Fog-Soaked Easter Eggs and the Dogs Who Loved Them

(I wrote this for Yahoo Voices' "Easter Memories" section.)

Fog-Soaked Easter Eggs and the Dogs Who Loved Them

Laurie Brown, Yahoo! Contributor Network

Easter morning started early at my house growing up. My dad (aka The Easter Bunny) always played golf at 6am on Sunday mornings and Easter was no exception. We had a decent-sized backyard with lots of good hiding spots so although I was never a witness to it, I think the hiding went quick and easy. These eggs were always ones we dyed ourselves. If it was older kids doing the job the eggs would be the vibrant pink, purple, green and blue depicted on the Paas Coloring Kit. If younger kids had a hand in it the eggs had a tendency to come out a weird grayish-purple from mixing colors and grubby hands. It wouldn't matter though because when all was said and done all the eggs, no matter who the creator, would come out sort of spotted and odd-colored and not really looking like something anyone would want to eat. This was thanks to fog.

It was almost always foggy in the morning in Monterey, California where I grew up and especially at 6am. Set an egg on the grass or behind a bush in the fog, wait two or three hours until the kids got up, and you would find eggs that looked significantly different than the night before. I can still see them clearly...mottled would probably be the best word to describe them. If it was a really wet, drpping fog, much of the dye would wash off and then you'd have a pale egg, maybe slightly sickly looking but still worth money if it was the coveted twenty-five cent egg. Slugs loved these wet, slick eggs and you'd want to pick them off before you put the egg in your basket near your candy.

Of course following their usual morning routine the dogs would go out before the kids and they did some unauthorized egg hunting on their own. Sometimes they liked to boast of their find by carrying into the house a pinkish egg in their drooling mouth. Others preferred to sneak their find off to a corner of the yard and eat it leaving only the bits of colored shell behind as evidence. Once, a black lab belonging to my brother unearthed a long missing egg at a Fourth of July barbecue that both looked horrendous and smelled terrible.

I'm all grown-up now and living in the Midwest. I still dye eggs but they remain the color intended. I have dogs but since I don't hide eggs they have nothing to unintentionally hunt for. It always a very nice day but I do miss those damp Easter mornings with the crazy looking eggs and the happy, smelly dogs.