means what it says, for in the natural world NOVA begins to transform into ANTIQUE on day two.

In the supernatural world, NOVA means new not just for one day, but rather, for fifty days. Before we reach the fifty-day feast of Easter, however, savor, enter into, and celebrate the week we call Holy. Great, strange, and wonderful things lie ahead for those who wait.