We had a great Easter. The music was wonderful — #2 daughter said something about “braying,” but I enjoyed hearing people rockin’ out on the Hallelujah chorus. You wouldn’t want a recording of it, but the sheer enjoyment made it a pleasure to hear.

Then we had a splendid Easter dinner with family. Bonanza, my brother’s friend whom we met in the hospital over spring break, told us about riding the rails in her youth. She also brought a handsome loaf of whole-wheat bread. My parents brought the ham, which allowed us time to fool around with fancy vegetables and desserts, which are the most fun part of the meal.

#2 son was the enthusiastic wielder of the cleaver and the mixer that morning, with good results in the areas of strawberries, whipped cream, and meringue.

Here is one of the dogs, demonstrating how much fun we all had.

Following all this fun, #2 daughter and I went to the bus station in good time for her to catch her bus.

We ended up staying there for three hours. The bus had had some kind of difficulty on the road, and the driver had turned back to trade it for another bus. We did not know this, of course, so we just sat there for three hours.

“How nice to have the time to visit,” a friend of mine said when I told her that last night. That was true for a while. But our conversation, which began with things like future plans and moral relativism in a pluralistic society, deteriorated into disjointed remarks about passing cars after a couple of hours sitting in uncomfortable chairs in the hot sun and a cloud of other people’s cigarette smoke.

In our town, there is a northbound bus and a southbound bus each day, and that is all. The station is closed on Sundays, so people sit helplessly outside waiting, like some stage production of Purgatory.

A couple of truck drivers, heading to Springfield to pick up their next assigned truck, gave up after a bit and left, planning to drive instead. A mother and daughter, waiting for a friend coming from Mexico, stayed with us and worried. My husband drove down at one point to check on us. He suggested that the bus company ought to have speakers on the walls, with which they would broadcast the bus’s whereabouts and condition every 15 minutes. I love that idea, but don’t think it will happen soon.

As it began to grow dark, a pregnant woman got out of her car where she had been waiting and came to try to use the pay phone. Her mother was on the missing bus, she said, and she was going to call her if she could find enough change. #2 daughter offered her cell phone, and we all crowded around while the woman talked to her mother. This was when we learned about the bus’s mechanical troubles. They were only ten or fifteen minutes away, the woman reported.

Hope sprang anew. The weather seemed cooler. We all smiled again. We began to talk to one another.

The bus arrived. The mother who had provided the good news about the bus sprang down the steps. She was a gray-haired woman with very tight jeans and a large, aging, tatoo-covered bosom spilling out of a tiny tank top. She was one of those women who get stuck with a particular way of dressing — in her case, a rebellious 17-year-old look — but she seemed happy, and her daughter was glad to see her, too. I was thankful to them both.

The expected friend from Mexico was not on the bus at all. After all that waiting, it seemed tragic.

My own daughter climbed onto the bus with her sketch pad, a book, and a package of cold pizza and chocolate to tide her over till breakfast. I assume she got back to school safely.

Today #1 son heads up to Kansas City with friends (and friends’ parents) for a Bob Dylan concert. He is realistic about how Dylan is likely to sound, but aware that there is a historic element to this concert. They will also go to Worlds of Fun, and miss one day of school, so it will count as an adventure.