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.

We had been back from our vacation for a little while.  On the way home, Grannie Fannie admitted that she had not been out of Tracy since she was a little girl other than a couple of business trips when I flew the children with me to visit CRAGS (our Washington state operation, Columbia River Area Gorge Site).  The “A” does not exactly fit, but their documentation shows the crag of rocks where Wyatt and Jayne are building their home.

Zuzka had never taken off much time.  Instead of planning the honeymoon, Otto allowed her to take him to the Great Northwest where she did some project checking and touring the mountains, rivers, lakes, and desert with her parents before her parents flew back to Latvia.  It was a strange honeymoon, reunion, and business trip combination.  And seeing their daughter in business mode made her parents proud.  She was not the prostitute that they expected.  She was a skilled businesswoman who got what she demanded.  At that point, the contractors were behind schedule in many key areas and a few times, she had to put her foot down – no time extensions, no safety shortcuts, but they would get back on schedule.  Even without a translator, they saw her confidence, and they heard the tone of her voice.

But for me, it was my first vacation.  Embarrassingly, it was my first time visiting the neighboring states.  When I had been a little girl, we had flown to Florida on vacation.  I had been in two states in the U.S.A., the state of my birth and Florida.  Excuse me, Georgia to change planes, but somehow that doesn’t count.  It seems everyone that flies have changed planes in the Atlanta airport.  I am hoping to allow Zuzka to drive me to the Michael Rowe Casey farm this Fall, since I do not have a driver’s license.  She says they are making nice, but slow, progress on converting the property into an outdoor adventure park.  We were going to use it to let our ladies who had never had a vacation or never been outdoors to have some fun, but we were opening it up for the mission people who could use a vacation too.  The house was renovated but not completely refurnished.  Excavation for the lake has started.  Mashie Niblick and Brenton Munsford have suggested a nine-hole golf course.  The lake will feature rowing and canoeing.  Kayaking on the river where Michael’s parents drowned, during flood stage, will be available.  For the less adventurous, tubing will be an option.  And a couple of ziplines will be available next year.  It would be closed to the public until we had fully staffed the park and fully developed our business plan.  Once our expenses were reimbursed, Michael got the profits and retained ownership.

But with that little trip in my mind, Grannie came in early for babysitting duties.

She asked, “Pinkie, can I have a little word with you, a bit of confession.”

I smiled and nodded.  I showed her to a visitor’s chair, and I stayed seated behind my desk.  I was not using the desk as a power play.  Fannie and I were old friends.  Besides, this was going to be fun.  I had a long phone call from Anna Hill last night.  I was thinking that Grannie Fannie could not avoid the inevitable any longer.  I started to giggle.

Grannie Fannie said, “Your mirth does not help very much, Pinkie.  You have characterized my meeting with the Washington governor’s aide as being a proposition and my rebuff.  It got to be more than that.  We exchanged phone numbers, and he calls maybe every other day.  And we talked a long time over a couple of days.  His proposition was that he’d double my pay if I took care of his three grandchildren.  His description and their photos remind me of the Wednesday’s three adopted children, mixed skin color of the parents, same mother in each case and different fathers, but his three are stairsteps, no twins: three, two, and one.  My reason for confessing all this is that he has quit his job, and he is on his way here with the children.  Honest.  He is an unbeliever and extremely liberal in his political views.  I gave him no encouragement at all.  But he says that all the encouragement that he needed was how horrible he had been as a father and how wonderful I was with all those children that we had at CRAGS.  I explained that it was our Christian beliefs and lifestyle that gave the children reasonable freedom but sound boundaries.  And then the rest was a matter of loving each other.  Lance said he knew a lot about making love, little about loving or being loved, and even less about Christianity.  He said he would do his homework before he came to visit me here, to try to talk me into returning with him.  I just wanted you to know before he showed up with children in hand.  You thought it was a brief encounter, but he did his research as the front man when the governor visited Lily the Pink at CRAGS, passed that information on to the governor, and then he was free to observe.  What he chose to observe was me.”

I giggled, “What you said is pretty much what Anna said last night, but she said a little more.  Maybe he kept some of it to himself when he talked to you.  After going back to Olympia, he retrieved his children, and he went to CRAGS.  He said that he could not learn much about Christianity or raising grandchildren unless he immersed himself in the process where the site manager and her husband were not just parents of children about the same ages as his grandchildren, but also pastors.  And the different skin colors was an attraction too.  He might be here sometime today.  He has not professed a belief in Jesus, but for a lifelong unbeliever and liberal political analyst, Anna found him receptive to conversations, and he asks a lot of questions.  Wyatt, Jayne, Nina, Anna and a few others all had their ears bent by Lance.  But what are you thinking?  I see your mind running.  You have a plan, but you think I might not like it.”

Grannie Fannie reddened, “You irritate me so.  You read me like a book.  Okay, he has means, probably, and he could rent a room somewhere, but I don’t know if this will work out.  He and I are not far from the same age, and I find him attractive, but his beliefs politically turn my stomach and spiritually, hmmmm, he is dead there.  But I trust that he will not make unwarranted advances toward me.  I have a two-bedroom apartment in the first apartment building down the street in case I had to babysit the children.  My spare bedroom is set up for children including a crib.  If he slept on the living room sofa, his children could sleep in my other bedroom.  With going to church, nightly vespers, finding him some work in our complex, but I think he would not fit in anywhere.  But all that and he could see Christianity at work.  He might even change his political views a little.  If it doesn’t work, he would be free to leave any time he wished.”

I asked, “You find him attractive.  Would you be tempted to invite him into your room at night?”

Grannie huffed, “I confess that I have thought of it.  Every time I did, I thought about being shackled to an unbeliever and a liberal to boot.  And what little he has told me of his lifestyle, I wonder if I could think of him as human.”

I stifled a laugh.  “People of the other political party are not subhuman just because they disagree with us.  Sometimes, we just go at a problem from different directions.”

At that moment, Missy entered after her special knock, that way I knew it was her.

Missy asked, “Do you want one visitor or four?  Oh, Grannie Fannie is here early.  I’ll give you the four, if you don’t mind and then I’ll go get Kanok and company.”

I nodded and waved for her to bring in a strange looking brood.  The man of about retirement age was white haired, well groomed, and well dressed, too well dressed for Lily the Pink standards.  In his arms was a boy who looked Asian, but there was some dark features.  Then the little girls in the twin stroller were adorable.  The larger girl was African-American and the one-year-old was definitely a dark-skinned Latin girl.

Lance started, “Mrs. Pink Lady Yeggs and Grannie Fannie, Miss Fannie Packer, that is, I am Lance Allott (like Allen, but with a “T”).  These are my grandchildren, Liam, Olympia, and Helen Rainier, but we call her Ellie Rain.  I am presently unemployed.  I have no discernable job skills, but I might accept Social Security a little early.  I think the way they calculate it, I would be better off, even with the early start penalty.  I do not have a home.  You might call me unhoused, but I have means.  But we are here to learn what Miss Packer tried to explain to me.  Within the past six months, I have gone from having a woman caring for the children fulltime and a daughter who was out more than she was in.  Suddenly, or so it seemed, that led to having no one to help me take care of these children at all.  I hired a daycare service by day, but I am at my wit’s end with these three.  I saw how Miss Packer handled children that she knew and children she had hardly known with ease.  I had to learn the secret.  She says it’s all Christianity, but I have met a few Christians, and they had as much problems with their children as anyone else.  Please, I am willing to rent an apartment while I learn.  May I stay here?  Is there room?”

At that moment, the door burst open.  Kanok and Joon ran in.  Greta followed with a stroller of her own for Pink Sparkle.  Joon, laughing as usual, ran right past us to the play area.  Kanok stopped and looked tentatively.

Then Kanok remembered, “Ranch!”  She ran over and hugged him around the legs.  Lance was confused.  Greta and I laughed.

Grannie Fannie was stern, “Kanok!  We have talked about this.  Do not be so lazy with your words, especially people’s names.”

Kanok’s lower lip quivered a little, but she recovered, “Like Brooke and Booger, I mean, Goober?”

Grannie smiled, “And this man is named Lance, not Ranch.  La, la, la. Ce, ce, ce.  Lance.”

Kanok frowned, not about to cry, but she was concentrating. “La, Lance.”

Lance laughed, “Very good, Kanok.”

With that, Kanok brightened, and asked, “And what are these kids’ names?  They look like Thursday, Friday, and Saturday!”

Lance looked confused, but he introduced his grandchildren.  By this time, Greta had unhooked Pink Sparkle, and she returned to explain that Missy said that Grannie Fannie was tied up and she would take care of the children until Grannie Fannie was through with “La, Lance.”

Even when Kanok tries to get it right, there always seems to be an addition to the Kanokized English language.

Now free of his grandchildren, I offered Lance the other visitor’s chair.

I said, “I appreciate your introduction.  I am sorry for your losses.  Were you married long?”

Lance looked confused, “I was never married.”

I apologized, “I’m sorry.  You said you had full-time care for the children and then you had no one.  I apologize for the assumption.  Maybe we should start with the way I start with people who come in for counseling.  Tell me the Lancelot story.”  I knew I was about to apologize again, but the name was out there.  Someone had to cross that line.

Lance breathed in deeply, “That is usually the way it starts.  My mother was a lover of mythology and folk tales, especially King Arthur.  My father provided the Allott and she named me Lance.  We lived on Mercer Island in Lake Washington, Washington.  Thus, I became Lancelot du Lac, or if you prefer Lancelot of the Lake.  Washington state is a lot different than here.  Very few people that I knew went to church on Mercer Island.  I hear that is a thing here.”

I smiled and nodded, but Grannie Fannie was groaning and shaking her head.

Lance continued, “I grew up on the island, graduating from Mercer Island High School.  I went to what they call U Dub.  That is University of Washington, shortened to UW, but then shorter still.  U Dub is at the northwest corner of Lake Washington.  I joked with my parents that I could commute by canoe.  I graduated with a poli sci degree.  I then started on my masters.  I started looking at the historically marginalized and wanted to know what their needs were, at least what they wanted from the political spectrum.  I joined special interest groups that were connected to the Asian population, Black Population, Native American population, and Hispanics.  As I started learning their cultural differences, I became romantically involved with a black woman.  Our pillow talk became a key source in my graduate research project.  Without letting her know, I established romantic relations with a Thai girl.”

Kanok ran over.  She bowed with her hands together in front of her.  She said, “Sawasdee Kha.”

Lance bowed with the same gesture of the hands together and said, “Sawasdee Khrap.”

Kanok ran back and announced, “La, Lance did the greeting right!”

I explained, “When Kanok was adopted, she was already starting to talk.  So, we have had a Thai woman come by on occasion to talk to her so that she doesn’t lose all her heritage.  Since Joon was always around people speaking English, we have been less diligent with him learning Korean.  Gwen, the company president who you have not yet met, she also adopted some children.  Valin is from India and Thanh is from Vietnam.  They have ladies come to talk to them once each month, but Asha, from Africa, and Catalina, from Chile, were like Joon, too small to remember much.”

Lance nodded, “My three are all from Washington state.  Anyway, I had a Chinese exchange student, who I later found out was a Communist spy, but somehow it did not matter to me.  Destiny was my black girlfriend.  Twana was a member of the Skokomish tribe.  Isabella was from Guatamala and Maria was from Brazil.”

I asked, “And you were intimate with all of them?”  He nodded.  “And Destiny provided you with a daughter.”

Lance looked a little surprised, “Yes, you jumped ahead in the story a bit.  They knew nothing of each other until Destiny got pregnant and I let her move into my apartment.  She died when she gave birth.  Some complications that no one expected.  Isabella and Maria dropped me when they found out there were others.  Twana moved in to take Destiny’s place.  The two Asians visited for sexual favors, not minding that there were others.  I had finished my research and started writing for a newspaper, political news.  They liked my liberal stance, and years later the governor hired me to be his front man, that was a few governors before the present one.  There have been six straight democrat governors since the last republican governor, and I worked for all of them.  I go to venues that the governor thinks would make a political statement for his policies, and I look for danger signs.  With Lily the Pink, what you call CRAGS, I found nothing but danger signs, but the governor wanted to push the green agenda.”

I huffed, “I did the carbon recovery due to the rules of the state, not because I agreed with the concept, but it introduces another income stream, selling the fuel grade alcohol.  Even though I did not need to do it here, I thought that two units might make a combined significant income stream.  It makes little business sense overall, but I had the money.  But get back to your story.  You jumped from a Native American moving in with you to act as the mother of your daughter, and then you were at Lily the Pink.  Since your daughter produced three grandchildren, you have skipped half your adult life, probably more than half.”

Lance groaned, “Yes, I had kept up my romantic research for seven years before Destiny got pregnant.  I thought the ladies would figure it out long before then.  Maybe they did as long as there was a mystery involved.  I got their needs expressed in the paper and then directly to the governor.  Their special interest groups encouraged my involvement.  It was symbiotic, I suppose.  Then, Twana moved in.  She was a good mother to Zuri.  Twana benefited from my lobbying for the casino and then the casino expansion.  Maybe that’s why she stayed.  My Korean friend quit visiting when Zuri was about ten.  The Chinese spy was caught by the Feds about the time Zuri graduated high school.  She never gave me up or the Feds didn’t care about my involvement.  But Zuri was even wilder than I was.  She was careful to not get pregnant until she was either on some kind of drug or alcohol.  The last four years, she did not care who she slept with as long as she had fun.  Three children later and she was killed in a back alley in Tacoma.  And then three months ago, Twana died.  Massive heart attack.  So, that’s my story.”

I said, “I want to know what you learned at CRAGS and why you wanted to come here.”

Lance shrugged, “I attended Vespers.  Timothy is a typical little boy, but Resurrection and Esther are very interesting.  They are extremely polite and courteous.  They shared everything with my children.  And they always had smiles on their faces.  And Resurrection is about to go to First Grade, but he acts like he is twice that age.  He is a deep thinker.  Now, as for your children, Kanok is a laugh riot.  She took charge even though Resurrection is older than she is.  I think she is the social butterfly of the group.  But I see something here.  I saw something with Anna Hill and her family.  I am not against Christianity although that was a red flag when I advised the governor.  They would work the name Jesus in when the cameras were rolling and the governor had to respond politely, but with an aloof manner.  Not dismissive or they would possibly turn on him or her.  The ‘her’ meaning that Christine served as governor.  But I really know nothing about Christianity.  I was listening intently to the Vespers messages and the two sermons, one from Tyler and one from Anna.  I talked to Tyler a lot.  Just about everything that he said made no sense.  I have nothing to base anything on.  But he got me thinking.  I know it’s a showstopper with Miss Packer here.  We got into an argument about feeding the unhoused.”

Fannie and I snickered.  I said, “I will admit that we are not very politically correct here, but unhoused or unsheltered are not terms we use.  Homeless describes it better than unhoused, because some people in houses do not have homes.  And the people who are unsheltered are either dealing with substance issues or they do not wish to have a roof over their heads.  Those are the ones we are feeding twice each month and delivering the Gospel of Christ to them while they eat.  It’s working and we’ve only been doing it six months.  Excuse me, I say ‘we’, but Amy G. Dala, John Downing, and I provide matching funds.  Oops, John Downing wants to be anonymous.  The workers are a variety of volunteers, many from here at Lily the Pink, but the charity is through the police and fire auxiliaries.  ‘We’ just help.”

Grannie Fannie laughed, “But that is where we got into the fight.  Lance thinks that the charity needs a leader making $250,000 a year, and a staff of overpriced executives underneath him.”

I asked, “Who would pay for all that?”

Fannie said, “Lance says he knows how to get federal funding, but I told him that the $250,000 would feed a lot of people.  He’s a liberal.  He thinks we should turn it over to the feds.  But the feds already give most of those people subsistence checks every month.  And we work as volunteers.  He cannot believe that God’s Love can pull that off.  So, he’s about to find out.”

We told Lance Grannie Fannie’s plan.  He did not know what to say, so we told him that if he wanted to survive at Lily the Pink, he had to learn how to say, “Thank you.”

But I sensed danger in the waters.  Just one more thing for me to pray about.

Credits

When I worked in Watertown, Massachusetts, I knew a secretary in one of the engineering work groups who was an Italian-American.  Many of the locals were Armenian-American.  She had been three places in her short life: Massachusetts, Florida (on vacation), and Italy (on vacation).  Where we were, she could have been in New Hampshire or Rhode Island in less than an hour.  She could be in New York, Connecticut, Vermont or Maine in less than two hours, but she rarely left Watertown, Massachusetts, a small postage stamp compared to the Metropolis of Boston that was directly across the Charles River next to our work location.

His idea of taking Social Security early is a tricky calculation.  Your Social Security is based on your last few paychecks.  If you lost an executive job and went to work as a greeter in a department store just for some spending money, you would take a larger cut in Social Security than you would with the penalty you take by taking Social Security early.  If you can get work that is close to your previous work in the form of monthly income, then hanging on to a less paying job might be better.  But if you get a job after you start drawing Social Security, you may have to give some of that back to the government, but then that income is added to your Social Security when you retire from the new job.  It is very complicated, but not nearly as bad as MEDICARE.  Politicians love saying they have the elderly in their minds, but not really, or they would streamline the system, get rid of the excess employees that just push papers, and then give us a big raise.  Just making it easier to understand would be nice.

Christine Gregoire was a female governor of Washington state from 2005-2013, and the other five of the last six were/are male.

There is a casino on the Skokomish reservation that had renovations about 15 years ago, but this story is purely fictional.

Zuri is “beautiful” in Swahili.  Twana is both a girl name and a language for the Skokomish tribe.  And Helen Rainier, Ellie Rain, is becoming popular in the Northwest to denote Mount Rainier and Mount St. Helens.

With Pink Lady’s philanthropy she could be politically neutral, but her Christian beliefs move her toward the right, insisting that when we serve the least of these, we are serving them rather than paying taxes so that the government can do it for us.  I try to stay away from political statements.  We must rely on God, but since God allows each leader to govern, we should subject ourselves to their rightful authority.  Having Lance as part of a governor’s staff from a blue state forced a little conflict on the Lily the Pink campus, that and Lance had not repented of his lascivious lifestyle, and he was now staying at an apartment complex filled with former prostitutes.

And I thought I would leave the connection to the name of Lily the Pink for another Pink Lady story.

At the time of this writing, the Scaffold continue to make appearances together, all three in their eighties.  Here is an early video recording of their version of Lily the Pink.  It is a bit hard to understand, a combination of British accent, British euphemisms, and such.

And the Irish Rovers covered this song with their own verses within months of the Scaffold making their version a number one hit song.  The Rovers are much more careful to enunciate their lyrics.