EASTER RAIN

                  KARL WALLACE                                                      EASTER RAIN

Easter is on Sunday April 14th                                                                                                         

       Easter was first introduced on a Friday now known as Good Friday. Forty hours was the time Christ had lain that long in the tomb. Later this was extended to forty days in commemoration of the season of the temptation and the I1 fast in the Wilderness. The name Easter is probably derived from the Teutonic 0goddess offspring or 0 whose festival occurs about the same time. The observance of Easter is a Saxon word which means spring and has no connection at all with fasting as some people imagine. It was not until the fourth century that there was any regularity about fixing the date of Easter Sunday.

       Those of the early Christians who believed the Christian Passover to be a commemoration of Christ’s death adhered to the custom of holding the Easter festival on the day prescribed for the Jewish parch the fourteenth day of tile first month that is tile lunar month of which the fourteenth day either falls on or next after the day of the vernal equinox, but most of the Christian churches attach greater importance to the day of Christ’s resurrection I1 held to Easter being celebrated on the Sunday which followed the fourteenth day of the moon of March, the day on which Christ suffered. This difference was finally settled by the council of Nice in the 3rd Century, then adopted, and is still in force. Easter is always the Sunday after the full moon which happens on or after March 21, the vernal Equinox. By this arrangement Easter may come as early as March 21 or as late as April 14^th.

       My sister Jocelyn use to live next door to the Rain Man, the real Rain Man the one that lives in Orem, Utah. My sister and Rain Man were born more than fifty years ago, to be more exact in the year of 1938 on Easter Sunday, on the same day. Rain Man was popularized by Dustin Hoffman in the movie by the same name. Dustin often came to Orem to visit Rain Man. Rain Man's real name is Darley, and unlike the movie he is still in his wheelchair. Darley was just a person until Dustin heard about his ability to solve math problems. Dustin, writers, producers, Tom Cruise and others made the movie “Rain Man.”  The rest is history.

      Darley became very wealthy from the success of the movie and has since been on talk shows, and public appearances. He is still in his wheel chair unable to walk and plans to be with Dustin for a big 50 year birth day year celebration in Orem on Easter. My sister Jocelyn Hickenlooper won’t be at the celebration as she is in heaven. She met Darley at the American Fork Training school when they were sixteen years old.    

To be continued…