STATEN ISLAND, N.Y.—As an adult, you’re expected to be the serious one in the room. As a parent, you must be the strong one. But with the news reading as it does, I could personally use a little juvenile humor right about now. Consider a Hershey bar the prize for those who read to the end—because this column is about a high school egg hunt, back in the days of saddle shoes and Sr. M. Charlotte Gulban presiding over things with her nasal South Bend, Indiana twang.
It was 1988. If you can picture St. Joseph Hill Academy’s orange brick building exactly as it stands today, just flip the clock back to girls with big hair and makeup in colors only naturally occurring—as the Hill handbook and Sr. Ernestine so graciously reminded us at the time. It was a chilly, breezy, overcast day, likely carrying the scent of fresh-cut grass in the air. Sr. Charlotte—“Chuck,” to those in the know—was meticulous about the landscaping.
Recollections vary, as they do. For the record, I interviewed my fellow alums and got their blessing to share. Their nicknames—Ang, Walsh and Plumster—are relics of maiden name days, used here for professional reasons.
In front of that building on the hillside down to Hylan, I watched our fellow postman-blue-clad students meticulously hiding Easter eggs in plain sight. Then a door to the social hall smashed open. Ang recalls a whistle blew. As Plumster tells it, word spread there was a prize—maybe a Hershey bar. Either way, there was a golden egg somewhere out there…