Rolling with fun at zoo an Easter Monday rite

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Mo Rouse swears he can still feel the knot on his head even though it has been 40 years since the National Zoo's assistant director of guest services last rolled down Lion/Tiger Hill on an Easter Monday.

"We got to roll, rumble and tumble down that hill," says Mr. Rouse, who memorably bumped his head on one of those plunges.

"It was a high point of our day, when just about every family you knew would pack up a lunch and come to the zoo."

A lot of rolling is still going on the Monday after Easter, and we're not just talking Easter eggs at the White House.

At the National Zoo, the annual African American Family Celebration will have visitors rolling eggs (and maybe a few bodies down Lion/Tiger Hill); grooving to live jazz, drumming and gospel; interacting with storytellers; cheering on a champion double-Dutch team that feeds on audiences' vocal support as members twirl, twist, hop and turn; and meeting with Smithsonian scientists in a daylong celebration of black American family life that features some of the best musicians, artists and artisans the Washington area has to offer.

This year, the zoo's celebration has taken on an important new twist, a collaboration with the Smithsonian's new National Museum of African American History and Culture, which was established in part to ensure that memories of the zoo's Easter Monday celebrations of long ago won't be overlooked.

Mr. Rouse doesn't need that reminder. All he has to do is reach up and feel the memory of the knot on his head, and the past comes rushing back.

"This was our day to shine," says Mr. Rouse, who remembers traveling to the zoo by streetcar from his childhood home on Ames Street Northeast.

"You got your new suit for Easter, and then you looked forward to Easter Monday at the National Zoo."

A long tradition