Growing up in a Southern Baptist household in rural Maryland back in the ’60s, you can bet your sweet corn bread I heard many a sermon of the “fire and brimstone” persuasion. Pastor Warner was fiery alright, though he always started out genteel and conversational-like, telling stories everybody could relate to, eve
n a pre-adolescent pipsqueak like me. But then, about 10 minutes from the final “invitational” hymn, WHAMO! Like an opera by Puccini, the minister’s voice would change gears; his timbre a full-throated crescendo, rhythmic as a hammer pounding out words for sheer effect in the acoustic intimacy of the tiny church. “Rah-pent this day, all ye sinnahs, for tha flames of eeeternal Hell will burn fer all eeeterniteee!”
Easter Sundays were different. For one thing, my mother – probably the only divorced woman in our zip code – a bank teller making something like $50 a week, always bought her only child a fine-looking new dress and patent leather shoes for the grand spectacle at Oak Grove Baptist Church, where throngs of folks in their Easter finery more or less competed for the unspoken – but coveted – “best dressed” award. Until I was around 8, you could be sure the outfit would not be complete without complimentary white gloves and a great big hat. I would cut off that blasted elastic chin strap as soon as I got home from the store so as my cousin Timmy couldn’t pluck it like a guitar string against my fleshy, virginal neck in Sunday School.
Of course, I awoke those spring mornings to the requisite Easter basket filled with green cellophane grass and heaps of jelly beans in Red #40, Yellow #5, Green #3, and Blue #1; not to mention bunches of beautiful pastel foil-wrapped chocolate eggs and, the crown jewel of the Easter candy crowd, a foot-tall, hollow milk chocolate bunny with solid chocolate ears. Breakfast? I was perfectly satisfied; stoked on a massive sugar high which, when combined with Aquanet, to hold my curls after sleeping with mom’s foam rollers, I could recite the week’s Bible verse, Luke 24: 46-47, in 10 seconds flat: Thus it is written, and thus it behooved Christ to suffer, and to rise from the dead the third day: And that repentance and remission of sins should be preached in his name among all nations, beginning at Jerusalem.
The cherub-faced and good-hearted Mrs. Wilson rewarded little devils like me in her Sunday School class with more candy. At least I didn’t have to worry about my front teeth rotting out. When I was 3, I fell face first on an old well at my paternal grandparent’s farm that had been capped with cement. Yup. Lost my front teeth. For seven years. S-E-V-E-N years without front teeth. This disability, for that’s exactly what it was, disabled me from enjoying many food related pleasures using my incisors, the most egregious of which was corn on the cob and an assortment of luscious orchard fruits my maternal grandmother, Granny, grew on her property from apples to peaches, pears, plums, and even apricots.
On the other hand, I was champion material for such human feats as “watermelon seed spitting” or “water squirting” contests, the envy of my male cousins and the boys in the neighborhood. (And, probably a crazy uncle or two.)
Unfortunately, I could not, for the life of me, figure out how to whistle, which was totally embarrassing for a “tom boy” like myself who deemed it a necessity for signaling teammates on the baseball diamond, alerting bicycling pals of my whereabouts among neighborhood streets, or impressing my music teacher, Mrs. Gregory, with renditions of “California Dreamin’“ by the Mamas and Papas, although I doubted Pastor Warner would have approved, anyway.
Now, before I start linking Easter Sundays to headaches – perhaps you’ve started making the connection already – let me say that Easter sermons are about two things: hope and miracles. Both are wonderful things. All the more so when conveyed without so much as a mention of Satan, damnation, Hell, sin, or any other similar eschatological buzz kill. And so, Pastor Warner managed to convince me that, despite my lowly station, what with me having no brothers or sisters, a dad I only saw infrequently, and a mother that worked 40-hour weeks when none of my friend’s mothers did, forcing me to stay with my Granny, that I, too, had hope as my birthright, thanks to Jesus Christ. That I shouldn’t just pray for miracles in my life, I should expect them. After all, he had died a painful, humiliating death on a cross despite a life of good deeds, and was buried in a dark, dank cave yet rose from the dead three days later.
By the time we stood for the closing hymn, “He Arose,” my blood sugar dropped like an Easter egg from the steeple. Small wonder. It had been hours since my Easter basket breakfast bereft of protein, complex carbs, and good sense.
“Mom? Mom?” I began to break out in a cold sweat, reaching for her hand; dots like a pointillist painting by Seurat obscuring my vision.
“It’s coming again, mom, that déjà vu thing.” (That’s what I called it because, well, I had been in this “place” more than once.)
She steadied me as I walked down the aisle, the sun shining through the large stained glass windows taking on another worldliness that made me shutter as, molecule by molecule the light appeared to cling to me. In what I later learned was “migraine aura,” my precocious self took it as some celestial sign I had been chosen, yet again, for some miraculous adventure.
In the meantime, Mom got my half-conscious body in the car and sped toward her twin sister’s house where Easter dinner would be served: ham, baked sweet potatoes with marshmallow topping, succotash, Parker House rolls, and a homemade layer cake with vanilla coconut frosting. I lay on Aunt Rose’s couch, eyes closed, a pillow on either side of my head, to dampen the cacophony of the many cousins, aunts, uncles, and grandmother, assembled.
“Youngin’,” my sweet Granny said, shaking me lightly, “you need some nourishment for that skinny little body of yourn. Get your hands washed and come to the table so’s we can say the blessing.”
Sheepish, disheveled, and a little shaky, I made my way to the bathroom to wash my hands and take my place at the vast dining room table laden with food and eager, smiling faces. I would “come around” eventually; gorge myself on the Easter dinner centerpiece, a brown sugar and pineapple glazed ham as big as my one-year cousin, Rodney, who was mighty big for his age. The salty, tender meat with the sugary kick of the sweet brown sugar and pineapple was absolutely irresistible. Everything else on Aunt Rose’s menu played second fiddle.
My Easter Sunday resurrection was short-lived. After helping clear the dishes, I joined the rest of the cousins for the annual Easter egg hunt on the front lawn. The spring air a tonic that only momentarily cleared my head. But then that blasted tingling started in my lips, followed by the usual building pressure behind my right eye like a sledge hammer out for blood. Mine.
I hobbled to the house and the comfort of my mother’s lap, crying to “just go home.” She would lovingly oblige, put me in bed before the sun went down, and I would sleep for 10 hours straight, dreaming of all the miracles I hoped to experience.
If I lived.
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Footnote: It would take years of anguish in the form of frequent and debilitating migraines before learning I was highly sensitive to artificial dyes and extremely allergic to nitrite preservatives in processed meats including those found in Aunt Rose’s absolutely irresistible Easter ham. It’s a miracle worth celebrating this and every Easter season – or any season, for that matter – that today’s food-conscious consumers can choose foods for themselves and their children without artificial dyes and nitrites, or any processed chemicals. Hallelujah!
Finally, while I no longer consider myself of the Southern Baptist faith, I still consider Jesus Christ a community activist worth imitating, one whose teachings about loving one’s neighbor, forgiveness, and self-sacrifice continue to make the world a better place.
About The Barking Tomato: Carolyn Choate loves to chew on food. Literally and figuratively. In the kitchen from her garden in Nashua or her favorite market, a restaurant across town or across the globe. When not masticating, Carolyn is likely swilling wine or spirits as neither is far from her heart – or lips. Forget diamonds and Louboutins, she’d rather blow a wad on Pinot Noir and grass-fed filet with fresh sautéed morels. And write about it. You taste the picture: The “Barking Tomato” aspires to push your “foodie” button. Carolyn’s day job is producing local affairs programming for WYCN-CD. You can contact her at crchoate@tv13nashua.com.
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