Easter Manners: Don't be critical or bossy when you color Easter Eggs.

It's not becoming.

Suburban Chicago, April 1964. I am skeptical about the depth of the egg's shade.

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Suburban Chicago, April 1964. Easter-egg coloring was one of the activities in which my Parents indulged our American tastes. I insisted on Paas Easter-Egg Coloring Kits, and I shunned learning the art of making traditional, Lithuanian Easter Eggs. More on that later.

I did not like, however, the cheesy, lame stickers that came with the kits. I thought an egg with laminated-sticker bunny ears looked stupid. I preferred simple, solid-colored, deeply dyed eggs.

One of my peeves with egg coloring was the evenness of the shades. I hated it when a colored egg appeared mottled, or when the ring used to lift the egg out of the dying solution left a mark.