Jack’s Winning Words 3/4/14
“Let the good times roll!”  (Mardi Gras T-Shirt)  That t-shirt is the French description of the days leading up to Lent, that somber season of penitence.  But, before Lent, Carnival, pączkis, costume parades.  When Ecclesiastes says, “for everything, there is a season,” does it mean, Mardi Gras?  “A time to laugh and to weep, to dance and to give up.”  The “good times” for me are the family times and when the baseball season begins.    ;-)  Jack

FROM HONEST JOHN:  For Cub fans the best part of baseball season is before Opening Day! ====JACK:  If hope is a virtue, my Cub friends are the most virtuous people I know.  My first major league experience was going to a Cubs' game, taken to Wrigley Field by my pastor.  Imagination, enhanced by the enthusiastic Chicago announcers, became reality.  It was awesome.  "When I was a child, I thought like a child."====JOHN:  In 1947 my Dad and I "flew" to Chicago..Midway Airport...took the train to Wrigley and saw the Cubs.   I think Johnny Schmitz pitched.   That is a day I can never forget.====JACK:  You had many "dad" experiences, didn't you?  I remember my dad telling me about playing in a baseball game in Galesburg, IL, against a barnstorming team of major leaguers, featuring 3-Finger Brown. 

 FROM TARMART REV:  It sure does and has for a long time in New Orleans . . . I'm more for the "Metracal, Same Ol' Gal and Sing Along With Mitch Crowd!" ====JACK:  Today, you can sit at your table eating pączkis instead of popcorn.  On second thought, there's probably no place in Willmar where you can buy a pączki.  But you can laugh and dance and throw out beaded necklaces.====REV:  That would be a very interesting sight . . . probably would find myself very quickly limited to my pastoral office and desk having my own "Fat Tuesday!"====REV:  The first time I visited West Bloomfield and came upon the old corner of Northwest Highway and Orchard Lake Rd there was a sign that said "Pasties"... Being a small time Kansas boy from the country, I thought that had something to do with what those girls from the naughty places wore on their bodies...understood later it was something to eat. 0;-/====JACK:  My brother-in-law had a similar experience in Michigan's U.P.  He'd never heard of pasties, and the girl at the place which was selling them got miffed when he asked if she had any pasties (long a)

.FROM BLAZING OAKS:  Paczkis? Pasties? Sounds like a foreign language to me!  It seems like Mardi Gras has deteriorated into much more debauchery in recent years, or maybe the media gives it more coverage. Fat Tuesday in New Orleans is not for everyone, thankfully!  Two of my adventurous nieces took it in a few years ago, and said "Never Again!" My Fat Tuesday, going to church Circle meeting, and out to dinner with friends is pretty mundane, but good for me!! :-)====JACK:  A church member was from Aruba, and I mentioned that I might like to visit there sometime.  I heard that they celebrated Carnaval before Lent.  His advice to me..."Aruba is no place for pastors during that time!"  We've always had the practice in our home of eating pancakes on Fat Tuesday.  Today I pulled a couple of Eggos out of the freezer.  Do you suppose they count as pancakes?

 FROM HCC CHUCK:  I like to think of myself as "A man for all seasons"   it may be wishful thinking????? ====JACK:  Which of the liturgical seasons do you like best?  Oh, that's right....all of them!

 FROM PH IN MESA:  its very cool and wet today in N'Oleans.  wonder how all the parades are doing?    Mardi Gras is French(?) for Shrove or Fat Tuesday, I think.====JACK:  As I recall the word, shrove, has to do with getting rid of your sins.  Mardi is the word for Tuesday and Gras, the word for grease, or fat.  I did get a raspberry pączki, and it was good.