Evening star., 1939-04-09
Just
Between
Yourselves
'Pickin'' Eggs Is
Odd Easter
Custom
BY PHILIP H. LOVE,
1ppinv Rfar FA&tar

who's gotta egg? Who wants to
picka me?"
Unless you've been in Baltimore
on Easter Sunday or some time dur
ing the month preceding Easter, the
chances are that you've never heard
that cry.
Boys and girls of the Washington
area take delight in rolling eggs on
the White House lawn on Easter
Monday. And those who, for one
reason or another, don't join the
crowd at the Executive Mansion
well, they get just as much fun and
almost as big a thrill out of rolling
eggs on Capitol Hill, in the parks, or
even in their own yards.
To the average Baltimore child,
however, egg-rolling is merely some
thing the newspapers say that boys
and girls do in Washington. And
to such a youngster, the rolling of
any number of eggs isn't to be COM
pared with good round of "pickin'."
The "pickin' season starts several
weeks before Easter and continues
until every last egg has been either
eaten by its owner or else lost to a
tougher egg in the hands of
worthier picker" Throughout the
"plckin season. boys and girls-and
sometimes grown folks, too-stroll
through the streets, armed with the
hardest egg they've been able to
find. Who's gotta egg?" they yell.
Who wants to picka me? Who's
gotta egg?"
The answer comes. perhaps from a
distance of a block or more: Il
gotta egg! I wanna picka you!"
Continuing their challenging shouts
as they approach each other, the
two egg-toters come together for the
"pickin'.'
Show me somethin'." one de-
mands.
The other grasps his egg in such
a way as to leave only a small part
OF the butt exposed. His opponent
taps the butt with the larger end
OF his own egg. The picker whose
egg cracks first loses the first round
Now comes the turn of the picker"
who first showed somethin'' to his
foe. Show me somethin'," he says,
and the other exposes as little as
possible of the point Of his egg
Thus the 'pickin'" continues until
one or the other egg has been
cracked at both ends, at which point
the owner of the weaker egg sur
renders it to the winner. The loser
then is permitted to try" the WIN
ming egg by tapping it against his
teeth. to determine just how tough
an egg he II need to retrieve his loss.
Thousands of eggs are won and
lost during the 'pickin' season
Before Easter, the "pickers" use raw,
undyed eggs-the idea being to try
TO accumulate as many as possible
to eat on the holiday. After the
generous Mr.. Bunny has made his
deliveries, however, only dyed eggs
are used for ''pickin'.' And, OF
course. while some children win more
eggs than they can hope to eat,
others lose everything in their bas-
kets-sometlmes even the jelly eggs.
Unscrupulous children sometimes
resort 10 trickery in the hope of
winning. Some think themselves
pretty slick when they make the
rounds of the neighborhood with a
china egg, an eggshell filled with
plaster of paris or real egg with
thin coating of rosin over each
end. Such 'sharpers' invariably are
caught on the first ''pickin'" how
ever, and then-well, you can bet
they observe the rules of sports
manship after that!
So far as we know, Baltimore is
the only city in which the odd sport
of "pickin' is practiced. Other
communities have their own peculiar
methods of observing Easter-all
fun, we suppose, for those who have
been brought up to enjoy them. At
our house, however, we still pick
on Easter, even though we're nearly
10 years away from Baltimore and
the neighbors stare as if they think
we're crazy. So-o-o-
Who's gotta egg? Who wants
to picka me?"