Easter celebrations, when I was a kid, always included (after church, of course) a picnic lunch with my mother’s side of the family, usually at Samuell’s Park, in Dallas, although sometimes we opted for Kiest Park.

A baked ham was accompanied by deviled eggs, baked beans, potato salad and coleslaw, sometimes even Aunt Edna’s world-famous pea salad, if we begged sweetly enough and badgered her into submission. How everyone managed to get all that food into their cars with all those kids, too, is mind-boggling.

And, that wasn’t all! Of course, we had to bring a football, baseball gloves, bats, balls, and even the stuff to build kites, hide Easter eggs and the croquet set – plus!

Who could forget dessert?

Certainly not my tribe, so Mama Loyes always made her very special, diabetic-coma-inducing triple layer German Chocolate Cake, which weighed about 40 lbs., but was so huge even our clan couldn’t gobble it all up in one afternoon. One year, Mama Loyes forgot to bring coffee cups (since she always had coffee in that plaid thermos of hers, but had lost the lid/cup years before,) so my mother fashioned coffee cups out of aluminum foil just for that day so the grown-ups could enjoy some coffee with their slab of cake. It’s a nice memory for me.

I hope all of you are busy on this day of gathering and spiritual celebration making memories with the people you love. It’s one of the reasons we are here, I think, trundling along together, creating some sweet memories which make us look back on our lives with a smile. JS