O.K. So I want to invite everyone to the second annual M-O-M / T-A-T (Machine -O-Mania / Touch-A-Truck) coming up–rain or shine– on Sunday, May 22 from 10:00 to 2:00 at J. A. Garfield H.S.; admission: adults–$5.00, kids–$3.00. It’s a fund-raiser for the Garfield Academic Challenge team, the QuizMasters, and gives kids of all ages a chance to see fire trucks and eighteen-wheelers and the dragster, Time Bandit, bucket lifts, the Portage County Emergency Management Mobile Command Center–giant wheels and engines of many kinds and colors. There will be sirens and bells and noise…what’s not to enjoy? Make it your finale for the big community-wide yard/garage sale this weekend.So you’re invited. You should come…provided Sunday actually comes, that is.See, there is a group of people, a sort of amorphous group, actually, which believes that there will be no Sunday…or at least not one that most of us would choose to experience. Their belief is that on May 21 will come the beginning of the end, terrible earthquakes and all the attendant death and destruction, the beginning of “the Rapture” wherein the saved will be taken up into heaven while the ones “Left Behind” (Remind you of a fictional series? A movie?) suffer unimaginable pain and torture until THE END–really, of the whole thing–comes on October 21. Oh, and Jesus will return in 2050.All pretty scary stuff. It’s pretty largely based on the pronouncements of one Harold Camping, who claims to have unlocked the Biblical code which describes all of this ( Of course, using the proper code, one could probably prove that Queen Victoria was Lady Gaga’s grandma and Newt Gingerich is the Great Satan Oh wait, that one’s true). Now I’m sure Mr. Camping is earnest in his intent and beliefs but he has been wrong before. He previously announced that the world would end on September 6, 1994; his research was incomplete, he now says.Of course, the end of the world has been predicted before. Quite a few individuals have pointed out that the Mayan calendar (which was better than anything your ancestors or mine had at the time) ends with 2012 In 1844, the Millerites sold their goods, donned white robes and gathered on hilltops on October 22 to await the end. Since you’re reading this now, you can see why it was known as “The Great Disappointment.” Charles Taze Russell, founder of the Jehovah’s Witnesses predicted the end in 1914. In 1925, a Margaret Rowan claimed that the Angel Gabriel had set the date for February of that year. Disappointment again. Now since the establishment of the state of Israel in 1948, many feel that the signs pointing to the “end of times” are being made manifest right and left–wars, rumors of wars, destruction of all kinds–earthquakes, floods, etc. But there are some free-lancers out there, like a certain Dorothy Martin whose contact with extraterrestrials led her to announce that the east coast, England and France would be swept away, believers would be transported and the planet was doomed. In 1997 the Comet Hale-Bopp prompted some mass suicides by persons believing that a spaceship shadowing the heavenly visitor would take them all away while the planet was being cleansed and rejuvenated. The Church of Subgenius–headquartered in Cleveland, OH, can–for $30–give you permission to live forever, no matter what.Dr. Jimmy DeYoung of “Prophecy Today” and a Rev. David Jeremiah, presumably with a connection to Family Radio Worldwide where evangelist Camping holds sway, are both on board with this and are probably out there right now running up their credit card bills since they will never have to p[ay them off.Anyway, the Bible says that the saved will be twelve thousand from each of the twelve tribes of Israel. That’s one hundred forty-four thousand, right? There are already more Jehovah’s Witnesses than that. Is there going to be a Great Duking It Out to see who’s really on the passenger list? This could get ugly.And besides, Jesus said that no man would know the day or hour…of the end and the return. They’re going to argue with Jesus???So Happy Birthday, Mom. If the card doesn’t get there, you’ll know why.
