Thoughts from Mark "Hat" Rackley

Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.

• John 15:13

I was a stranger and you did not invite me in, I needed clothes and you did not clothe me, I was sick and in prison and you did not look after me.’
“They also will answer, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or needing clothes or sick or in prison, and did not help you?’
“He will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did not do for one of the least of these, you did not do for me.’
“Then they will go away to eternal punishment, but the righteous to eternal life.”

• Matthew 25:43-46

Boilerplate

I’m Harold Dykstra.  I’m retired, but I go to food bank distributions all over Tracy and talk to people that need someone who will listen to their story.  My time is well spent.  A police lieutenant suggested that I write down the conversations that I had with an angel.  I did not know she was an angel at the time.  The angel, for a little over a year, indwelled a life-sized posable action figure my children bought me, so that I would not be perceived as travelling alone.  And in a way, she was training me for what I do while talking to the needy.  She probed my heart to find out what I believed and how I express love for others.  She changed my life.  Since she was a doll that had come to life, we came up with the term ‘other living.’  She was not a human, an animal, or even a plant, but she was definitely living, and very vibrant.  Oh, excuse me, angels have no gender, but the angel indwelled a doll named Bountiful Babs.  After seeing the angel in that form for over a year, I cannot see her in my mind in any other form.

This Week’s Question

In the last episode, Babs wiggled her toes in the Atlantic Ocean, but over the next few days and a few more sales calls, she wiggled her toes in the Gulf of Mexico from Florida to Texas.

By the time we got to Victoria, Texas, I became ill.  An urgent care facility near the hotel was open and we went there.  I knew it was a sinus infection.  A nice shot, some antibiotics to kick the rest of the infection, and some anti-nausea pills so that I could hold my head up during sales calls and I would be fine.  It took a while to convince the doctor that I had a history of this problem, and I knew what I needed.

The next morning, I had a sales call at a mill in town.  I staggered to breakfast, but I only had a piece of toast.  When I got back to the room, I told Babs that we would be in San Antonio near the riverwalk by supper time.  We would both be dining on some of the best Tex-Mex in the area.  I then laid down on the bed, knowing that I had plenty of time to get to the mill.

The next thing I knew, I awoke about lunchtime.  Babs was standing over me beaming, grinning from ear to ear.

“Babs, what happened?  Did I fall asleep?”

“Harold, you were out for the count.  I shook you and you did not respond.”

I groaned, “The urgent care must have used an antibiotic that I am not used to.  I did not recognize the name of that.  I recognized the anti-nausea medicine.  That was what I always get.  I need to try to see if the mill manager can reschedule for sometime this afternoon.”

Babs giggled, “No need!  I have the sales order right here with a little sticky thing on it.”  Babs showed me the front page of the sales order.  The summary was for more money than anything yet this year.  The sticky said, “Harold, Get well soon.  If you don’t hang on to your secretary, I will hire her out from under you.  She is more of an engineer than a secretary.  She had an answer to every question, and great suggestions.”

I rubbed my forehead.  Babs put the paperwork down.  She ran to the bathroom and came back with a moistened hand towel.

I let her wipe my face down a little.  Then suddenly I sat up.  Babs asked, “Are you better?  Last night you liked the water on your forehead.”

I mumbled, “No, no.  How did you sell so much?  I talked with him.  He had quite a bit to buy, but not this much.”

Babs replied, “I drove into the visitor parking lot.  He greeted me and got me suited for a plant tour.  Iron maidens are not fun to walk in, but you never bought me steel-toed shoes.  He showed me all the equipment your company sold them.  I recognized them from company photographs.  When we got to his office, he explained what he wanted to purchase.  Some of the items were lift arms.  I suggested lift arms, and the corresponding linkages.  The wobbling loads might be that the arms were not placed at the proper angle.  He thought about it for a while and then agreed my assessment might be better than his.”

I sputtered, “How could it be?  You have never seen that equipment before, much less seen it operate!”

Babs sighed, “If you were there, and in a way, you were, you would have agreed with me.”

I asked, “How did you get so smart about engineering things?”

Babs scrunched her nose.  “I listened to you, Sweetie!  When we aren’t talking about God, the weather, the scenery or the history of the area we are driving through, you practice your next sales pitch.  And I listen.”

I was still confused, “But to know what this customer needed, you had to know about the conversations leading up to the sales call.  Every customer is a little different.  Every mill has equipment that has slightly different spare parts.  No way could you pull that off.”

Babs had tears in her eyes.  As she always said, ‘When I leak water, I am broken.’  Babs said, “Harold, while I was wiping your forehead last night, you kept drifting in and out of sleep.  You were shaking a lot.  All night long you were practicing your sales pitch in your sleep, and you described every piece of equipment this mill had.  I remembered it all.  I did not have to take notes.  I remembered because I love you.  Please, do not be angry.  I got a big sale, and it counts as your sale.”

Then my heart stopped.  “Babs, you said you drove to the mill.  Do you realize that you have to have a driver’s license to drive?”

She beamed, “I have one!”

“What?!”  I stood up.  “Did you get one out of a Cracker Jacks box?!”

Babs asked, “What are Cracker Jacks?”

I moaned, “You cannot have a birth certificate.  You were not born!”

Babs groaned, “Back to that old ‘other living’ thing.  You were never born.  You just came into existence!  Well, Harold Dykstra, you should be more careful when you receive a gift.  You should check all the pockets in the briefcase.  Along with a certificate of authenticity, there was a replica of the original Babs birth certificate.  To make it look authentic, they used a raised stamp, but the raised stamp was for the toy manufacturer.  The DMV was so officious and nice, but they never noticed.”  Babs got her purse and showed me her driver’s license and the birth certificate.  Her real name, or the real name of the porn star she was designed to look like, was Barbara Bounty, born in rural Illinois.

I thought, ‘Somehow, I always thought Bountiful Babs meant her chestiness, but it was a reverse of her real name, sort of.  Hmm, I wonder which it was?”

Babs giggled, “It was both, and yes, I read your mind again.  I thought we were going to San Antonio.  We were going to have fun tonight on something you call a riverwalk.”

I jumped up, but too quickly under the circumstances.  I luckily did a face plant back onto the bed.  As I rolled over, Babs was unfolding the Texas map she got at the Welcome Center a few days before.  She muttered, “San Antonio, San Antonio, wherefore art thou, San Antonio.”

By this point, I was up, but I was staggering.  I said, “Babs, you have the map upside-down.”

Babs asked, “What difference does it make?!  All I want to do is go from Victoria to San Antonio.  I look at the route numbers.  Memorize them.  And boom!  We’re there!”

I groaned, “Or you get on the southbound route and end up in Port Lavaca, or out on the beach somewhere in the middle of nowhere.”

Babs scrunched her nose and tossed me the map, falling far short, and I was not up to leaning over to pick it up.  “Okay, Harold, you navigate.  I’ll drive.  You are definitely not up to driving.  You are having some weird drug reaction.”

I groaned, “And tomorrow you will have an eight-hour driving day.  The next sales call is on the far side of El Paso, Texas.  At least that is straight down Interstate 10 going west.  In the morning with the sun behind us.  See, direction is important.”

Babs giggled, “Yes, Mr. Navigator, I trust your guidance.  Now, you get to be the travel buddy.”

I then saw the clock.  “We are past checkout.  We’ll pay extra.”

Babs giggled, “No we won’t.  I did not know how mobile you would be, so I asked them for a late checkout.  I have always been a diligent travel buddy.  I expect the same from you.”

With us checked out, packed into the car, and finally out of Victoria on highway 119, heading in the right direction, something was bothering me.  “Babs, I should let this lie, but how did you get to the DMV?  I had the car, and it would not have been legal for you to drive yourself there anyway.”

Babs giggled, keeping her eyes fixed to the road, since she was not accustomed to that role in our travel arrangements.  “Do you know that lovely lady that sits next to me in church?”

I groaned, “The eighty-year-old who used to sit alone, having all her friends that she sat with die off one at a time?  Now, no one wants to sit with her thinking they might be next.”

Babs nodded, “Yes, Gladys!  I talked to her one Sunday when you were studying the bulletin.  She said that she would be delighted to take me to the DMV, and she would sit and wait for me.  I drove her car.  Other than sitting in your driver’s seat when you weren’t watching and pretending to drive, sitting in her car was the first real driving I ever did.”

I asked, “And you passed the driving test?  Why don’t you walk me through this DMV visit one step at a time.”  I knew there was disaster somewhere in this story and maybe all throughout.

Babs nodded, “I went up front and gave the nice lady my paperwork.  She had been crabby, but when she saw me smile, she brightened.  She said that my birth certificate was for a lady twenty years older than I looked.  She asked if I exercised.  I said that it was clean living.  I had read a driver’s manual that I’d found in Morrie’s room.  I got a hundred on the written test.  She told me where to sit to wait for the officer that would give me the driving test.  This young police officer walked up and said that I was next.  He had me drive around.  I was being very careful.  When we got back to the side parking lot at the DMV, he told me to parallel park the car.  I had watched you, but not carefully enough.  I closed my eyes and prayed, I backed into the space and straightened out without any problem.  He said that I passed the test.  He escorted me to where Gladys was sitting and he said I had done an excellent job, but keeping my eyes closed as I parallel parked was just showing off.”

I groaned, “There were alarm bells throughout that story, but nobody questioned any of them.  Absolutely amazing.  But wait, you did not show off any of your feminine assets today or when at the DMV?”

Babs gasped, “How dare you, Harold Dykstra!  I do not tempt people.  It was all my pleasant personality and God knowing this all needed to happen.  You know, Harold, you are super nice, but you could always be a little more pleasant.”

I nodded, “Sorry that came to mind.  I know you wouldn’t do that.  San Antonio is less than a two-hour drive by now.  How does a mariachi band serenading us with love songs at our table tonight, but we will check into the hotel and then do the riverwalk.  If I am still wobbly, they have tour boats.”

Babs replied, “If you can handle it, we can walk.  Maybe walking it off will counteract the medicine.  You know, get the blood flowing.”

Credits

All these conversations remind me of my conversations with my wife.  We would talk about anything and everything.  And most of the time, it sounded like a discussion in a Sunday school class.

As for the inspiration for this post, I am just now getting over the worst sinus infection that I have had in thirty years, just days before my next surgery, which by now should be over and done with. But I guess misery loves company? (Christopher Marlow, The Tragical History of Doctor Faustus – said by Mephastophilis)

For those who have never experienced Cracker Jacks or only modern Cracker Jacks, it was a kind of joke that any small thing, even a driver’s license, might be the prize in a box of Cracker Jacks.  I doubt if they ever gave one away, but the prizes sold a lot of Cracker Jacks.  And the modern Cracker Jacks usually have downloadable phone apps, or that is what I hear.

And the tip to the line from Romeo and Juliet is mashed Shakespeare.  Or should that be San Antonio and Juliet?

My wife often looked at maps upside-down.  She had no sense of direction.  She had to know where she was going, and as she got older, she never drove in cities.

As for her getting her driver’s license, she illegally drove herself to the DMV in a friend’s car.  She told the officer that her friend drove her and then walked back to the Air Force Base.  She was in the Air Force at the time, away from home.  Her friend instructed her to wear the shortest shorts that she could find to distract the officer grading her.  She did okay until she got to the parallel parking space outside the front door of the DMV.  She put her head in her hands and started crying.  She had never learned how to do that.  He told her that the parking test failure meant she would not get her license.  As she pleaded with him, telling him she worked at the Air Force Base hospital patching Vietnam veterans back together (that part true) and how could she do that without a driver’s license?  (Truth was that she lived in a barracks across the street since most of the women were connected with the hospital.)  And the officer signed off on the driver’s license only if she would have a date with him.  She never, for the rest of her life, learned how to parallel park.

Soli Deo Gloria.  Only to God be the Glory.