Kansas Snapshots by Gloria Freeland - April 17, 2026

Last laugh

April 1st. That famous day. The prankster's delight. ... Now, is it just me or does there seem to be a shortage of good pranks these days. You know, you come back from a weekend away and there’s a "house for sale" sign in your front yard. That kind of thing. Are people too busy and harried to put time and effort into practical jokes? ...

... Here are my guidelines for practical jokes: they should be unexpected. Duh! Nobody should get hurt or property damaged. They should be inexpensive, relatively, and they should be funny, eventually, to all involved.

You know, in a way, a practical joke is a compliment. The joker thinks enough of you to go to the effort of giving you a start, a thrill, a laugh, or at least a serious double take. So, show someone you care ... play a joke on them. Happy April Fool’s Day!

So consider yourself complimented because that was my practical joke. Those first three paragraphs aren't mine. They're the words of our good friend John Gibbs from the very first column he wrote more than two decades ago. I liked them so much, I thought they deserved an encore!

We met John through husband Art's high school classmate Jo, who lives in southwest Wisconsin. You might call John a replant, rather than a transplant. From age 6 through 25-plus, he lived in California. He taught high school agriculture classes, married Sarah and the couple had two children, David and Rachel. But John had been born in Wisconsin. Some connections, including an important one with his godmother, caused the Badger State to tug on him, resulting in his going back with his family in 1972.

He returned to his roots in the southwest part of the state when an ag teaching position became available at North Crawford County High School. There, he taught agriculture, welding, and farm mechanics and advised the Future Farmers of America chapter until he retired in 2003.

Unfortunately, Sarah developed a debilitating illness that led to her death in 2020. John had been her loving caregiver for years.

But life can play unexpected tricks on people. Jo's first husband had died in 1986 and she had dismissed any thought that couplehood might lie in her future. Perhaps John had as well, but fate stepped in.

Soon, he was helping Jo with house projects, chopping wood for her wood-burning stove, and putting up a shed and electric fence for Jo’s donkey Scotty and later, donkey Ivy and ram Lorenzo.

We became acquainted with John during one of our visits to Jo's cozy farm home. Over the years, we spent many happy hours with the couple - sipping wine in front of the wood stove, frequenting nearby restaurants, visiting area antique shops and bookstores, attending movie nights at the local library, and shooting the breeze on Jo's porch while watching her cats carousing in the fields and the cardinals, chickadees, finches, and other feathered friends gathering around her bird feeders.

John's the kind of guy who doesn't know a stranger. His laughing eyes, ear-to-ear grin, smile crinkles, good-natured sense of humor, and kindness endeared him to others.

A year ago, Art, Jo and I went to a concert in Chicago and spent the night there. While we were away, John took care of her animals. For good measure, he washed the windows in Jo’s breezeway. I was impressed!

Jo and John loved traveling near and far. They went to California to visit John's friends from his college days and to Oregon to visit his daughter and family. John was especially proud of his grandson Bodhi, who competed in freestyle scootering.

They also went to several states in the Southeast and Southwest. On one of their trips, they spent a night with us in Manhattan, Kansas. They expected the state to be totally flat, but they were charmed by our rolling Flint Hills.

On their travels, they searched out independent bookstores, antique and hardware stores, and museums that told the history of the areas they were visiting. He carried a bunch of postcards so he could stay in touch. They loved nature, bringing back driftwood from Lake Superior, a tumbleweed from Montana, birds’ nests, rocks, and other items that Jo then arranged into beautifully-curated collections.

While John and Art occasionally discussed the details of projects, I always felt it was just an excuse to share "groaner" jokes and puns.

John and I exchanged ideas on books to read and topics to write about. We both started writing columns in the early 2000s. His began on April 1, 2004. It was called "Drift from a Driftless Place," a reference to the part of the state that had not been covered by glaciers during the last ice age.

But we were alarmed when we saw John last September. During conversations, he was having trouble coming up with words. Shortly after, he was diagnosed with rapidly-progressing dementia. We grieved with Jo as she watched the man she loved quickly disappearing in bits and pieces over a period of just a few months.

John died on April 1 - 22 years to the day after his first column was published. Somehow, if he were still with us, bowing out on April Fool's Day might be something he would have relished. We're missing him badly right now, yet that image etched in our memory of his broad laughing smile makes us feel so glad we knew him!