Mackle Park Egg-stravaganza Spring Jubilee

Marco Island hosted the Spring Jubilee,  their annual “Rite of Spring,” on Saturday morning. (Apologies to Igor Stravinsky, whose groundbreaking classical music composition of the same name premiered in 1913). 

The spring classic at Mackle Park is a way to institutionalize the Easter egg hunt many of us remember from our distant childhoods and bring kids together for some fun games and activities, and the chance to get their photo with the Easter Bunny. 

With the price of eggs still a “boiling” hot topic, it is perhaps just as well that all the eggs at the Spring Jubilee were of the plastic variety. Hundreds of children and their parents and grandparents came out to the park to be part of the celebration. The big draw for the little kids, as they entered the park grounds, was the chance to scoop up Easter eggs, brightly colored plastic eggs each with some toy or candy inserted inside. Out on the athletic field, there was no hunting for eggs - which had nowhere to hide in any event – and no mad scramble, as in the old days years ago, to grab as many as possible before another kid snatched them up. 

“The Easter Bunny says one egg per customer,” repeated the volunteers at the various stations where each child collected their solitary sanctioned egg. Christine and George “Geo” Giacobbi from the senior softball league manned one of the stations, putting out more eggs as their inventory was depleted.

Once they had reached their egg quota, children headed to the air-nasium and surrounding areas for more fun and games. They went inside to get their photo with the Easter Bunny, the only activity that came with a price tag, although the five-dollar charge didn’t seem to deter anyone. A backlog of photo sessions with photographer Betsy Sabbides necessitated periodic announcements of the progress and which ticket numbers were getting close. 

When the chance came, some children were rarin’ to go, but other, smaller children had mixed emotions about getting so close to a strange-looking beast. 

DJ Dominic kept the tunes pumping and emceed the hula hoop contests. Games also included “bunny darts,” bowling on the shuffleboard court, knocking down pins decorated with rabbit ears, and the “blasting zone,” where kids pumped on what looked like a classic explosive detonator and was actually a bicycle pump, blowing up a balloon until it got big enough to touch the sharp points on the apparatus and literally blew up. Adam Gwezdz, 10, displayed praiseworthy determination, pumping away and refusing help from his father until he achieved his detonation. 

Volunteers were key to the operation, said Parks and Recreation manager Samantha Malloy. In addition to an “all hands” effort from her staff, 27 volunteers pitched in and kept things running smoothly. 

But with all the focus on Easter eggs, you do have to wonder how come the bunny gets all the attention – where’s the love for the Easter chicken?