Thoughts from Mark "Hat" Rackley

I’m Pink Lady Apple Yeggs and my friend, and brother-in-law, Deviled Yeggs suggested that I record each project that I set up in the hopes of reforming the people who continue to work for Lily the Pink Enterprises.  If for no other reason, it would show how God is at work.

This was going to be a hard day to face.  At least, I thought so at first.  Since I heard from Hugh McAdoo through Mashie Niblick that they were alive, about a week ago, I had heard nothing since.  Surely Gwen could have charge the sat phone and give me a call, but I got no communication.

Mabel was doing the cooking in Gwen Quinn’s absence.  We were having soul food, according to Mabel.  Some were groaning.  Others were in eager anticipation.  All Mabel would say was, “Don’t call my dressing ‘stuffing.’  I did not stuff the bird with it.  And once you taste it, you ain’t never going back to stuffing.  You’ll be having my dressing ‘til the cows come home.”  I doubted that in that we had an expanded dinner party, having added wedding parties to the list of extended family.  Then there were about one hundred employees to feed.  And there were quite a few teenagers here.  Would there even be leftovers?

I approached the microphone.  “Jemima and Easter have an announcement to make.”

Jemima was laughing as she reached the podium.  “Aunt Pink, you have a way with words.  With what Aunt Pink said, I want to clarify one thing.  I am not pregnant!  I have not done anything that might accidentally get me pregnant, although I have tempted Easy a few times.  He is the more stalwart of the two of us.  Really, I think he is afraid of his Dad, since his Dad carries a weapon.”  An eruption of laughter. “No, my announcement is late in coming.  Everyone knows that Easy and I are getting married along side Boaz and Sandy, and since this is Thanksgiving, I want to say thank you.  Here we have the mayor and his first lady sharing the spotlight with a couple of unknown college students.”  More laughter, and a few at their wedding party table yelling, ‘Says the reality TV stars.’

Jemima groaned, “Stars?  No, I don’t think so.  Our channel is adding customers, but we are small time at this point.  But, since our setting of the date was rather abrupt, people are gossiping that I am pregnant and it is a rush marriage.  No!  Easy proposed at Aunt Pink’s wedding reception.  We had just graduated high school.  We were getting ready to go on our first storm chasing expedition.  And I confess.  I went along because my Dad, Rev CSL to some, Reverend Chuck to others, but Daddy to me… He put together his relationship study that he is getting turned into a book.  We were the guinea pigs, so to speak.  He went through the second draft with Boaz and Sandy and Amy and Ralph E.”  A woot from the back.  I had forgotten I had extended invitations to the Niblick and ‘Ralphamy’, Amy G. Dala and her husband Ralph E.  I think she has more money in the bank than I do, but this is not a contest.  Yet, when you are rich and in the news, you get nicknames.  I am glad I stay out of the news whenever possible.

Jemima continued, “No, I went on that first storm chasing expedition to do as Daddy told me, ‘Show interest in what excites your partner.’  But then, I was given the job of filming things, photographing things, and one quick lesson on how to do a time lapse.  And wouldn’t you know it?  My first ever time lapse got national attention with several markets buying it from the university.  That was luck, or God’s blessing, but I realized I had the eye for it.  I was hooked.  But that presented a problem.  I could not exactly be the wife of the driver of the Turtle and be a Mommy too.  So, we decided that at the end of our junior year, we would get married and if I got pregnant and I could take a backseat to Easy’s storm chasing as I got closer to delivery and then the first year.  We had everything planned, except for our accelerated class schedule using online classes and such, the test out program, credit from SAT scores.  We are now seniors, technically, as of the end of this semester.  But then, the reality TV crew showed up.  Even now, B.B. has set up some fixed cameras around the room, and someone in another room in the house is moving the field of vision and zooming in.  I bet if I said ‘zooming in’ one more time, he’ll zoom in to the tip of my nose.  Yeah, Neville, I know your style!”

Mary Sheltie, otherwise known as B.B. (for the Bossy Boss – the director) yelled, “I can always edit that part out, but come to think of it, that might be your best feature.”  The Easy and Jemima table erupted in laughter, and Jemima stuck her tongue out.

Jemima huffed, “Look what clowns I have to put up with!  But the reality TV show now invades every part of our lives.  I can still be a part of the Turtle team even when not travelling with them.  Who knows, if the two at our table that each think themselves to be the boss ever get a guy to propose to them, they might someday face the same dilemma.  So, that’s it.  Easy and I have waited long enough, and whatever happens happens.  And for better or worse, it will be on film.  Just nothing behind closed doors.  That’s off limits.”

Amy G. Dala had walked up while Jemima was talking.  As Jemima walked back to her table, Amy gave me a signal that she had an announcement.  I let her make her announcement.

“Hi, everyone.”  Amy said, “I know I am not an official family member, but while we are talking about the upcoming weddings, and that means all three, I just wanted to add, before the grooms get too carried away with travel plans for the honeymoon, I am donating the airplane and the hotel costs.  As most of you know, Pink Lady and I share ownership in a nice sized jet.  But the pilots work for me, and Pink has to pay me for fuel and pilot hours whenever she uses the plane.  I have an idea where they may want to go, but I am not saying.  And I will outfit the plane to be two separate cabins for ummm privacy.  And I am not bragging about this gift.  I am just announcing it to Boaz, Easter, and Angus to not buy non-refundable travel arrangements.  Airfare and hotel are covered, and the hotel will pick you up from the airport with a sign saying Yeggs wedding party, whatever.  Boaz and Easter will fight over who stays in the Presidential Suite and who stays in the Honeymoon Suite.  It won’t matter.  The two suites take up the top floor of the hotel.”  There was murmuring all around the room.

I regained the podium before the side discussions got too risqué.  “Okay, I have gotten the signal from Mabel that the food is ready.  And last time, Dev did not do what I expected, so I will say Grace.  Rev CSL, I am sure you need a break.  Will you all bow your heads?  Lord, we are here to celebrate a lot of things that we are thankful for, but most of all we are thankful that you call us your children.  But Lord, not all of my children are here.  You know where they are.  You know how close they are.  Lord, please give us a sign that they are on their way.”  I paused to gather my thoughts.

Then Menzie yelled, “Mama Tinkie!  I hear the Whopp Whopps!”

Missy scolded, “Menzie, be quiet.  We are praying.  And don’t get Mama Pink’s hopes up.  She’s been down in the dumps for three weeks.  And I did not hear any whopp whopps.”

“But, Mommy, I heard them.”

As the murmur got lower, I continued, “While we are all in nervous anticipation, Lord, we know your will be done.  We will carry on with this meal and find out later where our missing family is.”

Then Dr. Kildare shouted, “I’m with the little girl.  I heard the whopp whopps.”

Mashie corrected him, “Sir, you may be a college professor, but the technical turn is ‘chuff.’  The blades make a noise as they spin that is like a mini-sonic boom and it is called chuffing.”

Then Dr. Kildare replied, “Well, isn’t that special from a golf course greenskeeper, like they know such things, but I like the little girl’s name for it better.”

Then Poached said, “And what I just saw lowering past our view into shipping and receiving was no Blackhawk.  It was huge.”

The door burst open and Julia was frantic.  “Sandy, Missy, we have a problem.  There is a huge helicopter in the shipping and receiving truck parking area.  If we were receiving anything, there would be no room.  They do not identify themselves.  They just sit there.  What do I do?”

Missy groaned, “We have been over this, Julia.  You stand far enough away to not be affected by the helicopter wash and you stand your ground.  Do not approach them unless they ask you to come over.  They will probably tell you to duck your head and walk from a specific point straight to them.  But most of the time, the door will open, and someone will come out and then you can figure out what is going on.  It’s not that hard.”

Julia started to shake, “But when we watched the video of you doing that with some people in a helicopter, the helicopter was like a horse.  And this helicopter is like an elephant or even bigger.”

Mashie got up to go to the ‘helipad.’  “Pink Lady, sounds like a Super Stallion or something along those lines.  The span of the props is 24 meters, or nearly 80 feet.  Since a normal traffic lane is 14 feet, we are looking at something that can cork a five-lane highway, plus half another lane.  I’ll go check it out.  Pauline, are you with me?”  She nodded.  And I said that I would not miss it either.  Julia led the way.

In my absence, Deviled Yeggs approached the podium.  “Pink said I messed up the blessing last time, but maybe I can fill in since she forgot an important part.  Dear Lord, bless this food.  We owe all this to you.  And bless the hands that prepared it.  And Lord, you have a way of answering our prayers at the last minute.  When that happens, those who have prayed continuously know that this was You who is answering their prayers.  In your name we pray, Amen.”

When the Niblicks and I arrived, my hair was being blown by the helicopter wash.  My hair seemed like a flag that was flying.  Gwen had never seen me without my hair in a bun, nor with pink hair.  Mashie pointed to the tail ramp.  He said that the Super Stallion was being phased out and since this was Navy, it could be a Sea Dragon or one of the new King Stallions.  He said the Russians had the largest helicopter, but if it was a King Stallion, it would be our largest.  The ramp was starting to lower.  When it reached the ground, Gwen came running toward us.

Gwen threw her arms around me.  “Pink, I did not recognize you at first.  I had to look through a spyglass.  Sorry, it was a remote sight for a weapon that is not mounted.  Where is everyone else?”

“We grew so much this past year that we have turned the conference room in the cider house into a dining room for the employees, but right now, it is our party room.  Everyone is waiting, but where is GrandPa?” I asked.

Gwen sighed, “The doctor is unlocking the restraints on Millie’s wheelchair.  We were carrying so much oxygen, they were afraid a Blackhawk might not hold everything.  Well, that and the baby formula.”

I laughed, “Gwen, we have a nursery now.  We are fully stocked.”

Gwen shook her head, “No, Millie is holding Catalina.  She is our latest adopted child, four months old.  Her entire family is gone, and Hugh said he would look for my sat phone.  It has all my pictures and I want to write a book.  I need those pictures and my dictated notes.  The phone is in the rubble somewhere.  That’s why I could not call and give you an ETA.  I’m sorry.  But to explain why we have Catalina, I was holding her in the doorway when the earthquake happened.  I started to panic and I dropped the phone, but Millie knew what was happening.  He pushed me into the street and begged the others to follow.  The doctor and one agent emerged immediately.  The other agent was already in the street covering our entrance into the house.  That left the nurse who was helping the woman that Millie had rescued, but then the next tremor dropped the woman to her knees.  The nurse’s self-preservation instinct kicked in and she barely made it out alive, with a huge chunk of the house falling on her.  Since the Super Stallion cannot fly into the medical center, we met an ambulance at the airport to take the nurse to the medical center.  She was stable when we left the carrier, and then something went wrong along the way.  She might be bleeding internally.  To be honest, if we did not have two topnotch pilots, they would have unloaded us all at the airport.  Talk about fitting ten pounds in a five pound bag.  If a bicycle was in the parking lot, we would not have been able to land.  Oh, here they come.”

I looked at the ramp and there was a doctor pushing a wheelchair with two large bottles of oxygen strapped to the back.

I looked behind them and there were two loadmasters unloading a pallet of oxygen bottles.  I told Julia where the loadmasters should take the oxygen.  We were going to let Gwen and GrandPa share Jochebed’s apartment with her husband Georges Evident until the Gwen house was completed and tied into her old room.  The stray children that Gwen had collected were all in one of the Evident bedrooms already.

When we were all back in the party room, the doctor wished to speak to the group.  He went to the podium, “Everyone, I assume most, or all of you, know Millennium Yeggs.  I have been by his side for the last few months.  He refused to abandon his task to visit all the ladies he had rescued from the sex trade.  He is one of the most cantankerous old coots that I have ever had as a patient, but he is the most tirelessly loving person I have ever known.  It took us a while to figure out what was wrong with his breathing.  He needs oxygen, but he will fully recover.  I need to leave now.  Gwen knows how to take care of him, short term.  I am going to the medical center to meet the team of doctors who will take over so that I can finally go back to my family, a little late for Thanksgiving.  The doctors will establish a routine by tomorrow morning.  And when you pray, say a special prayer for Millennium’s nurse, Florence Barton.  She is in critical condition, and since she has been by my side all these months, I must return to her.”

The doctor stepped away from the microphone to leave.  Mabel said, “No you don’t!  How many are on your helicopter?”

The doctor sized up the small lady from the wrong side of the tracks (or the right side depending on your view), he decided she would be a bear if he tried to tangle with her.  He said that there were three taking care of the load, now unloaded, two pilots and himself.  One of the cider house workers who had volunteered to be a waitress walked in with a cart and twelve Styrofoam containers of food were on it.  She was dressed in a waitress uniform, looking official.

Mabel said, “We have twelve meals because you boys are probably hungry.  We have turkey and gravy, dressing (no way we’d have stuffing), homemade cranberry sauce, yams, and green bean casserole.  And enough rolls to choak a horse.  We need to keep those who protect us healthy and well fed.”

The doctor said, “Ma’am, you have dressing?  I’m originally from Alabama.  You made the last few months worth it, other than being of service to Millennium was a joy anyway.  May I give you a hug?”

Mabel laughed and gladly granted the hug.  She might have whispered something in his ear about the Georgia Bulldogs beating the Alabama Crimson Tide because the doctor released the hug laughing.  Mabel’s family was from Georgia.  Nothing like a little college rivalry, but the doctor might have gone to Auburn or any number of other schools.

With the doctor gone, back to the airport where transport for him was waiting, Mabel and her volunteers in beautiful waitress uniforms distributed plates of food and gravy boats and bowls of cranberry sauce for each table.

As everyone ate, Mabel then went to the breakroom where all the other employees and mission residents were forming lines for Thanksgiving dinner.  They would have to take it back to their apartments to eat.  Mabel packed a little extra for each in case they wanted seconds.  But I heard later that the ladies went to the apartments where they had their small group Bible studies and ate with their close friends.

Gwen asked if Mabel had taken over in the kitchen.  I assured Gwen that her old job would be awaiting her only if she screwed up as company president.  The company had found a lot of adequate cooks among the other employees and some that were pretty good, but Mabel might be the best.  There was a duty roster established, and cross-trained personnel filled in for whatever job was vacant due to the chef duty.  I would never be able to get Mabel away from my husband full-time.  Mabel was responsible for the rapid growth in the bakery business.  Mabel knew so many people, and to know Mabel was to love Mabel.

We ended the evening with a free mike, as people from each table came up and said what they were thankful for.  Of course, most of the people in the wedding parties were thankful for being friends and family of the soon-to-be-wed couple.

Most of the thanksgiving statements were trivial.  The usual things: comfort, a good job (great hearing those from my employees), good friends, and love interests or new babies when that applied.  Zuzka announced she had been accepted at the university in a project management program, and they were assigning her to the PLAYground and PLAYhouse project as one of the team members.  Oh, how I dislike them naming the projects with my initials.  I wanted it to be anonymous.

Mags Lathrop pretty much gave her conversion testimony.  She thanked God for bringing her out of her drug addiction lifestyle, something that she still knew was under the surface.  She thanked God for coming to her realization that her late husband, Larry, had really loved her.  And she thanked God for accidentally bumping into a college professor (Head of Meteorology Dept, Dr. Kildare) in the greenhouse one day.  They have been friends ever since.  She said nothing about maybe being more than friends.  I think they are taking it slow.  From what Jemima and Easter tell me, that is his style, slow and careful and well thought out.  And then the touching part, as if the rest wasn’t, she thanked God for mending the damage that she had caused with her high school friend, Naomi Yeggs, aka Glyce, short for Nitroglycerin.

When Gwen went through her harrowing last three weeks, she got to the part where she was flying in a helicopter over the Pacific Ocean.  She thought she was caught between the Devil and the deep blue sea.

Menzie started snickering and then laughing.  Then Emmett Dalton asked if he and Menzie could provide a little entertainment once Gwen was finished.  God had provided another little coincidence.  When Gwen was finished, with so many thank you blessings for all our prayers, Emmett had his reed sufficiently soaked.  He apologized for only a saxophone accompaniment.  Menzie should have a Big Band behind her.  He explained that they had been practicing a few songs that Menzie already knew, and one happened to be Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea.  Step aside Ella Fitzgerald.  Menzie even had the scat down, and Emmett said that Menzie was going to do something special for the Christmas Eve wedding receptions, but someone would have to give what she does an official name.  He said no more than that.  But certainly, there is a new girl at Lily the Pink, but she must finish high school and college first.  I wouldn’t be her unofficial Granny if I did not put my foot down.  And the same goes for dear Emmett, but he has his eyes set on being a pastor.  A jazz saxophonist and a pastor?  I might want to try out his church someday.  And do not worry; Sophie was smiling and swaying to the music.  She approved of the musical partnership with her boyfriend and the new girl.  In fact, Sophie let Menzie go first down the slide last weekend, and they spent all day together.  They are starting to tell people that they are twins, but Sophie is a few months older.

Credits

Catalina, in my search showed to be a common girl’s name in Chile, a form of Katherine.  But as I wrote the name “Catalina” a couple of times, I heard my wife singing.  I have no idea why she could sing the entire song.  I had no idea why it meant so much to her, but she did spend time in southern California, during her “finding herself” period.  Maybe she did not talk about it because the song talks about ‘romance,’ and maybe it is good that I did not ask…  But here are The Four Preps singing 26 Miles.  I cannot get through it with dry eyes.

Here is Ella Fitzgerald singing Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea.

Florence Barton is a mash of Florence Nightingale and Sara Barton.  But Florence Guinness Blake was a famous pediatric nurse, professor, and author.

And the helicopter landing was a tight fit, but those pilots in our military are good.