New York Sign Language Spring Comes To N.Y. With the Easter Bunny By BOB YAMPOLSKY	フレームで見る  英文をプリントする  脚注をプリントする
復活祭の卵探しで大騒ぎ 春分の日の次にくる満月のあとの日曜日は、キリストの復活を祝うイースターです。N.Y. では、セントラルパークを会場にニンジン畑に隠された卵を探すイベントが開催。見つけたものは賞品に交換されるとあって、聖なるお祭りは家族連れで大騒ぎとなりました。

In certain parts of the world, I am told, Easter is a holiday celebrating the resurrection of Jesus Christ. But in New York City, we know better: The true hero of Easter is a rabbit.

American children are told that on Easter, the Easter Bunny comes and hides decorated hardboiled eggs, and that it is their task, come Easter morning, to find these eggs. And so on the night before Easter we decorate eggs, and when the children are asleep, the Easter Bunny (that is, the parents) hide them.

I don't remember actually believing in the Easter Bunny as a child, but my own children believe. On the Saturday before Easter this year, I took the kids to an Easter celebration in Central Park — the Easter Eggstravaganza. It started at 11. I timed it so that we'd get there a little early, since I figured there would be a crowd.

I was right. There was a crowd. Or more specifically, there were lines.

We waited on line for the egg hunt for two hours. Yet we were some of the lucky ones. We were about a hundred people from the end, where two policemen on horseback were positioned, making sure that no one else got on line. This led to some tense moments. At one point, a man approached the family in front of us. "This is my only daughter," he said. "Please, will you let us come into the line?" The father being petitioned, in the spirit of the holiday, cursed the petitioner.

Others did not bother asking. One large family just came and started standing alongside us. This made the aforementioned father upset. He called a policeman over. The policeman tried to reason with the offending family, but they simply ignored him. The closer we got to the entrance, the more people cut into the line, until there were about 20 people separating us from the family that originally had been directly in front of us.

I didn't let it bother me though. We were almost there. First came the sign, "Average wait from this point 20 minutes." Then the sign, "The Egg Stroll through the Carrot Patch," and then, finally, after our two-hour wait, our sign for this month, "Please Take 1 Egg or 1 Carrot Only."

So here we were, at the gate to the "Carrot Patch" — a plaza in the park filled with large foam carrots, hay and bunches of real carrots strewn about. A fellow with a walkie-talkie was talking to someone stationed further up the line: "How many more people are there? We're running out of eggs." Another one walked up and down the line, holding a carrot in one hand and an egg in the other. He was saying, over and over, "Only one carrot or one egg. You can't take a carrot and an egg." These were not real carrots or eggs, but plastic, with candy inside.

As we waited, word began to filter through the line: The eggs and carrots held coupons that could be redeemed for prizes. The big prizes — TVs and camcorders and the like — were in the eggs, but most eggs had no prizes. Every carrot had a prize, but the carrots themselves were rarer, and the prizes were of a lower order. I told my kids to look for carrots.

It turned out that they didn't have to look very hard. Just before we were let in, a woman with a box full of carrots was replenishing the supply. What timing! She was evidently tired of the task, for she did not bother to hide them, but rather dumped them in piles.

My kids went and picked up a carrot each. They had something of a dazed look on their faces — two hours of waiting for this? All about the carrot patch were the shells of plastic eggs. It was apparent that people had been opening them up, looking for the prizes. "Keep moving please, keep moving," we were told, and, again, "Only a carrot or an egg. Not both." At the exit was a guard checking to make sure no one took more than his or her share.

We went to pick up our prizes. My daughter, who is 5, got a Bugs Bunny doll. My son, who is 3, won a Nintendo Gameboy and software for a game in which Bugs Bunny goes in search of carrots. This was the top carrot prize, although he did not understand this. His sister understood, though, and immediately began to try negotiating a trade.

The whole celebration was about over when we finally left the carrot patch. We stood on another line for the petting zoo and yet another line for a Meet-Your-Favorite-Characters attraction. Among the characters was, of course, Bugs Bunny. And then, thank God, it was time to go home. At the edge of the park a rather desperate-looking man came up to me, glum-faced daughter in tow. "Listen," he said, "we've got to see a bunny." I gave him directions to the petting zoo, and he said, "Thank you, thank you, thank you." Father and daughter began running towards the bunny. The three of us went home to color our eggs.

Shukan ST: April 30, 1999

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