Easter 2026

Alleluia! Alleluia! Blessed Jesus make us rise,

From the life of this corruption 

to the life that never dies.

May we share with Thee Thy Glory

When the days of life are past.

And the dead shall be awakened

By the trumpet's mighty blast!

Happy Easter!

Zeke's Nightmare

Me Uncle John who we sometimes call Zeke worked with me Grandpa Joe in Grandpa's welding machine rental business. At times the pressure of the job got to him.

Zeke came into work one morning looking frazzled. "You okay, John?" my Dad asked him.

"I didn't sleep well," he answered. "In fact I feel like I worked all night."

"How can that be?"

Uncle John explained, "I dreamed I was ill, so I called in sick. But we were so busy that Joe knocked out a wall to my second floor bedroom and had a ramp built up to it, so you guys could bring me welders to work on anyway."

Me Pops just shook his head. "You really need to separate your work and private life better, Zeke."

The Last Words

On Good Friday, it might be instructive to remember the last words of Christ as he hung from the cross. They are:

"Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do." This is our wonderful hope, that God's mercy is greater than His judgment.

"Truly, I say to you, today you will be with me in Paradise." He says this to Saint Dismas, the good thief. I pray he says it to me one day.

"Woman, behold your son; Behold, your mother!" Christ signals that Mary, his mother, is our mother.

"My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" Some take this as Christ despairing, yet he was actually praying the 22nd Psalm, a lament which ends in triumph, and proceeds the more famous 23rd: "The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want."

"I thirst." He thirsts for God's redemption upon us.

"It is finished." Christ signals his work is completed.

"Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit." Christ gives himself up to his God and Father, as we should.

Wild Cards

I've established that me Pops liked to play poker and that he held regular Saturday night games way back when. I asked him once whether he ever held a royal flush, the AKQJ10 all of the same suit. It's the highest poker hand possible, typically. He held royal flushes twice. Yet he lost one time with one anyway.

The games were almost always at his house, and his house rule was that the dealer called the game they were to play while he dealt. Typically it was a standard round of poker and only varied by whether it was draw or stud (don't worry about what those are as it's not important to the story). But he had this one friend, I'll call him Cloyce just to give him a name, who liked to do things differently. Cloyce invariably introduced wild cards into the game.

He might call the well known deuces wild, where twos could be any card you needed them to be. Or it might be one-eyed jacks and suicide kings were wild. He would sometimes call baseball, where threes and nines were wilds. Dad hated such variations. But he felt that in fairness he had to allow them.

Once when Cloyce called for wild cards, me Pops ended up with a true royal flush: 10 through ace, all hearts. No wild cards. Yet he lost to someone holding five sevens: three actual sevens with two wild cards.

That grated him, and I understand why. I think you ought to play the cards true myself. But fair is fair, and at least it wasn't Cloyce who held the five of a kind.

Counting the Days

Am I stupid? Don't answer the question: it's rhetorical, no matter what witty repartee that invites. But to the point: Am I stupid or is that other guy?

That other guy - I'll call him Cloyce just to give him a name - called me yesterday about dropping his machine off for repair. If you haven't already heard, it's been extremely busy at the old barn lately. 11 repairs came in on Friday alone, followed by 3 on Monday as well as some cables to fix. I'm back to where I can't walk around the Shop again. I decided I would take no new work for a few weeks until I could catch up.

Cloyce then calls about his unit. "I'm sorry, Cloyce, I'm too blocked up. I'm not taking any new work until May 1st."

"Okay, Marty, I understand," Cloyce answers.

Two hours later he arrives at the old barn, with his machine. "I know it'll be awhile, Marty, but I figured I'd drop it off to you."

Could I have explained it any better than I did? How could anyone interpret I'm not taking any new work until May 1st as I'd better drop my machine off to Marty today?  By my calendar yesterday was March 31st, a few days ahead of May 1st. Hell, a few weeks ahead of it. 

No, this is not an April Fools joke. It simply feels like one.

Socialism and Exorcism

I've read that the United States Postal Service may run out of money and go out of business by the end of the year. No doubt that's hyperbole, but it wouldn't bother me.

I stood in line for more than an hour yesterday at the main Post Office in Detroit, and I've come to a conclusion. Every kid who thinks they might like socialism ought to be made to wait in line at the Post Office every day for a week. If that doesn't affect their minds properly, there's always exorcism. 

It wouldn't be so bad if this weren't typical. Yet most of the time when I go to the USPS, I wait. And wait. And wait. But when I take my packages to the United Parcel Service, I'm out of there before my grandchildren graduate high school. Kidding aside, at the UPS center I use when I can I've been done in ten or fifteen minutes when there's been a line out the door. Say what you want about big business, and like all human endeavors it has its flaws, response time generally isn't one of them.

One cashier was at the desk yesterday while the line was nearly twenty at its highest. To be sure, several employees wandered in and out. And I mean wander: you'd think they were on a walk in the park. But no extra help was forthcoming.

This is why I pay nearly all my bills online. Although that, to be fair, merits a rant at another time.

Canadian Form

Americans have a tendency to look at all things government and wonder, "How can I circumvent that?" For me a good example lies in a mere traffic signal.

One afternoon I sat in the left turn lane of an avenue which held me still because of a steady red arrow. That arrow meant that I couldn't turn. I found myself asking impertinent questions. Can I turn now? Will I get away with it? How much would the ticket be if not? Would there be points on my driver's license? There was absolutely no other traffic. I could have done it, I could have turned. In the end I waited for a green arrow. Curse your timidly in the face of tyranny, Marty.

Contrast this to the Canadian ideal of simply being nice. As it happened, I was soon after the above related incident driving along a route in Canada with a Canadian friend as a passenger. Caught by a solid red arrow at an intersection where I needed to go left, I asked my buddy if I might ignore the signal. "Oh, bad form," he advised me.

Yanks care about getting away with something. Canadians? Well, you decide.