I still need to buy a couple of planks for my outside shower. Although it’s sealed up
there are a few ‘peeping’ holes. I seriously doubt anyone can see in there
but it’s the whole psychological aspect that through these holes I can see out. That fact was presented to me this morning when I was taking my shower and I heard someone in a yard next to mine coughing. Or coughed. Regardless
being half deaf
if I could hear it
it was fairly close. It’s a moment like that that I became very aware that I was standing nude outside. So it’s off to the depot this weekend for more supplies.
A while back I read a book by Neil Gaiman by the name of ‘American Gods’. I was vastly pleased with the book considering it was the fact it was the first time I had read this guy’s work. One of the characters in the book was Easter
a pagan god who was still in ‘existence’ because Christians adopted and worshipped a pagan goddess
or more specifically
her holiday. Thinking about this on the way to work this morning
I peeked at wikipedia to see if there was any truth to that.
The answer is ‘maybe’. Eostre was an Anglo-Saxon (specifically German) goddess of fertility. (Why does it always seem most ancient gods were fertility. If people were not so worried about breeding
perhaps we would not have the population problem we have today.) The existence of this Goddess was recorded by a monk named Bede around 600-700 AD. Bede wrote pretty much the first recorded history of the Anglo-Saxons
and he notes in his book that her worship had pretty much died out by time he wrote it down.
The next time any mention of this goddess does not show up until the late 1700’s when Jacob Grimm of the fairytale fame wrote down a number of old Germanic oral traditions that included several stories that contained Eostre references. Modern day Wiccans and pagan offshoots like to incorporate Eostre as part of their celebration of the spring equinox. Since modern wicca is a mish-mash of old gods that look cool cobbled together
much of their Eostre rituals and references come not from the monk Bede
but from Jacob Grimm. Bede never mentioned anything about the spring equinox in association to this goddess. So
like many other parts of their religion
Wiccans and pagans belief system is literally based on fairy tales.
Christendom then overwashed the Anglo-Saxons and the Germans hiked up their lederhosen and kicked out the old goddess. Like many Christian holidays they took the day the people were already celebrating and tacked a new name to it. There has been some speculation that the bunnies and eggs that are associated with Easter are actually left-overs from the fertility goddess. Because bunnies hump a lot and make lots of little bunnies
they are considered a fertility good luck charm.
This made wonder if that was the origins of the rabbit-foot lucky charm. However
upon looking that up the rabbit foot was actually from Voodoo. And for it to be lucky
it had to be the left foot
and you had to shoot it in a graveyard as well. With a silver bullet to boot. No wonder the rabbit foot I got at South of the Border never brought me any luck.
Have a happy Easter
everyone.
2026 Update
Dialing back to 2006, where Ed's biggest Easter worry is peeping holes in his shower planks and a rabbit foot from South of the Border.
In 2006, a man could stand in a plywood shower, hear a neighbor cough, and decide the real issue was psychology. Now that cough would be captured by a doorbell camera, analyzed by an app, and posted to a neighborhood feed before the water got cold. Also, you consulted Wikipedia by 'peeking'—a mid-aughts act of adorable curiosity. In 2026, Wikipedia is a fortress of citations because everyone learned that a random monk and a folklore-collecting brother could be twisted into a modern religion's origin story. The depot run is now a delivery subscription; you'd order the planks from a phone while still dripping. And rabbit feet? Now they come as a DNA-tested, ethically sourced novelty item with a QR code. You, though, were doing primary research: naked, half deaf, listening to someone cough. That's the kind of hands-on scholarship 2026 has largely replaced with scrolling, and honestly? I almost miss it.
“YEAR Ed, after all that research, did you ever actually patch the shower, or did you simply decide the psychological aspect was fine as long as you wrote a blog post about it?” — Beelzebubba the Third
2006 Ed: Well Beelzebubba, I’m betting you already know the answer, and it ain’t the one where I’m standing there with a hammer and a fresh plank. I did make it to the depot this weekend, I swear, but then I got to staring at the different types of wood and somehow walked out with a bag of birdseed and a soda. The shower still has its little peepholes, and my neighbor still coughs at the most awkward moments. I keep telling myself it’s all psychological, and honestly, writing it down in the blog kinda made me feel like I’d conquered the thing, even though the actual holes are still there. I figure that counts for something, right? It’s like my whole life: I research, I ruminate, I buy birdseed, and the planks stay on the list. Happy Easter, and try not to peek.
