The Second Best Easter Ever (Blood On the Snow)

The best Easter was undeniably in the year 0 CE. This was when Jesus Christ, a prominent radical Jewish leader, returned from the grave after his crucifixion by the Romans, found several well hidden colored eggs, healed a lame rabbit, and disappeared, thereby predicting there would be six more weeks of winter weather.

The second best Easter was April 1, 1991, in Anchorage, Alaska.

If you think the next story is made up, even the officer's name, then you are mistaken. This is something which, to quote Dave Barry, I cannot make up.

It was a bright day at Russian Jack Park on Sunday, April 1, 1991. The sun was shining on the snow, which was several feet deep in the wooded areas but easily navigable in the main staging area of the Kiwanis Easter Egg Hunt. 15,000 colored eggs had been hidden for the event.

*In doing research for this post I discovered that Kiwanis are not birds indigenous to New Zealand but instead an organization which took the name of a Native American word roughly translated as "we have a good time – we make noise" and was founded in Detroit, Michigan to distribute Christmas basketballs to the poor children. *

The troubles of 1991 ('the troubles' comes from an Irish phrase referring to anytime the shite hits the pub) started when several intrepid egg hunting children were, as quoted in the Anchorage Daily News, "lost in the woods and stuck in punchy, waist-deep snow. Others were complaining of frozen fingers and toes."

The Kiwanisians requested aid with a general child round-up. The aid came in the person of the highly decorated Officer Fred Jones.

Fred Jones walked through the woods into progressively deeper snow. Anyone who has walked in waist-deep snow knows that it puts one at a significant disadvantage when confronted by a local moose. Anyone who has seen a moose in the summer and wondered why the aforementioned Jesus had given it long spindly legs would understand in the winter.

So a moose, attracted either by the eggs, the noise of the children, the cracking of tasty branches as adults, children, and one police officer tramped through the snow, or perhaps looking for another moose with which to have a little back-alley love approached Officer Jones.

Officer Jones tried to move away from the moose and to scare the moose away with the traditional police warning "Freeze, Moose! Step away from the eggs!"

There are not any "No Moose Left Behind" government programs to educate the moose in English, so the moose instead charged toward Officer Jones.

Being stuck in the snow and unable to free himself to avoid being trampled, Officer Jones took the only action available to him at the time.

Officer Jones unholstered his service handgun and proceeded to, in front of hundreds of horrified children, blast away at the moose. Irreparably perforated, the moose fell and bled out into the snow as children fled and cried in shock.

Luckily no people were hurt in the dramatic daylight shootout and a charity was able to salvage the moose meat to feed its congregation.

Children at the event never forget that Easter. They still sing the familiar Anchorage Easter song: "Here comes Peter Cottontail, hopping down the bunny trail, hippity hoppity – wait, it's Officer Fred Jones! Blam Blam Blam Blam!"

It should be noted that the next year Officer Fred Jones decided to take leave during Easter and was out of town on the day of the Kiwanis Easter Egg Hunt and Rotisserie Moose Bake-Off.

And that, boys and girls, is the story of the second greatest Easter ever.

Please pass the jellybeans!

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Also, visit Blue Monkey Jammies
She has a great Easter cartoon!