“I think I’ll have the grilled pork chop,” Cliff Murray said at Mabel’s Grill the other morning.
    “Grilled pork chop? For breakfast?” Molly Whiteside asked as she took their orders.  “Oh no, don’t tell me you’re getting into April Fool’s Day jokes! I get more than I can take of those from my kids at home.”
    “No, it’s not really breakfast for me,” Cliff said. “I was up most of the night while I had three ewes give birth and it’s more like supper for me.”
    “This is when I’m happy to have pigs,” said Dave Winston. “It’s bad enough that planting season is nearly here and there’ll be long hours.”
    “Well, I’ll have a plain and simple bacon and eggs,” George MacKenzie said. “Nothing to object to there – unless your kids are already thinking ahead to Easter eggs.”
    “Oh they’re thinking of it,” Molly said. “My kids are already thinking of the goodies the Easter bunny will leave them.”
    “I’m glad my kids are all grown up,” George said.
    “Remember when there used to be old movies about the Easter parade?” Cliff wondered.
    “Easter parade?” Molly wondered. “What’s that?”
    “It was when fashionable women used to get new clothes for spring at Easter and they had a parade to show off their new hats,” Cliff said.
    “Hats? Who even wears hats anymore?” Molly wondered.
    “Which is why the whole Easter parade went out of fashion,” George grumbled. “Good thing, too. There are enough distractions from the sacredness of Good Friday and Easter Sunday as it is!”
    “Funny, isn’t it, how Easter holiday gets bigger and bigger yet so few people go to church on Easter,” Dave threw in. “Just like the commercial Christmas gets bigger and bigger but fewer people go to church on Christmas.”
    “Well if I don’t get these orders to Mabel in the kitchen, this is going to be your Christmas meal!” Molly said as she broke off.
     “I don’t even want to think about Christmas yet,” Dave sighed. “We had so much snow to blow this winter that I had to get the fuel truck in for an extra load of diesel.” 
    “Yeah, winter this year reminded me of the winters way back when I was a kid, when we missed so many school days we were almost happy when we got to school,” George said.
    “All this talk about the old days, when everyone went to church at Christmas and Easter, reminds me of this old book I pulled off the bookshelf to read while I was up late with the sheep lambing,” Cliff said. “Some book my father used to read – at least I’m guessing that’s how it got on the shelf. It’s called The Big Sleep and it’s a Phillip Marlowe mystery by Raymond Chandler.”
    “I remember watching the old movie when I was a kid. It starred Humphrey Bogart,” said George.
    “Who?” wondered Dave.
    “Here we go again,” sighed George. “Making me feel old.”
    “Mabel was wondering if she could get you something other than a pork chop,” Molly said when she came back to the table. “She has to go shopping later this morning and pork chops are on her list to buy.”
    “How about lamb chops?” Dave wondered. “You should be ready to eat some after missing so much sleep bringing them to life.”
    “Too bad she doesn’t have rabbit on the menu for the Easter bunny,” smirked George.
    “I’ll just have pancakes and maple syrup – making me think of spring,” Cliff said.
    “She just got a couple of gallons of maple syrup delivered the other day from a local farmer,” Molly smiled.
    “Now there’s another way farmers used to lose sleep,” George said when Molly went back to the kitchen. “Today with pipelines and big stoves people don’t have to stay up anymore.”
    “Which leaves sheep producers the only ones losing sleep,” Dave chortled. ◊