I ran into Jane out in front of John Rieger’s farm and feed and tool complex this morning; I picked up 12 small bouquets for the Mansion and Memory Care Center to put on their dining room tables.

Jane looked anxious, and she thought that I was working there for a second. She asked me if the store had a particular flower; her mother loved it and always had one on the table for Easter.

Jane’s mother died some years ago, but she has tried to keep the tradition alive.

She had found the flower inside, but it cost almost $9, and Jane almost broke into tears when she said she couldn’t afford that now. Inflation and gasoline were gnawing through her social security check, and she was falling behind on her bills for the first time in her life.

I suggested she go inside and find John and ask him if there were any less expensive flowers.

I went inside and paid for the Mansion flowers, and as I was leaving, Jane was out in the parking lot beaming and putting a large and beautiful flower – I can’t recall the name – onto the front seat of her car, which looked like it had seen many better days.

“I saw John; he is a wonderful man,” she said, “he insisted I take this flower that my mother loved so much and told me to pay when I could and what I could. He said this was an Easter present.” She was very happy.

If you know John, you know this is not a rare or usual happening. Corporations are all about scale and profit, if you’re out of luck, get lost.

John is all about taking care of his customers and understanding them. His work is a moral obligation, not just a way to make money.

(John And Millie)

He is torn up by the struggles ordinary and older people are suddenly having to keep up with inflation and the rising cost of everything. “The people I see are hurting,” he says, “and it hurts me.”

And he seems to know just about every person who is hurting, every farmer who is struggling, every older person running out of their social security. Corporations don’t really need to know anybody, and Amazon doesn’t care if I am hurting or night and would have no clue, as long as I pay for what I buy.

The Corporation Nation has taken this sense of community and connection, this sense of caring from us; they care only about the bottom line. And we have been bought off by the very lowest prices, which take our moral codes and wash them away.

I think John cares about the bottom line, too, he’s not seeking sainthood, but he also cares about a lot more than that.

John knows he is a dinosaur; the corporate food and feed chains are popping up all over the place, taking over or knocking out every business in their way,  and he is 80 years old.

But he still kicks off Spring with his giant and wildly popular chicken festival – 45 different breeds of chicken sold out in one day. Every farmer in the country knows about it and tries to come.

John loves doing it.

He isn’t just blowing corporate smoke; he cares and feels the pain of others.

I can see it in his face, and I hear it from his many loyal customers.  He has this almost extinct idea that his job is about personally connecting to his customers, staying in touch with them, and helping them.

If you go to Country Power, odds are you will talk to John, and even at 80, he will hop on one of his big tractors to go and get your feed or soil.

Any corporate board of directors would throw him out the window at first sight.

I’ve grown very fond of him, and we both enjoy talking to each other, sometimes jawing like two older men about their bones and doctors, something I rarely do. We tell old man jokes and laugh at our doctors.

But with John, it’s fun; there’s no bite in it. He clouds right up when he talks about the suffering of his customers and farm people.

He has a permanent twinkle in his eye, and we are both fascinated with the other. We have a very similar sense of humor, and love bullshitting.

He admits he has never known anyone like me, poor man; he is perhaps in for a shock or two.

I’ve never been friends with anyone like him either.

John is a farmer; it’s in his blood and bones. He keeps asking me why I’m not planting onions and radishes. I caved in and planted onions. I’m not planting radishes.

We have another lunch together in a week or so.

His office perfectly reflects John, cluttered and warm and genuine.

His family and staff tell me John never rests and works from 5 a.m. to 7 p.m. seven days a week, every week. He often goes to school board meetings; he’s on a school board and has been for years.

John is often driving some giant tractor out to the cards with soil or manure or wood chips when I come. The staff comes in and out with questions, and wife Millie is in the back room keeping order.

I’m grateful to John and Heidi for helping me put this floral program for the Mansion. I’ve been trying to do this regularly for several years, and John and Heidi made it happen.

I want the Mansion flowers to be a twice-monthly project, and John and his daughter have whittled the price down so we can try it. I’m optimistic, and the residents love the flowers.

And I look forward to going to the store and talking to Heidi and John and his wife Millie and Casey, who helps run the vast store. I expect never to set foot in Tractor Supply again; John’s place is the opposite of those cold and bloodless places.

John is a new friend of mine and a perfect one.

I am fortunate to know him. Since Heidi opened up a florist section of his Country Power farm and feed and tool store, I’ve been here several times a week getting my flowers. While I’m alive, I expect the Mansion residents to have fresh flowers to smell and look at with every meal.

John Rieger is a living and breathing demonstration of what the corporate world has taken from us and which we may never get back.

Every morning (one or two weeks off in the winter) from 5 a.m. to seven, seven days a week, you can find John in the very cluttered office of his company, Country Power Products of Greenwich, N.Y. He is always available to speak with anyone who wants to see him.

He is always around to help people who need help. Those small acts of great kindness connect us; we see ourselves in one another. And we come from very different places.

His store is a prominent place that sells a lot of stuff, but it feels like walking into a friend’s cozy living room and sitting down for a cup of tea. John and his wife Millie are my Easter symbols; they embody the spirit of Easter and the idea of love, rebirth, and resurrection.

I see there that love is inside of all of us, but life often pushes it so deep that we can no longer see or feel it. I’m not sure what heaven is, but I imagine we get there by being good and doing good. That seems to be a fading idea in America right now.

On this Easter holiday, I will work hard to be kind and gentle, to recast myself in the mold I wish to be.

The spirit of easter lives at Country Products, and I wish John and his family – and all of you – the happiest of Easters.

In 50 years of running his business, John has somehow managed to keep that personal touch close to the surface. He reminds me that we need one another and need to know one another in order to find love in our world again.