Thoughts from Mark "Hat" Rackley

We are Jemima and Easter Yeggs.  Lieutenant Yeggs wants his son to write these reports to keep in touch when we are out having our adventures, and Rev C.S.L., my Dad, doesn’t mind an update either.

I left off some important parts of the tour last week that will affect both Tom and Cat.

While we were at the bakery, we heard of the birth of Pink Sparkle Apple Yeggs.  They are now both at Lily the Pink, and Sparkle has ten fingers and ten toes and dark red hair, but often that hair falls out and is replaced by the true hair color.  She is as pretty as her mother.  Everyone was worried that Scrambled my contribute, and I love my new uncle by marriage, but he’s kind of scrambled.  Pink Lady is active, but in short spurts.  But even Aunt Pink’s return is getting ahead of my returning to the TomCat tour.

But after I read the text, Otto approached Tom and Cat ver Waarloosd.  “I heard that your parents died in a fire.  My condolences, but Zuzka told me that your family name had been Bakker, as in ‘baker’.  Tom, do you have any experience in the kitchen, baking?”

Tom shrugged, “I know my mother’s recipes that I think she got from my father’s family.  I have them written down, but about half is by feel.  But I never baked anything like what you do here.  You have cakes, cookies, donuts, and everything sweet.  I baked hot cross buns, German style hard rolls, two or three biscuit recipes, mostly sourdough and buttermilk.  Nothing fancy like you do.”

Mabel snickered, “But you may be an answer to our prayers.  We have customers asking for the breads.  With us not comfortable with it, we have lost some business to some smaller outfits.  I don’t want to compete with the baguettes, but the hard rolls and the sourdough and buttermilk biscuits are all fair game.  When you have free time in your schedule, come back with your recipes and we will give you a chance to audition.  If it works out, we can bid for more catering jobs.  But, would you like to become a baker?”

Tom shrugged, “The only professions in the valley were farmers, mechanics, and schoolteachers.  And then the merchant and the preacher.  I had little chance to study other types of jobs in the small town and they had no bakeries.  Sure, it is something I am comfortable with.”

Everyone was smiles as we left the bakery, donuts in hand.  We then went past the wastewater treatment plant, and the turkey and chicken enclosure.  At the sight of the poultry, Cat brightened.  She had never seen that many birds in one place.  Nearly every family had a few chickens in the valley of windmills for the eggs.  A few of the wealthier families had more chickens to trade to others in the valley for food.  Her father-in-law, Mr. Bakker, was a hunter.  They had venison, duck, goose, whatever he could trap or shoot, but they often went without meat.  He wanted to conserve the wild game population.  She said she would love to work in the poultry, but Pink Lady wanted them to pick vegetables.

I laughed, “Pink wants people where they show interest.  She needs the help with pickers for the early crops, but then, you might transfer.  Then, your chosen trades might point you into the right career track at the university.  But you even have time.  I started as an undesignated major.  I am now a senior at the university with two majors, meteorology and photography.  You can start out undesignated too.”

They were excited about those possibilities.  After introducing her to Aunt Hortense, we went up to Easter’s and my apartment.  I had my computer tied to the television.  I showed them a couple of finished episodes of the Turtle Team adventures.  The baby being born in Florida and a rough draft cut of the rescue of Michael Rowe.  Then one of the blooper episodes.  That introduced them to what a television is, what storm chasing is all about, and some of the characters they were about to meet.

And thinking of that, I was glad Easy walked in as we were showing some of his crazy driving skills.

“Easy,” I said, “I just showed our guests a few episodes of the Turtle Team in action, but if we don’t get into action, we are going to be in a ton of trouble.”

Easy nodded, “I know.  You are the matron of honor for two weddings, happening simultaneously, and I am the best man at both of those weddings.  We have parties to plan.”

Cat asked, “What kind of parties?”

Easy replied, “The best man is supposed to have a bachelor party.  The matron (or maid) of honor is supposed to have a bachelorette party.  Then the bride usually gets a shower thrown by someone.  And here the two brides want something very subdued.  Bachelor and Bachelorette parties have a reputation of being very sinful here in the secular world.”

Tom chuckled, “They were a religious experience in our valley.”

I asked, “You had bachelor parties?!”

Cat laughed, “Not sinful ones.  The bride, groom, siblings, and friends would gather at the school, which was really the church when there wasn’t a worship service.  There would be a note to go somewhere else.  When we got there, always an elder’s house, the elder would tell us part of a Bible story, usually the story had someone getting married.  Then they would give us a hint as to where to go next, another elder’s house.  Every other elder would have his wife fix something to eat and provide water or apple juice.  There were a lot of apple trees in the valley.  By the end of the day, we had walked several miles, and we heard a love story from the Bible.  Then, it was a few days later that the bride and groom went into their home, and they were married.”

I looked at Easy.  “We could do it.  We could use the marriage of Jacob to Leah and then Rachel.  The moral of the story would be to look into your bride’s eyes and know who is behind the veil.”

Tom and Cat laughed.

Easy said, “Yeah, that works for me too.  I always wondered how Jacob could be so easily fooled since the distinguishing mark between the sisters was that Leah had a lazy eye.  You would think he would notice!  But then, we need to make it a set of cryptic clues.  Maybe we can enlist GrandPa, but no codes like he did for Aunt Pink and Maeve’s wedding shower.  And then we can enlist people to be elders.  We could keep everything right here at Lily the Pink.  We have a lot of people who are wise or at least experienced in one thing or another.  Let’s see.  GrandPa and Aunt Hortense are the oldest.  Mabel and Scrambled would do it, but then, they would both be in the bakery.  Aunt Pink, Aunt Gwen, and Grannie Fannie would help and then Jochebed is pretty young, but she has tons of experience.  And if we could give Dr. Kildare an excuse to take a break from the group, maybe too much walking, he could be another one.”

I added, “And then, maybe some folks from outside the Lily the Pink campus could be in the cider house conference room with a lot of presents and refreshments for the last stop.  Do you think they will miss all the silly games?”

Easy shrugged, “The guys won’t!”

“I guess I could dream up a few weather-related games.” I suggested.  “You know, just in case someone complains that it isn’t a party without them.  With it being weather, we might have some participation.”

Cat asked, “Why weather?”

I snickered, “I just showed you some clips from the Storm Chasing Channel.  The brides are Home Wrecker and B.B.  Home Wrecker is marrying another storm chasing professor, Dr. Ben Casey.  And B.B. is marrying Joseph Jones, who you have already met.  At one time, they were called Joseph and the virgin Mary.  Don’t worry, she is still a virgin, but we thought someone might think the nickname was in bad taste.”

Easy added, “And they want their weddings simple.  Stinker and I have double roles.  They have invited the teenagers from here to be their wedding party:  Joseline and Kevin, Sophie and Emmett, Margie and Blaise, and Menzie and Samuel – all wearing what they wore to Joseline and Kevin’s wedding, except Jos.  The entire wedding party will serve both weddings.  After all, they will all say ‘I do’ at exactly the same time, the summer solstice.  Right now, Michael Rowe is our only usher unless you two want to help.”

Tom grumbled, “Summer Solstice?  Sounds like a pagan ritual.”

Cat snickered, “Never mind what he said.  We would love to do it, but we have nothing to wear to a fancy wedding.  These coveralls and two sets of the clothing like what we wore coming here in our suitcases that we have not retrieved from the bus stop locker room.  That’s it.”

I said, “I just got a text message from Grannie Fannie.  She dropped Kanok off at the nursery and took the keys that you left on Pink Lady’s desk.  She is on her way home with your luggage.  But do not worry.  One call to Aunt Gwen, and you will look like a queen in a few days.”

Well, the next day, Pink Lady was back, and things were in a state of a new normal.  Okay, normal except that everyone was making an excuse to visit Pink Lady during her open-door policy time just for an excuse to see the baby.  She ended up making some videos and transmitting them to the announcement screens everywhere on the campus.

Gwen, instead of giving a sigh of relief, was busy taking TomCat shopping.  They were very uncomfortable in their new wardrobe.  At one point, Tom turned to Cat and said, “Andrew is correct.  If we went back to the valley, they would burn us for being witches in these clothes.”  Gwen made a note to not give Cat any naughty lingerie until most of their valley thinking was expunged.  Then she thought that maybe her enjoyment in buying that stuff for the married couples was that she was celebrating no longer being in her particular valley herself.  But TomCat would no longer stick out like a sore thumb in public.  Along with their new wardrobe, they had something nice to wear to the party the next day, the party that they designed.

Everything went extremely well.  The idea that Dr. Kildare would bow out, claiming a cramped muscle in his leg, went over wonderfully well.  He took his portion of the love story of Jacob and his two brides to the swimming pool.  But he had done enough research on the climate changes inside the Crystal Mountain that he had a surprise for everyone.  When he heard from Gwen that the men and women of the wedding party were on their way to see him, he made the last little change in the environment.  He had a nice cloud forming over the swimming pool, growing all day until this point, but as they stood around to hear what he was going to add to their Bible story, it started to rain.  The teenagers were used to the occasional rain near the pool, but now they were in party clothes.  Dr. Ben Casey, Home Wrecker, and B.B. simply laughed, knowing that Dr. Kildare had set them up.  Could they complain?  Dr. Kildare was the department head.  And part of this party was a “shower” …

Dr. Kildare concluded with, “And as for the rain, I have learned how to turn it on, but I have no idea how to turn it off.  I think someone is waiting for us in the conference room for the final reading.”  And so, they were.  My second mom, Naomi Yeggs, read the final Scripture and then Rev C.S.L. asked for comments.  They had a lively discussion while Otto and a couple of others served refreshments.  Maybe with the help of the ver Waarloosd family, we might have invented a new pre-wedding party format.

What was great about the party is that Mary’s parents were there along with Dr. Ben Casey’s mother.  Joseph was being tightlipped about who he had invited, but he said his parents could not be there until the rehearsal dinner.

As for Home Wrecker, her mother had died the previous year, never divulging who Ellie’s father was.  And from what Home Wrecker had said, if they knew every man her mother had slept with, there would not be any room for other guests.

We did get around the weather-related games, like the movies with some kind of storm, including ‘storm’ in the title.  Then how many words can you make from the phrase “Storm Chasing Weather Experts?”  We had that one while everyone was snacking.  We showed a lot of my videos and photographs to see if any of the non-storm chasers could name the cloud.  Once one person got one right, they bowed out to give the others a chance.  If not, Blaise would have swept almost all the cloud names.  Even Cat got one.

And as the party was winding down, Easy and I caught the two betrothed couples at their table.  They seemed to be having a staring competition.  As we walked up, they all said, “Yep!  I think I recognize those eyes!”

Okay, they are getting married tomorrow, since it took a couple of days of wedding preparation before writing this, but they must have taken Easy’s and my joke literally.

So, we found some possible interests for the ver Waarloosd couple.  Pink Lady is back in her office, much of the time, but she designed the nursery area so that she could do both of her fulltime jobs at the same time.  And we have two couples about to get married.  But I dread the upcoming storm chasing trip, a quick trip to the Gulf Coast to watch a hurricane come on shore.  I love the idea of doing some storm chasing, but with the baby coming, I am the one that is not prepared.  The baby is coming whether I am prepared or not, in early January, if you believe the doctors.  But what will happen with a baby underfoot?  Will my mommy instincts kick in and I quit the Turtle team?  I love the excitement and I love my teammates in the Turtle, but that environment is not a good one to raise a baby into an adult.  I have been helping everyone else prepare, but I have neglected myself, the emotional side that is.

Credits

The traditions in the valley of the windmills are purely fictional.

Otherwise, this has no credits that I can think of.