Family Traditions

The 30 minute drive to Portland was made, but twice a year, late summer for school shopping and again just prior to Easter. Each spring my mother made sure we girls had little white cotton gloves, patten leather shoes, a purse, a fancy hat and a frilly dress. No matter how cool the weather we wore bobby socks fringed with lace. Whatever still fit from the previous Easter season was utilized and worn again. I would walk into church clicking my heels and swinging my purse as the quarter for the collection rattled inside the all but empty vessel.

Things are so different for us now. I wanted so badly to peel off my jeans and dress in a frilly dress with heels. Certainly, I would have been out of place during our present day Easter festivities. However, the family tradition of sitting around that table after dinner and telling family stories remains. True stories of varying perspectives of running white water with one paddle and a lost canoe, firework fiascos and the hilarity of a wee one's invented words. This is what makes a family a family-celebrations, traditions  and stories that bind us to the past, the present and future. I may not have had a chance to dress up, but the stories certainly made up for it.