Easter Egg Tapping

Many years ago, after relating stories of past holidays and family gatherings, my then young daughter astutely observed, "Traditions ain't what they used to be."  One of the tales told involved Easter and the simple joy accompanying of eating an hard-boiled egg.

Today, in an age of Easter baskets brimming with chocolate bunnies, jelly beans, and candy bars, it is difficult to believe there once was a time when children gleefully devoured colored eggs with a sprinkle of salt.  Yet, like Camelot, there was such a time.

Contemporary Easter basket

Perhaps it wasn't just the hard-boiled egg that brought such joy, but rather the ritual that accompanied it.  We called it bitki.  Others called it tapping Easter eggs.

Russian Easter eggs

Bilki is a simple sport.  All that is required is two participants and a pair of uncracked Easter eggs.  The object is to crack your opponents egg.  The two challengers smack the rounded ends of their eggs against each other until one shell shatters.  The whole egg is declared winner and the owner takes possession of the loser's egg and eats it.  It is also believed the winner obtains a year's worth of luck from the vanquished.

In Ikons: Saint Nicholas the Wonder Worker, I introduced bilki in a scene between Akulina and her father Boris.  Akulina was despondent after Massey emigrates to America and Boris tried to cheer her up with a quick game of bilki.  For the hard-boiled Boris, it was a subtle way to show his love.

* * *

"Come, good luck for the year.  Even the Tsar can use luck, so they say."

Akulina shook her head and continued to attend to Stepha.

Boris walked over to her side, slowly put his arm around her, and said softly, "For Massey?  Bring him some luck."  Gently he led her to the table.

She picked an egg at random and sat opposite her father.  They brought the eggs together, hers cracking the rounded end of Boris's egg, just off the center.

"Someone else gets all my good luck for the year," exclaimed Boris in mock surprise.  "It's all in the wrist," he said softly to himself.

* * *

A winner and loser. 
"© Superbass / CC-BY-SA-3.0 (via Wikimedia Commons)"

Bilki appeared in my third novel, Slogans: Our Children, Our Future.  Following the Communist takeover of Unkurda, the People's Committee did all in their power to stamp out religion.  I wrote this scene to illustrate while religious ceremonies may have gone into hiding, some secular based Easter customs were practiced as a sign of open defiance.

* * * 

Of all the traditions, only the Easter egg continued.  The colorfully decorated orbs withstood the onslaught of freethinking and still filled wicker baskets as in past.  Along with the eggs remained the tradition of bitki.  The sound of butting eggs and laughter was heard for several days following the feast, for bitki was a game without real losers.  Even if your opponent shattered your egg with his, you still could eat the vanquished foe with a sprinkle of salt and wash it down with honey ladened chi

* * *

We still dye eggs during Easter week, but not on the past scale.  The few we do are later chopped up for egg salad sandwiches. I can't remember the last time we tapped them. 

The joy of decorating eggs still remains

Perhaps the downfall of bilki was the advent of the plastic egg.  Those ubiquitous candy-filled orbs are now the target of egg hunts.  As the children grew older, money replaced candy and led to furious competition.  Unfortunately, plastic eggs do not inspire tapping contests.  My daughter was correct, traditions ain't what they used to be.

It's hard to tap plastic eggs

Rockdale School Fire

One of my writing associates is a great believer in totally structured plots.  That is, before he writes his novel, he creates a detailed outline describing each and every event.  I, on the other hand, write organically.  I know where my story begins and ends, but unexpected events crop up that generate new and totally unforeseen scenarios.

Example of An Organic Event

In Chapter Twenty-One of Slogans: Our Children, Our Future, the Peoples' committee of Unkuda  confiscate the dacha of absent aristocrat and turn it into a school for the village's children.

* * *

The estate was as vast as its storied past.  It boasted an immense yellow brick dacha trimmed in blue with a dozen well-lighted rooms, a carriage house and an offset summer kitchen.  Several out buildings sprinkled the rolling grounds and included a smoke house, ice shed, two barns and even a watchman's tower.  The entrance to the grounds was guarded by a massive set of stone pillars anchoring a seemingly impregnable wrought iron gate.  A curved roadway wound through an apple orchard and past sculptured gardens and was designed to impress even the most jaded revelers with the owner's diverse array of flora.  At the terminus visitors were welcomed by a squad of whitewashed Greek columns that stood at attention across the veranda and supported a red-tiled roof soaring more than three stories above a series of curved steps.  At the top of the stairs, a thick wooden double door, twice the width of a stout man, presented the final barrier to the interior.

* * *

Stepha was one of those arriving the first day of school and was awestruck and humbled by a elaborate structure unlike anything he had ever witnessed.

* * *

Stepha followed the designs until they lead to a staircase that bisected main floor and rose up to a mezzanine.  From there the stairs ascended to the second floor and spread to the hallways beyond.  Stepha craned his neck to see the chandeliers hanging high above him and felt light-headed when he tried to grasp the immensity of the building.  His eyes flitted across the ceiling and rested on the figures of angels carved into the corners of the crown molding.  The heavenly beings looked bewildered and stared down at Stepha and seemed to ask, “Why do you desecrate our home?”

* * *

A few months later, Stepha's educational experience took a path similar to mine.  I began first grade in 1948, a week after Labor Day.  As I posted previously, I was the youngest member of our local "gang" and was eager to participate in their mysterious world called school.  In the predawn hours of early November, our world came crashing down -- literally.

At approximately 4:00 am, a fire broke out in our school's kitchen and quickly spread.  As the town's fire department siren wailed, my father burst into my bedroom and outlined against the orange glow of the window told me to get dressed. "Your school's on fire."

Rockdale volunteer firemen hose down the remains of their school

Like my father and I, Stepha and his brother Vanya, rushed to the scene of their burning school.

* * *

Accompanied by the pealing of the village bell and distant shouts, the two hurried from the izbah straight into hell.  The sky was as bright as midday and a cloud of acrid smoke hung over the village like the morning fog’s cloak.  At first, it looked as if the flames were just outside their home, but as they ran it became apparent the fire was farther away.  They followed the beckoning brilliance along the river to its source beyond the village's edge.  The inferno's call led them to the school.

* * *

While the photo below is not that of my school, it is what I remember from that morning and the way I described it from the boys point of view.

Fire engines from several departments assisted the Rockdale volunteers

 * * *

As they grew nearer, they could feel the heat on their faces and hear the crackle.  Fire shot from the windows and door, and crept along the joints of the brick   For a moment thick smoke billowed from the beneath the ground floor, then erupted into a sheet of flame that forced the onlookers to shield their faces.  The crackle became a roar and even the ground around the school was covered with smoke and fire.

* * *

I wanted to write something more dramatic for the source of Unkurda's fire than kitchen grease, so I placed the blame on Simon Petr and his hatred for the the village's new rulers.

* * *

Flashes of flame played across Simon Petr's face and his eyes burned with a fierceness beyond the reflected light.  “Yes, we will pay.  But thou will pay also.  Do thou believe only the guilty wilt learn fear?  No, Boris Lukavich, the innocent shalt learn to fear the ungodly ones.”  Simon Petr then swept his hand across those gathered before him and shouted.  “Perhaps thou more so than I.”

* **

The older boys told me they heard yowls from the trapped custodian's cat during the fire.  Whether it was true or not, the image and sound invaded my dreams.  I decided to pass this experience on to my protagonist and give Stepha restless nights.

* * *

The roaring of the flames mixed with the imagined screams of the caretaker's trapped cats stole Stepha’s sleep for weeks following the school fire.  He huddled on his ledge next to Vanya and tried to dispel the cries by concentrating on the sounds of the long winter’s night: Dadushka snored with a deep rasp, while Mati let out soft puffs and the izbah groaned from cold. 

* * *   

The Aftermath

When I introduced the school fire, I didn't anticipate its importance to Stepha and how the burnt ruins would become the site of many pivotal scenes.  I believe my most moving scene expressing brotherly love takes place within the confines of its charred timbers.

* * *

“Here,” Vanya said taking off his own coat and gloves, “I've warmed them up for you.”  Stepha allowed Vanya to slide his arms into the heated shoba and barely moved when his little brother placed the rukavetsa on his hands.  “I'll leave the ear flaps up,” Vanya said after he put the ushanka on Stepha's head.  “It's not that cold.”

Stepha didn't even object after Vanya donned his own clothing and squeezed in next to him. 

“You ran very fast, Stepha.  I didn't think I could catch you.”  Then Vanya cradled his big brother in his arms and prepared to face a long night.

* * *

Rockdale Public School Today

Both Stepha and I continued our education in new buildings.  Stepha moved over to the carriage house and my class spent several months as guests of the United Sates Navy.  The Great Lakes Naval Training Center allowed Rockdale to use several Quonset huts at the reserve center.  My classroom was the gunnery training facility and contained several varieties of 20 and 40 mm antiaircraft guns.  Playing on those guns during recess is all I recall from those days.

Full Circle

Last week I received a photo of my vacationing grandson.  He unknowingly reenacted my experience from seventy-years ago while visiting the battleship USS North Carolina.

Grandson manning a 40 mm antiaircraft gun