As Easter just passed, I’m reminded of something that was a huge event back in the day. WRKD was the AM radio station and if there were any FM stations, I don’t remember them. Every Easter, the station would hold an Easter egg hunt on the Saturday before Easter. Eggs would be hidden in Rockland, Rockport and Camden. We never cared about the Rockland or Rockport eggs, but the Camden hunt was wicked exciting.

Here’s how it worked. You folks who were not here at the time will probably not believe that what I’m about to write actually happened in Camden, Maine, but this is how I remember it and there will certainly be many comments if I’m off base.

Long before the sun came up, downtown Camden was littered with kids on bicycles and on foot. Anyone who could afford a portable transistor radio had it with them. Various groups would go from place to place before the radio station came on the air based on previous year’s results hoping to score an egg before the hunt officially began. I learned later that some kids stayed up all night watching for the egg hiders.

WRKD would solicit kid-friendly items that would be placed inside eggs hidden around town. At 5 a.m., when the station came on the air, they would start giving clues as to the location of an egg.

Unless you were there, you can’t imagine the scene in downtown Camden before dawn. Groups of kids and bicycles on street corners glued to radios. A clue would come on and we would go in mobs to the spot that we thought the egg was hidden. Sometimes a clever (older) kid would already be there and have claimed the prize. More often, it was a dead end and we would have to wait for the next clue to once again head off in a frenzy hoping to be the one that found the egg.

I can’t begin to explain here the excitement that surrounded this whole event. Kids looked forward to it for weeks, maybe months. Bicycles were examined and prepped for the big day. Radios were checked out and extra batteries were included. Special sites where the AM signal was strongest were identified and participants would go there to get the next clue on a clear signal.

Can you imagine it today, parents? Your kids leaving the house way before dawn to roam downtown Camden on bicycles? No helmets. No parents. No special glow-in-the-dark clothing.

As I recall, there were no police, no traffic control, and very few adults. It was just us kids, having the time of our lives. I never found an egg. It didn’t matter. It was fun for the sake of fun.

I lived a mile out of town on Mountain St., just across from the Carriage Road that goes up Mt. Battie. I got up early and rode my bike to town for the Easter egg hunt and many other kids did the same thing.

As I write this, I can still see myself pedaling as fast as I could to the Mary E. Taylor School or the library or wherever else I thought the eggs were hidden.

I can’t remember what any of the prizes were that were in those eggs, but I know that on that Saturday morning before Easter those eggs contained the most special things on the planet for a young boy in Midcoast Maine.