As we walked through the patchy snow to Uncle Lawrence’s sugar shack in the woods behind his house, the pungent smell of smoke greeted us as we drew near the little old shed.
This memory, at least 60 years old, came back full force when my cousin Janet and I shared Easter and maple syrup season recollections during a recent phone conversation. For many years, our families got together during the spring holiday to allow our mothers, who were sisters, to visit either at our home in Bradford, or their home in rural Bradford County in the northeastern portion of Pennsylvania.
One year an early Easter holiday, much like this year, coincided with the maple syrup season and created one of the most poignant childhood memories in my life. My uncle, who was dedicated to making maple syrup from trees on his property, collected the sap the old fashion way by hanging metal buckets on the trees. One afternoon, he invited me, my cousins and siblings to take a walk out through his property to see buckets hanging on dozens of trees, as well as his little sugar shack.
At the time, I couldn’t get over how something so sweet and delicious could come from the top of a little iron stove inside a drafty old shed. After scooping a ladle full of the warm, amber colored liquid from the large pot on top of the stove, Uncle Lawrence instructed us to step outside in the cold early spring air and find a patch of clean snow. (I remember hoping there were no dogs in the area.)
My brothers, sisters, cousins and I found fresh snow and scooped up mounds in our hands for Uncle Lawrence to pour the syrup on. It was absolutely the best sweet snow I had ever tasted, and better than any slushy I tasted later in life. My uncle would later share a bottle of syrup with my folks who were a little less generous with the use of it, preferring that we spread it on pancakes when we got home.
During other Easter holidays we children got into adventures that included scaring each other in a nearby cemetery or visiting a very old farm neighbor named Mrs. Hall. Janet dared me to go and visit Mrs. Hall by telling me she was very old — at least 100 years or more. To a 7- or 8-year-old, that was ancient and would be like turning down a visit to see dinosaur bones at the Smithsonian. After waiting a minute or two for Mrs. Hall to slowly open her creaky front door, complete with a shawl wrapped around her shoulders, my cousin yelled to the centenarian, “Hello, Mrs. Hall, I brought my cousin to meet you!” Looking bewildered, and clearly not hearing what was being screamed at her, she smiled and waved at us to leave, much like one who would swish away an annoying fly.
No meaningful conversation was involved, but I had gotten what I came for, a look at a really old person at her really old unpainted house. I was thrilled.
Other activities included riding bicycles on farm roads, and getting chased by mean farm dogs, coloring Easter eggs and going to church on Easter Sunday. Our folks had the good sense to make us sit in our Easter outfits in the front row of the church. I believe that this wasn’t so much to show us off to the congregation, but to make sure we behaved.
Janet also had fond memories from their Easter visits to our home in Bradford and said this is why Easter continues to be her favorite time of year. They viewed our small town as a metropolitan area since it was so much larger than their farm community.
“I remember the Easter egg fights we had with the neighborhood kids,” Janet said, recalling the young neighbors who lived down the street from my parents’ house. I guess we were mischievous as I don’t remember what started the messy battle that created a lot of laughter and left our dead-end street splotched with colorful hardboiled eggs. Thankfully our parents were too busy with the smaller kids to worry about our whereabouts or what we were up to. They may not have been so forgiving on the matter if eggs had cost what they do nowadays.
Looking back, Janet and I, and likely our siblings, now realize that it was a simpler time for children, as there were no action movies, iPod games or organized play by adults afraid to let their kids out of their sight in a much more dangerous world. We could explore, experience and imagine things on our own. Life was good.
During our conversation, Janet told me that Uncle Lawrence, now 95, had finally stepped back from making his delicious maple syrup as it became too much of a chore. She promised me, however, that she would share with him the sugar shack memories he had created for his nieces and nephews all those Easters ago.
After we hung up, the conversation made me realize that those Easter holidays from years ago were also some of my best childhood memories.
The conversation also made me realize that we adults shouldn’t be too critical about the Easter egg fights or adventures of the little ones in our lives, since they deserve to make some nice memories, too!
(Kate Day Sager was a longtime reporter for the Olean Times Herald and The Bradford Era.)
