I spent the early part of Easter Sunday thanking Jesus for
the sacrifice He made for us. After a few hours my thoughts shifted towards an
extreme dislike I have of the capitalistic aspects of what we've turned Easter
into. Eventually, I shifted to plotting ways to murder the Easter Bunny in a
way that Jesus would approve of. (My logic lies in that the Easter Bunny being
mythical Jesus wouldn’t disprove of a public execution, lol). By midday I have
arrived at my traditional family gathering and I was just enjoying the food and
atmosphere. Until, the egg hunt began that is. That’s when my earlier thoughts
took the forefront of my mind. Then a simple fact that had been overlooked,
something that had been a part of this tradition as long as I could remember
smacked me right in the face. Grandma is a socialist.
Wait, what? A socialist? Then I drifted back to my childhood and I seen
it. Every year, after the egg hunt, my grandmother went around to each child
and made sure that everyone had an equal amount of money and often candy.
I know that socialism is a word that we hardly used in this
country until the scary black guy; I mean President Obama was voted into the
White House and I know that it seems that everyone has a different definition
of the word. But the simplest definition of Socialism is that everyone that
participates gets an equal share.
Now it’s simple to surmise that grandma just wants everyone
to feel included and equal (so evil), she wants to spare the feelings of those
that may not be as fast or as strong (keeps getting worse), she wants to
minimize the chances of someone to have a bad day or memory (someone call a
priest and schedule an exorcism).
My curiosity got the best of me so I did a poll at work. I
talked to eight of my coworkers and all but one of them had similar memories.
The one that didn’t fit in, sadly, their grandmother had passed before their
memory could recall.
So after much thought and deliberation only one question was
left unanswered….if most of us grew up with memories of a wonderful grandmother
wanting nothing more than for everyone to be happy and healthy and equal, that
we came to hate equality (i.e. socialism)?
END OF PART ONE………
