Tragic But True Easter

I am taking you back to the late 1950's when I was a child growing up in Florida. My dad took me to our local feed store to buy a  Easter chick..

Oh no, not just any Easter chick.

 

I chose a pretty pale pink chick!

Keep in mind this was the late 1950's. Florida even allowed the sale of baby gators back then. That's a story for another time. Back to the chicks...Most states have banned the injecting dye into the eggs just before Easter so that the chicks were born rather colorful.  In my research it appears that a few states and still allow this practice and it appears to be common in other countries. The dye is non-toxic and the color disappears within a couple of weeks.  As an adult I am not advocating dying chicken ...but as a child it was fascinating.

I so loved that little chick and carried it everywhere with me in a cardboard box. If you have ever raised chickens you know they do not stay small chicks for very long! I agreed to take little chick to live on my grandparents farm since she was getting so big.

Several days before our trip to the farm mom and I went shopping. I left little chick in her box and sat it on the bathroom floor.  When we returned from shopping I ran into the house to retrieve chick and to my dismay.....she was floating in the toilet.  I was one devastated five year old!

Years later I married a man that owned a chicken farm.  Yes, 40,000 little chicks were delivered to the farm every few months.  That marriage didn't work out, maybe because subconsciously it wasn't the man I wanted but my little lost chick.