Reading the cards like my uncle did
Folks ask why I don't use tarot. Simple: my uncle Roosevelt read a plain deck of playing cards at his kitchen table, so I do too. Hearts for love and family, diamonds for money, clubs for work and worry, spades for the hard things. He'd shuffle, have you cut three times toward yourself, then lay nine cards in a square and talk to you the way a good mechanic talks about your car. Gentle, but no nonsense. Read for a young lady from church this week (she asked; I don't go offering). Nine of hearts dead center, the wish card. Ace of spades down in the corner. I told her what my uncle would have: the wish is real, the hard thing is real, and you're going to have to walk through the one to get the other. She said it was the first reading that didn't just tell her what she wanted to hear. Uncle Roosevelt would have been pleased.