Easter

What do Easter eggs and drag racing have in common? They both will be featured at Mason-Dixon today. The Washington County track hosts both, with the racers having a full program of racing in all classes.Next Sunday, NHRA Championship drag racing returns with a full program. Points earned now will establish who is favored for the season's title.On March 17 Roger Lewis of Bunker Hill, W.V., took the Super Pro title at Mason-Dixon with his '75 Vega. Dave Churchey of Boonsboro won in Heavy class while Terry Smith of New Oxford, Pa., took the Cycle title.

A memorial service for Carol Virginia Easter, a retired hair stylist who was active in church work, will be held at 11 a.m. today at St. Paul's Evangelical Lutheran Church, 1609 Kurtz Ave., Lutherville.Mrs. Easter, who was 69 and lived on Myamby Road in Baynesville, died Saturday at a hospital in Mount Pleasant, Pa., while visiting relatives.She retired about 20 years ago after working for about 10 years at the beauty shop in the Hecht Co. store in Northwood.In 1942, she joined the Women's Army Corps, and in 1945 received a medical discharge after becoming ill.Born in Baltimore and reared in the Govans area, the former Carol Virginia Pettingill was a 1939 graduate of Eastern High School.

THE ARUNDEL Improvement Association's annual Easter egg hunt will take place from 2 p.m. to 4 p.m. Saturday at the Community Hall, 705 Cross St. Children ages 1 to 11 are invited to join.Prizes will be awarded in four age groups. All children will receive candy and must be accompanied by an adult.Volunteers are needed at 7 p.m. Friday to help dye eggs at the Community Hall. Parents are asked to donate cupcakes. For more information, call 789-2192.St. John services226 Washburn Ave, has scheduled a Lenten service for 11 a.m. Wednesday but no evening service.

EARLY ON, I realized that life as lived in the city was not as it was portrayed on 1950s television. We were different. I can still see the No. 8 streetcar riders that Holy Saturday afternoon of 1957 or 1958. The trolley was packed with weary workers and homebound shoppers; some passengers toted packages which I suspected would be soon unwrapped, and their contents donned the next morning. Not all those Baltimore Transit Co. patrons transported Easter finery. Some balanced potted hyacinths and lilies that produced botanical scents so strong you might as well have been in the Druid Hill Park Conservatory.

The Westminster Rescue Mission will sponsor an Easter basket contest this weekend to help needy children in the community.Easter baskets donated to the Rescue Mission will be judged before they are given away.Basket artists will be judged in several categories, including Best Girl's Basket, Best Boy's Basket, Most Colorful, Most Nostalgic, Most Original and Best in Show. Awards will be given to category winners.Participants are asked to attach an index card to the basket with their name, phone number and category.

As the sweet strains of jazz drifted over Baltimore's Inner Harbor yesterday, 75-year-old Willie Frison, impeccable in a white linen suit and hat, found he couldn't resist the temptation to dance any longer.Still footloose and full of spunk, Mr. Frison gave up his front-row seat at the Harborplace Amphitheatre to join four little girls swaying to the rhythm of the Jerry Gordon Quintet."I just love this," he said over the applause of the crowd when the Washington-based group took a break. Wiping his brow, Mr. Frison, who lives in Northeast Baltimore, went on, "I dance all the time.

A FAVORITE springtime tradition continued last weekend as area youngsters were invited to hunt for Easter eggs at Carrolltowne Elementary.The family event has been sponsored by the Eldersburg Super Fresh for the past six years."

The calendar says spring arrives a week from this Saturday.Don't believe it.Baltimoreans know the season of rebirth and kinder temperatures moves in a little earlier.For one thing, the candy makers in the Rheb-Harger family of Southwest Baltimore go into butter cream Easter egg production tomorrow. This event could mark any local calendar as the surest sign that there's a delightful change in the weather."We've been making the coconut, fruit 'n' nut, bon-bon, pecan, marshmallow, raspberry and caramarsh Easter eggs for a little while now. But we hold off on the butter creams until it's a little closer to Easter.

ROME -- Pope John Paul II ended the period of Christian mourning with an Easter vigil service last night, the climax of three days of religious observance in which the pope sought greater involvement for women in the church and for Christians outside the Roman Catholic fold.On Good Friday evening, the pope made an impassioned plea for Christian unity after praying through the Way of the Cross, Christ's path to crucifixion, with meditations composed by a Protestant nun."At this hour the people of God throughout the world gather together to keep watch," the pope said in a sermon prepared for delivery at the vigil service in St. Peter's Basilica.

In a very small way, Mrs. Jaroslava Solhan can hold the essence of her Ukrainian homeland in the palm of her hand.And she passes the soul of her native country along to friends, family and people who know little of her country's story other than the loveliness of the patterns and symbols with which she decorates traditional Easter eggs.All year long, in her home in Curtis Bay, she turns out glowing examples of the traditional craft. There are large goose eggs, duck eggs, grade A extra-large eggs; each one with a rich and colorful coat that celebrates the season.