White Trash in the Snow - Chapter Four

Chapter one, intimately introduced readers to Cristol Saplin and her boyfriend Wrangler Strauss, and  they met her mother, the governor. 

In chapter two, readers learned more about Cristol's parents, Tad Saplin and Rachael Heat Saplin, through glimpses into  how they were raised, and their life together. 

Chapter three provided a foundation for understanding why Cristol's mother can't stand Wrangler's mother Jerrie Strauss. 

This chapter pulls back the covers and exposes secrets. 

If this is your first reading of "White Trash in the Snow" you should be aware that these characters are not real, this is a work of fiction, and any similarity to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental. It is an original work, written by Allison, and published for the first time anywhere on the blog The Palin Place. All rights reserved.

Happy reading and have a great weekend!

Chapter One 

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

White Trash in the Snow

by Allison

CHAPTER FOUR

“Herpes? It can’t be!”

Rachael was getting her an annual checkup from Doctor Abigail Barton-Curtain, a long time friend and the Saplin family physician. Azzles years ago had given the general practitioner the nickname “Dr. ABC  the GP”  and over time it was shortened to Dr. ABC or, sometimes, just the three letters.

During the exam, Dr. ABC tactfully asked about the obvious cold sore on the mayor’s upper lip. In the doctor/patient exchange that followed, Rachael Saplin learned to her horror, that the likely cause of the reoccurring outbreaks was the human herpes virus 1, as opposed to 2 which the doctor explained is responsible for most genital herpes infections. That led to another discussion.

After digesting the information, she thought she should give some explanation for not having consulted her friend the doctor. “I just thought it was, you know, one of those things that comes along with a cold and I had a cold last week, well, it was a sore throat sort of thing, and so I didn’t call you because I knew I had this appointment coming up also, too, so shoot, it’s a good thing you caught this. Must have got it from Tad, you know, boys will be boys.”

The doctor didn’t react. She scribbled away on a prescription pad and professionally kept her eyes diverted while her patient babbled on.

"God’s looking out for me, that’s for sure. He used you to supply the answer to a problem I didn’t even know I had. Man, it isn’t easy being mayor and everyone judging every flippin’ thing in your life. You know?”

“I’m sure that’s difficult, Rachael,” Doctor Barton-Curtain sympathized.

“You betcha. I have an image to maintain, so, give me the shot, or whatever and let’s get rid of Tad’s gift.”

 Dr. ABC tore the top sheet off the little tablet and said, “There is no cure for HSV, but I can give you this. It's a prescription for Zovorax. Taken as directed, it will reduce the number and length of your outbreaks.” Dr. ABC saw her friend’s eyes widen, and heard her gasp.

“No cure? Unflippin’ believable!” She looked angrily at the doctor. Then, her scowl turned to a pout. “How could this have happened to me?” she whimpered.

Dr. ABC understood that she was delivering a difficult message for a woman with so much pride. All Rachael’s friends were very aware that she was  proud of her looks, proud of her title, proud of her public service, proud to have birthed three babies. In her meager not yet four decades on the planet she had achieved personal and public successes beyond any reasonable expectations for someone with her intellect and education.  God had blessed Rachael. It made her so proud.

So, the doctor spoke words of reassurance; words she would have spoken to any patient hearing this diagnosis. “It’s a very common disease, as many as 300 million Americans have HSV-1 or 2. And while I understand that it can be distressing to learn that you’ve contracted herpes, it will become a relatively small thing that you deal with occasionally, and this will help.” She handed Rachael the script.

Zovorax became part of Rachael’s life, a little reminder that life as Mrs. Tad Saplin hadn’t turned out the way she had expected. Her husband’s blue-collar-rough-around-the-edges personality that she once found sexy had become annoying and embarrassing after only a few years of wedded unhappiness. Rachael wasn’t proud to be Tad’s wife and she wasn’t happy in the marriage. Rachael confided to her friends and her mother that she and Tad didn’t have a “normal marriage.” They hardly talked. When they did, it was with raised voices. The marriage was a lonely place. Tad liked being alone. Rachael hated it, which may have been a contributing factor to her having acquired a lifelong viral infection.

At the time she had the unforgettable check up, Mayor Saplin of Azzolla was having an affair with her husband’s friend and short-lived business partner, Harley Branson. Tad and she spent little time together and talked superficially, so it wasn’t difficult to keep him in the dark about her extra-curricular activities.  At first she worried that herpes outbreaks would be a giveaway, but as weeks passed, she relaxed and gave God credit for allowing outbreaks to erupt only when Tad was away at work.  It gave her one more thing to feel proud about. I keep confessing my sin to God and he keeps hiding my herpes.  It’s so cool to be forgiven.

Then, it happened. The tingle started on Tad’s first day home. The second day the tenderness increased.  She doubled up on her antiviral pills. It didn’t matter. On Tad’s third day off, a Sunday, she awoke with an obvious outbreak that makeup couldn’t cover. She got through half the day before they had a face-to-face conversation.

“What’s that sore on your lip? Is that what it looks like?” Tad asked.

“Well, Tad, that depends. If it looks like a cold sore, then yes, it is that which there are that come from having a cold.” She grimaced at the awkwardness of her own response, and in contorting her mouth she felt a painful reminder in a tender area on the right side of her upper lip.

“I know herpes when I see it!” he growled, “And that,” he pointed, "is herpes!”

She slapped his hand down and matched his accusatory tone, “I’ll just bet you do, Tad.” They glared at each other. She wasn’t done. “I betcha you know about both kinds of herpes, right, Tad?”

“There’s two kinds?  Oh, yeah, you mean… hey, wait a minute!”

 Oh no, now she’d done it. In trying to turn the tables, she’d put herself in the position of some kind of herpes expert.  She began to panic, afraid he would ask…

“Do you have both kinds?”

She didn’t answer, she walked away and let the slamming of the bedroom door speak for her.

It didn’t take too many inquiries around town to narrow the suspect list to one. Tad confronted Harley. The business closed down and the Branson family left the state. Tad bought himself a comfortable recliner for the living room and Rachael bought a large exercise machine for her bedroom.

Then, she had had another brief affair. Nothing very romantic, it was a textbook classic – the workplace relationship gone too far. Her inappropriate closeness to one of the City Councilmen began suddenly one January evening and was over by the first of May. This time, Tad threatened her with divorce. Rachael went to her mother for advice, and after Betty made her look at the matter practically, she admitted that Tad was the one “making real money” so Rachael begged him to stay and convinced him to accompany her to counseling.

They went to a Christian family counselor, Rachael wouldn’t see anyone who hadn’t been saved, and of course, they said that with prayer cover from believers and their own honest efforts they should be able to go on and have a good marriage in spite of having some issues in their past. Both Tad and Rachael agreed to work on their marriage.

“Working on the marriage,” the counselor told them, “includes making time for sex.”  Rachael hadn’t expected that from a Christian counselor, in fact that had been one of the reasons she picked someone from the faith. Nevertheless, she made the effort, and even aroused herself during their love making with the thought that she was doing it for the money. Such a bad girl. And Tad, why he was paying for sex!  Something about that bad boy image appealed to Rachael. Sex with Tad was fun again.

In spite of odd and busy schedules, they managed to get in the minimum weekly prescription of intercourse. In the process, Rachael accidentally conceived a child.

The unplanned child was what Betty Heat called an “ooopsy baby,” a name that Tad and Rachael became fond of and used while the baby was in utero. “How’s our little Ooopsy?” Tad would ask when he’d return home. “Ooopsy’s been kicking a lot today,” Rachael might reply. They became so comfortable with the name, they thought they might name the child “Ooopsy Saplin.” They agreed it would fit a boy or a girl.

Seven-year-old Maple thought the baby and the name were wonderful. She told her friends at school, “I’m going to have a brother or sister called Ooopsy!” The new second grade teacher scolded Maple and had her stand in the corner for telling a fib. When the teacher’s contract was not renewed the next year, the head of the teachers union came right out and told her she’d made a big mistake when she had a Saplin spend ten minutes in the corner. Fortunately for the fetus, the Saplins entertained some other gender-neutral names and ended up calling their third daughter Pride.

Rachael took a few weeks off from her job as mayor, then went back to her usual routine. The baby spent mornings, day  after day in a baby carrier looking up at the underside of a desk in the Azzolla Town Hall.  In the afternoon she would be delivered to her grandmother Betty so that Rachael could get back to tanning and take long naps. New motherhood had become old hat to Rachael. Pride’s essential needs were met, but little more.

Tad had hoped for a boy, but once he cradled his third little girl in his arms, he wouldn’t have changed a thing about her. Still, he held out hope that his wife might agree to have a fifth child, especially if, somehow, they could figure out how to conceive a boy. That dream was shot down one day when Rachael came into the room while he was swaddling three month old Pride and warned, “Better enjoy that baby. I’m too old for this. Next week I’m getting my tubes tied.” And she did. Neither of them said anything, but they felt differently about sex after that, and they began sleeping apart once again.

Five years later, when Wrangler Strauss began dating Cristol, the young man wondered why and how the governor and her husband had even had four children. It appeared to him that they never talked, let alone touched. The affects shown throughout the household. Life at the Saplins was full of chaos and stress and void of compassion and warmth. Cristol told him it had always been like that, except that since her mom began working in the capital it was “ten times worse.”

It wasn’t and exaggeration. At the mansion after the day workers went home, there was a lot of yelling. Rachael and Tad were, once again, in need of marital counseling, and the children’s interactions with them and each other could have been scripted by the writers of “The Family Guy” or “South Park.”

The four children were remarkable only in problematic ways; Field had identity and aggression issues, Cristol was insecure and a dullard, Maple was arrogant and rude, Pride was spoiled. The older ones and their friends spent weekends in group activities, picking from a smorgasbord of opportunities both good and bad: drinking, drugs, sex, shoplifting, and vandalism fell into the latter category while shopping, hanging out, hiking, camping, fishing and hunting, and going to the movies were primary activities of the former.

By May 2007, Field, Cristol and Maple were thrilled to be back in Azzolla for the summer and minus parental supervision for weeks at a time. They prepared to gorge themselves with mischief and merrymaking.

The Governor and Tad didn’t realize how deeply their kids were involved with risky behavior. They were distracted by the duties of the Governor’s office. Tad was, in reality, a co-governor with Rachael. Some called him  “The Shadow.” He attended official meetings, was copied on official email, made quasi-official requests, and had input into policy.

An issue as big as any concern the Governor’s Office wrestled with that summer was the dating life of a member of the governor’s staff. A public employee, and a once-trusted member of Rachael Saplin’s high school inner circle, he’d been dismissed over the Fourth of July weekend when the governor heard that this man was dating the ex-wife of a Saplin friend and supporter. The week following the abrupt firing,  Rachael was working out of the satellite office in Azzolla and accidentally learned that the man had already found a job with a lobbyist. She’d issued orders to Tad, “Call up and tell ‘em the governor isn’t happy that they hired that impotent, limp noodle. Tell ‘em I expect they’ll have the cojones to do the right thing. Make sure they understand.”

Rummaging through papers on her desk to give Tad the lobbyist’s phone number, she mumbled “Bob has a lot of nerve to call himself a Christian, him breaking up a marriage and all. And they have kids, also!” If she meant to give Tad a reason to get involved, she needn't have bothered. He didn’t need one. He joined in looking for the number, anxious to make the call for his own satisfaction. It wasn’t the adultery that offended him,  though he had the momentarily satisfying thought that maybe Bob would contract herpes or something. Anyway, the truth was, Tad simply never liked Bob. He didn’t like any of the men who worshiped his wife. What husband would?

“Vengeance is mine, sayeth the Lord.” Rachael quoted. 

Tad wasn’t in the mood for her God-speak. He wanted to get onto that call.

“Now you are the Lord, Rachael? I know how you like titles, but come on."

“Shut up, Tad!” she said. Momentarily stopping her search, she straightened up and put her hands on her hips. “I’m a servant of the Lord,” she explained. “And you’re not. If you had been raised in a real church, like I was, you would understand these things.”

That did it. He was ready for a good argument. “Well, I don't understand. And, here’s a question for you. If God is love, like it says on that poster you stuck on the refrigerator to impress company, then how can loving someone be wrong? I don't like Bob, but …”

She held up a palm. “God’s ways are higher than ours. Don’t try to confuse me with reason.”

“Try? I don’t have to try…”

Tad spotted the paper with the number. He grabbed it and left the room. Behind him he heard her ask, “What do you mean by that?” He didn't bother to answer.

Tad could be intimidating. He liked to bully “the lesser people.” That afternoon, he was especially nasty when he made the call to the lobbyist. That will teach Bob not to mess around with the governor’s office, he thought.

That same day, while Tad and Rachael conspired to penalize a grown man for his relationship choices, Cristol and Wrangler were in her family’s remote cabin making relationship choices of their own. Her parents, had no idea where the kids were. It hadn't crossed their minds. 


Ironically, while Tad was forcefully delivering his message, Wrangler was putting a lot of energy into his delivery, too. It would be hard to say which of them was the more satisfied when they were through. Wrangler and Cristol, however, fell blissfully asleep in each other's arms, but Tad and Rachael returned home separately, with Tad taking a detour  to handle personal business before going home. 

That night, in bed alone, Rachael reached into the drawer of the nightstand and pulled out her journal. Keeping a diary was a ritual she's held onto since junior high. It made her feel like she was putting her college work to some use.  She clicked the pen and began to write:


So disappointed in Bob. Thought he was a Christian. Now he’s backslidden. So foolish!!!!

That took care of the day's business events; she started a new paragraph about the family:


 Midnight and such a lovely night. Pride staying over at Mom and Dad’s. F, C, and M are all out with friends having fun. Tad went for another massage this afternoon. Says it really helps him relax after a day like this one. I think I should get a massage myself sometime.

Track Palin, Levi Johnston, Ex-Lax, and an upcoming ELECTION

Laxative in a brownie. That’s national news? It depends. (Insert adult diaper joke here.)  It depends on the source of the story. If the dirt is coming from someone named Palin and the accused is a Johnston, then it’s definitely going to make the news. On the other hand, if it's just a prank committed by a Palin, no one in the media today would touch it.

I know this topic is quite literally old crap. But some stuff never goes away.  Bristol Palin has yet another stupid television thing in the works, and you know it's going to be all about dissing the father of her son Tripp. How do we know? Because in Palinland there is nothing new under the sun. Once a gimmick is concocted, it is used relentlessly. This "new" show is going to be just another publicity stunt that gives Bristol a stage to stick it to Levi over and over. Like she did in her high-school bitchy book.

One year ago the book penned by Nancy French for Bristol Palin was released and we were treated to “The Lies of Sarah Palin’s Daughter” in hardcover format. The June 2011 reports by USAToday and the Washington Post and plenty of other names in journalism used the same quotes from Bristol Palin’s memoir “Not Afraid of Life”: “[Levi] came to hockey practice drunk, he put Ex-Lax in some kid’s brownie, he got sent to the office.”  It’s pathetic that those bad boy behaviors of 2005 were deemed so important for the world to know that major news sources gave space to them. Kids have, do and will continue to show up on school property drunk. It’s high school.  It happens. High school kids will be sent to the office today – somewhere north of the Mason-Dixon line where school isn’t out yet. News? No. Ho hum.  

As for the  Ex-Lax caper, that was news at one time. National news? Of course not. Ron Wilmot wrote the article for the November 23, 2005 edition of the Anchorage Daily News.  His rendition differs from the one Bristol published six years after the fact. Under the  headline “Wasilla Suspends Team After Prank,” interested Alaskans read that:

Wasilla High administrators on Tuesday suspended the varsity hockey team from play for two weeks after players gave a teammate a cookie laced with laxatives during the team's road trip to Fairbanks last weekend.

"This fits our definition of hazing," said Wasilla High principle Dwight Probasco. "We have a very clear direction on hazing. Some may deem it as a prank, but we have zero tolerance on this."”

Mr. Wilmot never mentioned Levi Johnston nor any other person. The story says the whole team got suspended. That would have included junior Track Palin. Well, well, no surprise there.

Throughout Bristol’s book she calls Levi a “gnat” and  she holds up her brother Track as a shining example of what a real man should be. Typical Bristol style. No one who has paid attention to Bristol Palin’s interviews can believe a word she says. Truth is dispensable when Bristol goes looking for attention – her new chin is not the result of dental corrections, her son’s father would love to be in his life, she did not return home to Wasilla because she was done with Hollywood, she is not living an abstinent lifestyle, and her weight gain on Dancing With the Stars had nothing to do with playing basketball when she was 15.

Levi is much more believable. Levi was a freshman and admittedly he was a full-of-himself jerk at that time the brownie tampering took place. He doesn’t run from it, in “Deer in the Headlights” he talks openly about school year stupidity. Levi also implicated Track in the now-famous school bus vandalism incident, but then says he isn’t sure. It was rumor. What he didn’t put in the book is the laxative moment – but someone else told us about both incidents. Frank Bailey begins with the rumors that Track was involved with the vandalism of school property; he claims that Governor Palin emailed “a long list of contacts in radio, television and print media to discredit the story” to suggest the rumors came from her estranged brother-in-law Trooper Wooten.  This leads into Bailey’s recital of events in the above mentioned hazing. He says it followed about two weeks after the bus vandalism.  On 179 of “Blind Allegiance to Sarah Palin” Bailey writes:

At one point, when older players on Track Palin’s hockey team put Ex-Lax in a younger player’s cookie as a prank and were disciplined, Sarah reacted by suggesting in a email to Todd and a small list of friends that “students can’t say ‘boo’ nowadays without getting in big trouble.” …Todd, in focusing his anger on the school’s administration, wrote, “I am having a hard time understanding the difference between a prank involving a cookie laced with ex-lax and a WHS coach using disgustingly abusive and intimidating tactics while calling WHS student a ‘f***ing a**hole.’”

The Washington Post called Levi a bully (they got that from Bristol’s tattle-taling book.). Nice, isn’t it, that Tripp will find that online some day? His mother should be ashamed of herself. And if anyone's a bully in this duo, it's the one who continually points out the shortcomings of the other to audiences day and night, coast to coast, in print, on the radio, on Jay Leno, to no-name interviewers in Christian broadcasting, and everywhere a door opens to her.

All this makes me think about Shailey Tripp - she wrote a memoir, too. In “Boys Will Be Boys” Shailey called Todd Palin a bully. She included documents that support her revelation that Todd Palin is a pimp. Hmmm, Ex-Lax versus latex condoms.  Hazing versus pimping. High school prank versus adult sex trafficking. Getting sent to the office versus escorting a US Secret Service agent assigned to protect a VP candidate into the massage parlor of a prostitute on your own payroll. What does it tell us that the Levi and Ex-Lax story was covered by the Washington Post, the Huffington Post and USA Today and the Todd Palin is a pimp story has yet to make any national headlines?

It says that American media is bought and paid for. The 2011 “news” about a few cookies in Alaska in 2005 wasn’t news. Anyone can see that it was advertisement. Advertisement for a book being published by HarperCollins during the time the company was still pushing Sarah Palin’s “America By Heart.”  HarperCollins, a subsidiary of News Corporation, describes itself as a “global vertically integrated media company founded by Rupert Murdoch.” Good old Rupert publishes not only Palin propaganda memoirs, but also publishes the New York Post and The Wall Street Journal, produces Fox News and more. So much more. They aren’t kidding when they say they are global. The latest news for the company has them infiltrating Disney. Hey, why not – much of what they produce has been doctored to the point where it’s more fairytale, folk lore, and myth. 

 And speaking of Disney, the Lifetime Network, home to Bristol's "Life's a Tripp" program, is co-owned by the multi-media monster Hearst Corporation and Disney Corporation.  These giants are like small town politicians - they are a small, tight group who run everything and can't be dislodged.  Got to give them credit for one thing, they can assemble an appropriate cast of characters.  Willow is supposed to be seen frequently in the show shot in Los Angeles and Wassilla.  Won't that be entertaining?

We have the Clinton Administration to thank for the Telecommunications Act of 1996 that made it possible for a handful of people to manipulate what we and our children learn about the world. We have a former corporate lawyer who made $1 million a year heading the Supreme Court that handed down the infamous Citizens United decision which declared money speech and defined corporations as people. It’s a sad time in the history of America. Real people with stories that matter, and yes, I’m referencing the Todd Palin running an interstate sex trafficking ring with ties to the Secret Service and the military – those people will not be published by corporations, or quoted, or have their stories told unless some global media corporation thinks it’s good for the bottom line. While the name Palin brings in the bucks, the Shaileys and Levis will remain little more than  blogger fodder.

The Wasilla Warriors Ex-Lax-capade not only gives us another example of media bias and Palin bullsh**, it leads to a frightening reality about the upcoming election.  The presidential race of 2012 will not be won by an election. The president who takes the oath in January 2013 will be put into office by public auction. The corporations and the 1% are secretly bidding while the media are serving as auctioneers who look out over the masses and pretend we are in the game, too.  In the end, they have made money, the highest bidders take the prize, and we, the audience, have been little more than entertained.

Remember the Ex-Lax lesson when you read or turn on the news covers this year’s candidates.

Discouraging, isn’t it?  I promise I’ll lighten things up here on Friday when I release the fourth chapter of “White Trash in the Snow.”   

Levi Johnston is THIS CLOSE to Getting a Real Job

Levi's public Facebook page has a new message:

 Public pages are just that.  They are public. This is a screen shot from the same Facebook page you heard about here when Levi launched it last month.  You can get there yourself and give Levi some words of encouragement. Some of you have already left comments for Levi and Sunny showing support.  He says the page is so we all can "read between the lines in the headlines" but hearing from people who are on his side might be part of it, too.


It's nice to hear directly from Levi after all these years, especially since he isn't getting paid to speak. Money up front was his MO while being "represented" by the Wasilla pair that led him down the path to Playgirl and pistachio commercials, and phony campaigning for public office.  That was what he told Nick Bloomfield and that's why Levi wasn't interviewed for "Sarah Palin: You Betcha."  This is a step in the right direction. It's real.


Now, the other Johnston sibling, Mercede,  has a not-public Facebook page. She used to have a public blog, but it's dormant because she made a deal with the Palins, or something close to a deal. However formal or informal the agreement was, she stopped posting and never came back.


I wish she would make a public Facebook page.  On Saturday she posted on her own FB page, then allowed Immoral Minority and Levi to both reprint it.  In case you missed it, have a look - this is the Levi Facebook version which had his own message to Sadie right up front:


(I Have never watched Bristols show and we NEVER will, but Sadie hit the nail on the head with this status yesterday so i have to reshare) THANK YOU SIS! 


"It’s not fair to him that he has no one here except for me.” -Bristol REALLY????REALLY BRISTOL?!??! You failed to mention the fact that my whole family would give up anything in this world to see our sweet Tripp! He has a Father who misses, loves, and wants to see his son every single day, and who wants to have his son be a part of his soon to be born sister's life as well. He has a Grandma who cries regularly over Tripp, a Grandpa who is dying to teach Tripp the tricks of the outdoors, a Great Grandpa who sees Tripp as the light of his life, and MANY cousins,family, and friends who miss him desperately. Not to mention ME, who loves Tripp with all my heart, and I will never give up trying to have a civil relationship with you for my nephews sake. Your son deserves to have us in his life. You're punishing him based solely on your unresolved feelings toward our family, and it has nothing to do with anything he, or we, have done.. All of us, any of us, would take him in a heartbeat, but there is no pleasing you. We have done everything you've asked and you still refuse to let us be a part of his life. So I guess because our last name isn't "Palin" that we aren't worthy of being in Tripp's life? The image that you're portraying, of being a single mom with no one else to help you, in order to attract viewers to your new reality show, is such a disgusting lie. There are COUNTLESS people who love Tripp JUST AS MUCH AS YOU DO and who want him, JUST AS MUCH AS YOU DO! We would LOVE to take him so you can have a break and do whatever it is you want. Why does a nanny get to spend that special time with him when we're shedding tears over here? If I was a single mom I would be offended that someone who has millions of dollars, an unlimited supply of resources, and a nanny, is being paid to sit on her reality show and bitch about how difficult her life is. You have no clue what a lot of real single mothers have to go through. You can lie to as many people as you want, after all YOU have a reality show, but this is the truth and we are never going to stop repeating it: “We love and miss you Tripp Easton Johnston"."




Nice to have something to cheer about, isn't it?  Levi getting a real job, and speaking up for himself.  I'm going to be the first one to say it this year, premature but heartfelt:


HAPPY FATHER'S DAY 2012 Levi Johnston!  Good luck with the new job, new baby and new life !

White Trash in the Snow - Chapter Three (Jerrie Strauss chaperones a field trip to Azzolla City Hall)

Chapter One 

Chapter Two

White Trash in the Snow

by Allison

CHAPTER THREE

Mayor Saplin hadn’t seen Jerrie Strauss in a dozen years. She didn’t even recognize the woman when she appeared along with another mom, a teacher, and Cristol’s entire third grade class (including a kid named Wrangler) for a tour of Azzolla City Hall. Mayor Saplin greeted everyone, told the moms “call me Rachael,” and ducked into her office promising, with a wink, to “be right back."

She reappeared moments later with a tray of “baked this morning” cookies and was rewarded with smiles from everyone. It was a fun day for the group of eight year olds who were thrilled to have a break from the classroom. The curious children asked many questions including, “Are you really Cristol’s mommy?” (answer, yes I am) and “Why do you have so many shoes under your desk?” (answer, because I’m out of room in my closet at home). They watched her sign a proclamation for “Truth and Honesty Week” and a boy loudly observed, “Wow! You write BIG!”

"Why do you write so big?" A little girl asked.

Rachael saw it as an opportunity to show off her knowledge of American History. “That’s such a good question!” she said. “My signature is big out of a great respect for the founding fathers, Abraham Lincoln and George Washington, too, which it is that, of course, is that which they did when they wrote the most important document in the whole world.”

The adults froze. The kids stopped fidgeting.  Jerrie Strauss replayed the words in her head to make sense out of them; it was a futile endeavor. Mayor Saplin went on, “Can any of you kids tell me - What is it that is that document – the most important one of any of ‘em, all of ‘em?”

A couple silent beats went by and she said, “I’ll tell ‘ya. It started when John Hancock, who didn’t have his glasses because Ben Franklin had stepped on them, signed his name extra large and…whereas…because, of course, he was a hard-workin’ patriot – all of ‘em had jobs - and of course, too, they needed to get the Constitution signed to create jobs. It was all about job creation. And freedom. And so, we have those great patriotic Americans to thank for our freedom to own guns, and have jobs, and I’m so grateful to ‘em that I sign my name really big, too when I’m being like they once were, signing stuff and all. And they lived on farms also, too.”

From the twenty or so puzzled looks she got, she decided the US Constitution must be in the fourth grade history lessons. Rachael beamed, proud of herself for having been able to remember that much history and give this bunch of little sprouts an extemporaneous history lesson.

The teacher made mental notes and used them for weeks thereafter, whenever one of her colleague’s needed a laugh and asked for a retelling of the mayor’s revisionist history lesson. In the moment, however, she simply changed the subject and asked the mayor to explain a bit about how local elections are conducted.

The moms assumed the Mayor was having fun, putting out a harmless tale so the teacher could give the kids the real lesson back at school. They mistakenly thought Rachael saw them as being some kind of community team. It was a fair assumption; after all, Rachael had finished her explanation of voting with the admonition, “Voting is what you do because you want to be a good citizen. Your own moms and dads can teach you about being good Americans, also, too.  These two moms who came with you today are being good citizens by helping the teacher.” Then she turned to the women, gave them warm smiles, and said, “It takes everyone workin’ together, raisin’ this crop of young ‘uns up right.”

“It takes a village to raise a child,” the second mom offered.

“Yup, so true,” Rachael said, nodding.

“Have you read it?” asked the woman.

“Read what?”

“The book.”

 “What --?”

“– the one by Hillary Rodham Clinton.”

Rachael wasn’t sure what book this other mom thought she might have read, but for sure she hadn’t read it. “I wouldn’t be reading any book by Hillary Clinton. She’s a liberal.”

“Oh, I see,” was all the other woman said.

Everyone let the topic die out. Gone, too, was the feel-good atmosphere that had been permeated with cookies and camaraderie. Politics had spoiled it. And it wasn’t only the First Lady that had been judged and found unacceptable – the mayor’s friendly smile and designer glasses hid the truth.  Rachael had been sizing up the chaperones and found them lacking.

She assumed that moms who went along on field trips must not have “real jobs.” Though subconsciously she envied stay-at-home moms and their ability to do what she wasn’t cut out to do (nurture), she cultivated a disdain for hardworking women who made motherhood their primary career. A pity, she thought as she watched the parents help get the children back on the school bus, whatever God-given talents those women have, they are going to waste. The Bible warns against burying our talents. Well, they’ll have to answer for that some day. Satisfied that she had put in a hard morning, she returned to her office, gathered her coat and purse, and headed off to get a manicure.

“The Big Tease” was Rachael Saplin’s favorite beauty salon. They specialized in prom styles for every day of the week.A few weeks after the third grade had been to City Hall,  the mayor’s office received a complaint by the Big Tease owner seeking to have Jerrie Strauss fined for working out of her own kitchen as a beautician. The letter demanded that a cease and desist order be issued to stop her from cutting, coloring, and setting hair in a residential building because it wasn’t zoned for business and because Ms. Strauss didn’t have the professional licensing required to cut hair. Rachael thought back on   the recent tour. She pictured the woman’s long, tussled tresses of champagne blonde hair. Oh my, Rachael thought, that woman is a hairdresser? She needs  to update her own style. Then, as often happened, her thoughts changed tracks. Oh, but at least she works. Bless her heart.

Feeling that this was an opportunity to show that she didn’t play favorites, Mayor Saplin took the complaint to the recently hired city manager and said, “I know the person who filed this complaint, she’s my friend. But, I want all the facts and no special treatment.” Ten seconds after leaving his cubicle she was back with a stronger demand. “Get me an answer today.”

It turned out to be a frivolous complaint. The city manager’s report stated that Mrs. Strauss served so few clients her work could be considered a personal service for friends and family (“That’s no surprise,” Mayor Saplin remarked), which made it a moot point that Azolla had no licensing or zoning laws. (“Oh, yeah, I forgot,” Rachael said without embarrassment.)

No license issues, no zoning issues, Rachael smiled as she penned her name on letters to both parties with the big, swooping Rs and Ss. While signing the documents with flair, she was reminded of the bewildered look on the eight year old when, during the third grade class visit, she’d answered his question about her extra-large cursive. He was obviously too young to understand the history lesson she thought. No matter what she’d told those kids, that signature came from her ego not her patriotism.

The file was closed and everyone assumed that was the end of it. Then, four days later, the late morning mail brought the city manager and the mayor handwritten notes thanking them for their prompt and fair resolution. The signatory, “Mrs. Jerrie Strauss,” was brief and respectful, and wrote her name without exaggerated swirls. The manager was in Rachael’s office when the letters came. He opened his and said, “How nice of her.”

The four word observation ruffled the mayor’s feathers. A competitor in all things, she looked again at the card in her hand, appraising it critically. The words, grammar, penmanship, and signature were confident and moderate, and she knew her own writing, both mechanically and in content was not at that level – the level of an in-home hairdresser. An unsuccessful in-home hairdresser!

Rachael sneered “Who has time to thank public officials for doing their jobs? I could, too, send hand written notes if I weren’t busy running this town.” She flicked the card into the trash can by her desk. Then, she began picking up miscellaneous small items from the desk - a pencil, a pen, another pen – and threw each one into the trash separately in a childish display of temper. The stapler made a satisfyingly loud crash as it banged around, metal hitting metal, and she picked up the electric pencil sharpener next.

Embarrassed for his boss, the city manager collected up his papers and left the room.

Alone and angry, Rachael hit the speed-dial for her husband and rummaged through the trash waiting for the sound of the ringing. Tapping the edge of the card on the desktop in front of her, she grew impatient.

Tad was in the garage working on his Arctic Cat and thinking about lunch. He regretted picking up the phone as soon as he heard her speak. “You know, Tad, I work hard. Don’t I work hard? And I’d love to be home with the kids! Haven’t I always said that?”

He shouldered the phone and grabbed a rag, wiping grease from his hands. “Said what? What are you talking about, Rachael?”

“Pay attention Tad! I’m talkin’ about moms who stay home and perhaps work from home and of course, certainly pal around with other moms who stay home thinkin’ they are better than us moms who work and also, too, tryin’ to make us feel guilty.” She jumped up and started pacing back and forth, waving the thank you note like evidence in the hand of a courtroom attorney and yelling into the phone that was in her other hand. “God gave me talents! I have a CALLING!  I’m the mayor because God put me here. The haters just make me stronger, Tad. They just make me stronger.”

Tad knew his wife was hypersensitive about being a working wife and working mom with young children. He blamed it on the open disapproval of “brothers and sisters in the Lord” who thought a married woman working outside the home was “a dishonor to her husband.” If he didn’t flippin’ care, why should they?

The screeching got louder, “…God opened the door, and I plowed through. I didn’t blink! I’m doing His work! I don’t have time to write thank-yous and go on field trips.”

Tad let her rage, and inserted a “Yes,” an “Uh-huh,” or a “You’re right,” here and there  while checking for a leak in a hose. It all sounded familiar until she got to the cookies.

“And those were damn good cookies!”

He couldn’t help himself, he had to ask. “Rachael, what cookies?”

“The bakery cookies!” she shouted.

Huffing and chuffing sounds signaled Tad that it was safer for him to stay quiet. He checked the oil while she composed herself. When the sounds subsided, he tried to sound calm and rational, “Rachael, I don’t understand the part about cookies.”

“Pay attention, Tad! I told you! They were bakery cookies! The big, soft ones.”

“Hmmm,” he said, remembering he was hungry. “Sounds yummy.”

“Darned right. And peanut butter, also!”

He tried enthusiasm. “Cookies and peanut butter? A winning combination!"

“God, Tad! Not cookies and peanut butter! Peanut butter cookies!”

“Oh,” he said, “with that fork criss-cross…”

“Yes! Yup, yup. Everybody loved ‘em.”

Tad knew what to do. He was as good with Rachael’s breakdowns as he was fixing his snow mobile. “Rachael, you have a clear calling,” he looked around for a wrench, “Your way with people is why God made you the Mayor of Azzolla,” he tightened a bolt. “Like you said, everybody loves store-bought bakery cookies. Especially big, soft ones and peanut butter fork-pressed ones.” He jiggled a wire as he talked. “So, are you bringing some home today? That would be great because Field finished off the Oreos…”

“God, Tad, aren’t you listening at all? I'm talking about the tour – Cristol’s classmates – weeks ago – and those kids ate two cookies each, they’ve got no manners except, of course, the ones that do, like our Cristol, there are manners there, of course, and some of the other girls, but most of the boys though, why one of them ate four! And his mother was right there, but did she say anything? No, not a peep, so of course there weren’t any left, which is why you didn’t get any.”

Oh, I haven’t been getting any for a long time, Tad thought.

As Tad half listened and worked on the snow mobile, Rachael switched from defense to offense and began spewing criticism of a woman named Jerrie Strauss. Tad caught enough to understand that she was feeling defensive about working and that the feelings had been stirred up by a chaperone accompanying kids on a field trip. This chaperone was a stay-at-home mom who ran a business in her home, volunteered in the classroom, and (this part was a little fuzzy) made cookies from scratch. There was something about handwriting and cards that wasn’t clear to him, and then she mentioned Hillary Clinton and he was completely lost. So he went for the time-tested cure-all for the Rachael Heat Saplin blues: “No one does more than you, Baby. You’re not only Mayor Saplin, you are Super Mom – correction - Super Christian Mom! No one can take those titles from you.”

“Tad, you are so right.” Rachael was appeased. She loved titles.

Tad had been through this sort of thing many times. He could trace the onset of Rachael’s manic episodes of insecurity back to Easter Sunday when Cristol was six. Tad remembered it vividly. That morning, the very young wife of the youth pastor spotted the Saplins - Tad and Rachael, Field, Cristol and baby Maple – as they arrived for service. With Bible in hand, a ten-month old bouncing along on her hip and a toddler clinging to her long skirt, the woman worked her way across a crowded narthex to greet them. She gave Rachael a big hug and gushing, announced, “Mrs. Saplin, the MOPS are praying for you.”

Rachael smiled a polite smile and Tad laughed. “Mops? How about the brooms, don’t they pray, too?”

Rachael ignored him. The woman gave a look of tolerance, then said to Rachael. “He’ll begin to appreciate the Mothers of Preschoolers group soon enough.”

Rachael didn’t know exactly what that was supposed to imply, but she did understand the original message - she was receiving “prayer cover” from the church’s young moms group who called themselves MOPS. How nice of them to be holding her up in prayer.  She was doing God’s work as a public official, they were her supporters. Rachael basked in feeling of being so important that the young minister’s wife, so busy with her own small children, was concerned about what went on at City Hall.

Just then, the toddler, dressed in a miniature version of the dress her mother was wearing, started tugging and whining at the young mom who gently said, “Hold still, Mary Martha; Mommy’s not done.” Looking up again, she told Rachael, “I have something exciting to share with you.” Her eyes were twinkling.“In my private prayer time this morning – the wee hours of the morning– God told me He is going to do a marvelous work in you, Rachael Saplin!”

Rachael was used to religious talk, she was raised with her mother spouting the lingo and she now used it around her own house. So Tad and the kids were unfazed by the message that might sound stranger to a secular person. Though they needed to find seats in the rapidly filling sanctuary, the Saplins all held back to let the minister’s partner finish her God-speak to Rachael.

The woman was in no hurry. Not yet. She smiled at the Saplin children one at a time starting with Maple, then Cristol, then Field. When she returned her gaze to Rachael and Tad she said, “Such a lovely family. Despise not God’s gifts!”

Now, that phrase was odd. What did that mean?  Tad’s eyes widened. Rachael’s face froze. Despise? Is this criticism? Rachael searched for an appropriate response. Clueless as to what Mrs. Youth Minister was talking about, she followed a strategy that had become almost second nature: compliment the other person and yourself at the same time; feign humility while taking credit. “I am just a servant of God. And you all have servant’s hearts too, prayin’ so hard and all. It seems your prayers surely are powerful, ‘cause I’m seein’ the Hand of God movin’ and, oh, yeah, through Him, I’m cleanin’ up the town! Yup, yup, you and the other moms…mops…whatever… are tearin’ down the forces of evil, certainly, of course, and also it is for sure because of your prayer power fightin’ those unseen demons that God is moving in Azzolla! You betcha!”

She winked, startling the other woman who took a step back, dragging her toddler with her.

“Well, got to find some seats.” She began pushing Cristol and Field toward the sanctuary. “Do keep holdin’ me up in prayer in your nice little meetings” she said. Then, Rachael reached over and hugged the woman lightly.

The minister’s wife beamed. Rachael had a gift for making people feel she genuinely cared about them, and in a shallow way, she really did. Which is why she added yet another compliment by commenting on the mother-daughter set of Little House on the Prairie dresses the woman had obviously made for the occasion.

Mayor Saplin laid her hand on the other woman’s hand (the one not holding a Bible), and lied. “Such darling dresses! Mary Martha looks so cute today,” she smiled at the child. “Love the flowered print – isn’t that called calico? Where’d you get them?” She moved her hand to Cristol’s shoulder, “I’d love to get one for Cristol.”

Cristol, with heavy exaggeration, gagged and rolled her eyes at her brother. Field returned the look.

The adults ignored the children’s rudeness, but Rachael blanched when the twenty-year old mother of two said, “You will have to repent before your daughter can wear anything like this.” Each word drenched with sanctimony, she continued, “Unlike you, I know I am in God’s grace. My husband and children are my priorities, they mean more to me than worldly possessions and I am not seduced by power and fame.” A rosy color began to rise in Rachael’s cheeks as the boasting and rebuking continued.“ I made these dresses using God given talents. He blessed me with the ability to sew because I am obedient to His will. I strive to be a Proverbs 31 woman. I never had a lesson, but I can sew beautiful dresses like these because His spirit guides me.”

The self-declared saint bent down and pulled Mary Martha onto her other hip. When she stood and adjusted the plump little legs to encircle her waist the girl’s ankle-length skirt gathered high, revealing that the child was not yet out of diapers. The Proverbs 31 woman smiled again and chirped, “Praise the Lord. He’s going to do a work in you Rachael Saplin. I’ll save a place for you on Tuesday mornings!”

“Tuesdays?” Rachael croaked.

“Tuesday’s at ten a.m. That’s when us MOPs have fellowship. God said you will be joining us. Oh, bring the baby. We hire a babysitter and split the cost. The more of us, the cheaper it is.”

Giving Rachael a Judas-like peck on the cheek, the minister’s wife wished them all a “Happy Resurrection Day!” and hustled away.

Under her breath, Rachael hissed to Tad, “She’s nuts. A genuine fruit loop. What does she think? I’m not gonna quit a job I was elected to do to stay home and sew stupid dresses. How lame.”

Tad, distracted, barely heard her. He was watching the woman work her way through the crowd, marveling that she could balance unequal, wriggling loads on her hips, lug a purse, a diaper bag and a very large Bible, all the while wearing two inch heels and a dress so long that it occasionally became wrapped around her calves.

Rachael followed his eyes, “Come on,” she snapped. “I want a seat near the front where everyone can see we got here today. I’m not doin’ this for naught.”

At the last second, Tad looked back and saw the Proverbs 31 woman, kids still on her hips, exchanging an awkward hug with someone who looked a lot like the way he remembered June Cleaver. “Of course you can borrow the pattern!” one of them said.

At Easter dinner with the Heat clan that afternoon, Betty had hardly finished saying grace when Rachael shared the story of the “snotty woman” who made the “silly dresses” and had the “whiney kid” attached to her “hillbilly skirt.” Everyone got a good laugh, and Rachael was temporarily mollified. When she brought it up again in the car on the way home, however, Tad knew the rebuke from a low level clergy person’s spouse meant much more than she was letting on.

After that, Rachael was highly sensitive about her image as a mother; the slightest perceived criticism would make her crazy.

Tad recognized all the signs in the Jerrie Strauss episode, and he drew from past experience to handle the crisis at hand. Reassuring his wife of her superiority, generic platitudes were augmented with some cliché put downs of hairdressers to fit the meltdown at hand.

Rachael took the bait. Calming down, she said catty things about Jerrie Strauss’ outdated clothing, “last year’s colors, last year’s length,” and her over bleached tresses worn “too long for almost forty.” (The age was a dig, too. Rachael knew Jerrie was the same as she was - in her early thirties.)

Tad and Rachael decided they had nothing in common with this trailer park family other than Wrangler and Cristol having the same teacher. “It’s a very weak connection,” Rachael said.

 “Thank God,” he said.

“Amen,” Rachael said.

Able to finally hang up, Tad rewarded himself for showing restraint by getting a couple of beers from his secret stash (Rachael, the Christian, didn’t approve of drinking). He took them in the house to find something to go with them that could pass for lunch.

Rachael had also decided to reward herself. She called it a day, and headed home.

White Trash in the Snow - Chapter Two (In which we meet Tad Saplin, Buck Heat and some other fictional characters)

In chapter one, readers were intimately introduced to Cristol Saplin and her boyfriend Wrangler Strauss, and met her mother, the governor. 

In today's chapter, readers begin to learn more about Cristol's parents, Tad Saplin and Rachael Heat Saplin, through glimpses into  how they were raised, and their life together. 

I hope you will enjoy getting to know all the characters in "White Trash in the Snow" as the story unfolds. Check back on Friday June 1st  to meet Wrangler's mom in Chapter 3. 

Disclaimer for new readers: These characters are not real and any similarity to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.  

Bonne lecture! 

White Trash in the Snow

by Allison




CHAPTER TWO

Tad and Rachael Saplin had been Azzolla High School sweethearts. Kevin and Jeraldine “Jerrie” Strauss had been AHS sweethearts, too.  The latter couple won the title of "cutest couple" the year they were all seniors. Rachael wasn't even nominated, and she was extremely jealous.  To this day, she claims that a passion for clean campaigns and ethics in politics started when she witnessed "a rigged voting process" for an "important election" when she was in high school. 

 Azzolla had less than 4,000 residents when those four graduated. Soon, their friends paired up and began to produce the next generation of Azzles. It didn't take long for young parents to begin to recognize the surnames of former classmates among the list of pre-schoolers who were tasting the paste side by side with their own little rug rats. By elementary school, Wrangler was one of the boys Field knew from midget hockey and midget football and one of the kids in Cristol's  grade in school. Rachael was more aware of him than Tad.  It was when the kids hit high school and Tad heard  the name "Wrangler Strauss" announced with the starting lineup of the Azzolla High Red Devils hockey team that Cristol's dad took notice. The kid was only a freshman! Something wasn't right. 

“It fries my pistons to see that kid get a starting position,” Tad told Rachael when he got home after the third game of the school year. “He’s younger than Field. He should have to wait his turn. And you should have seen how he hogs the puck. He’s making the most points! Who does he think he is? Somebody ought to teach him a thing or two.”

Rachael’s mouth twisted into a smirk. “Shoot, Tad. It don’t matter who he thinks he is, what matters is who Field is and Field is my son and that means he’s a Saplin.”

“If you say so, Rachael.”

His wife didn't even blink at the double entendre.  “Right," she said, "and what does it mean to be a Saplin? It means he isn’t going to let himself be shown up by anybody. We raised him better than that. He’ll do whatever he has to do to get what he wants, you’ll see.”

“Well I hope he remembers what I told him,” Tad said. “He can’t be breaking any more hands during games. Or breaking heads, either. Those stunts cost him too much time in the penalty box. He’s got to be on the ice to be seen by the talent scouts.”

The week that followed that conversation, the Red Devils had back-to-back games out of town. During the long bus ride out, someone put laxatives in another player’s candy stash and the boy became very ill. A group of seniors led by Field Saplin swore they’d seen Wrangler messing with the other kid’s bags and he was called out by the coach. He protested his innocence, but it did no good. Wrangler Strauss wasn’t allowed to suit up that weekend or for the next four home games. 

Buck Heat, Field Saplin’s grandfather and the Azzolla High track coach followed all the Red Devil’s teams closely. When he heard about the incident, he smiled so broadly his dentures almost fell out. Before the team was back in town, Buck had dropped off a a case of premium beer at the hockey coach’s house, telling the man’s wife that it was “just  a little something to show appreciation – from one coach to another.” Afterwards he went  to Rachael’s house to pick up the girls, they were going to their grandparent’s for supper because the rest of the family was out of town. Pride, the youngest, ran out to meet him with complaints about her sisters. Pouting, she opened the passenger side door of the truck the minute it came to a halt. Whining, "Maple is mean! And Cristol is crazy," she didn’t notice the empty box that fell out at her feet.  Later, the wind picked it up and carried it into the woods where, in the spring, pieces of light cardboard with “ex-lax“ and “chewables” and “24 pieces” printed on them added some color to the nest of a pregnant rat.

Cristol’s parents' critical view of Wrangler and other local kids was a learned behavior. Buck and Betty Heat were employed by the school system while raising their foursome and through that semi-opaque looking glass they had inspected and cast judgment on all the other families with school age children. Buck favored the athletic kids who excelled in organized sports and the boys and girls whose fathers took them hunting and fishing. Betty approved of those whose mothers took them to Wednesday night prayer meetings. Buck didn’t give points for mothers who hunted but Betty gave extra credit for fathers who went to church. Tallied scores determined which little Azzles got invites to play with Buck Jr., Helen, Rachael, and Sally.  Social status was a tie-breaker – a tie-breaker that eliminated a girl named Jerrie and a boy named Kevin.

Tad Saplin’s childhood years were not spent in Azzolla. He came from a rugged northern community of proud multi-generational native families, most of whom made a living fishing. The Saplin family held fishing rights under a government protected program that allowed for the coveted privileges to be passed along from generation to generation. Every summer hired laborers did a majority of the work while fishing profits put money in the bank for the license holders.

Tad’s paternal grandparents were entrepreneurs who had become wealthy running the only general store for hundreds of miles around. Tom Saplin, Tad’s father, was a success in business, too, but a failure in marriage until a promotion to upper management with the electric company brought him into daily contact with another manager, a woman named Stella, who became his third wife.

Tad grew up with half-brothers, half-sisters, step-brothers, and step-sisters. When he was seventeen, Tom and Stella pulled up roots, literally and figuratively, and transplanted the family six hundred miles away, to the Azzolla Valley. The promotions they had been offered were too good to pass up, and they spent no time thinking what it might do to any of the children.

Tad missed his cousins, friends, and elder family members. Native traditions, integral to his upbringing, were foreign and funny to his new classmates. He wrestled with identity, trust and bonding issues. In his hurt and immaturity, he rejected the friendship offered by a few local teens. People decided he was shy, odd, or rude. In any case, he was a loner. Busy with their new jobs and their own new acquaintances, Thomas and Stella Saplin did not notice.

Like his parents and grandparents, Tad focused early on “making good money.” It had been easy money when he was young- he worked for his grandparents. He was paid three times what they would have paid a non-family member for fishing or working in the store. Tad developed a skewed sense of his own worth and an ego to go with it.  It did not serve him well. When he moved to Azzolla, he was the only kid in town who owned three motor vehicles - a truck and two snow mobiles. They were his only friends. During the long winter of his senior year, he spent weekends exploring the vast, snow covered world that isolated Azzolla, or tinkering with the mechanical parts of one of the vehicles. As the months went by, he became comfortable with being alone.

Eventually, basketball provided a means by which he could experience teamwork even as he eschewed friendships. Alone in the school gym after all the others had gone home for supper, Tad worked on his jump shot. Liking what he saw during tryouts, Coach Heat, Rachael’s father, gave Tad a place on the team and added him to the list of acceptable friends for his children. Within a week, he began to date Rachael Heat (he thought it would guarantee him a place in the starting line up, she wanted a boyfriend).

Betty wasn’t sure about the new boy. As far as she knew, his family hadn’t joined a church, and that bothered her greatly. It was okay for him to be on the basketball team, but not dating her daughter. Not unless he had Jesus in his life. 

Rachael wasn’t about to break up with a guy who had a truck, and a couple of snow mobiles, so she lied. “Tad’s a Christian, Mom. He prays with the team before the games. And he likes that song you like – You Light Up My Life."


Betty perked up. "He likes Debbie Boone? Really?"


"Yup, you betcha! So you see, Mom? He's got to be a Christian if he likes Debbie Boone. Only saved guys like her, or that song."


Betty nodded. She was buying it. 


Rachael gave it one last push.  "So, don’t worry. Tad’s saved. I can tell.” 

Betty had already forgotten her doubts about Tad. “I always loved Pat Boone," she said. "So clean cut. Such a nice boy." Her eyes got dreamy. "Handsome, too."

"Yeah, Mom. Tad's handsome, too."

“Well, let's thank Jesus, for sending you such a nice young man." She took her daughter's hands and together they bowed their heads right there in the kitchen. While her mother prayed, Rachael mentally rehearsed her plan to sneak out of the house after everyone went to sleep. She was giving Tad a series of private lessons in remedial abstinence, and they weren't going well. He was a slow learner.

Rachael and Tad dated the rest of the school year. After high school Tad tried to convince a couple of colleges that they, too, needed his basketball skills. He wasn’t that convincing. After he did poorly in a couple of courses that he’d paid for with his own money, he dropped out. Living with his dad and Stella, he kept busy with heavy labor-type jobs that covered his snow mobile expenses. When Rachael was in town they continued to see each other. When she wasn’t around, he found other girls to keep company, in the Azzolla Valley and back in his old hometown. Those fishing town girls grow up early. And in Azzolla, the young women learned Tad Saplin wasn’t really so shy after all.

Rachael Heat left town after graduating from Azzolla High in pursuit of good times and higher education – in that order. Dropping out, transferring, changing majors, she spent five years sampling colleges like Goldilocks trying out the porridge, the chairs, and the beds. Too hot (Hawaii), too hard (another school in Hawaii), too cold (Minnesota), too soft (the unaccredited community college back home); her mother declared it a miracle when her daughter finally cobbled together enough credits to graduate from a school in Iowa. What no one ever knew, not even her parents, was that Rachael was three credits short of finishing when she donned the cap and gown and crossed that stage with real graduates of the Class of 1987. She had earned enough credits to walk with the class, and she intended to take that one missing course during the summer session, but it didn’t happen. Perhaps it was because she heard that an old high school flame would be back in Azzolla for the summer. Perhaps it was the opportunity to interview for a substitute sports reporter’s job. Perhaps it was a compulsion to annoy her father the teacher by quitting schools before completing an academic program. Today, Rachael can’t recall why she didn’t finish. In fact, she’s forgotten about those three credits. The Kodak moments Buck and Betty keep in a family album give the appearance that Rachael received a degree, and no one ever required that she show any other proof, not even when she ran for governor. If a capital city reporter ever investigated, they would learn that Rachael Saplin’s claim to a BA is Rachael Saplin B.S.

Rachael has used next to none of her formal education since leaving college. She isn’t a journalist, she doesn’t seek facts or truths. Her public speaking is folksy and unpolished, she uses words incorrectly and other words are made up. She runs words and sentences together with no regard for the rules of English grammar. 

That does not mean she didn’t learn anything in that game of hopscotch through the halls of academia. No, she learned plenty. Rachael Heat Saplin uses lessons from those years every day. First, Rachael discovered that a pretty smile and a flirtatious wink are a powerful combination.  Then, she found that when she used them while wearing a push-up bra, men thought she was brilliant. To be honest with herself, she knew they didn’t really think she was brilliant, but they paid attention as if she was, which was good enough for Rachael.  If the professor for her final three-credits had been a man, Rachael Saplin’s college degree would be framed and hanging in the Office of the Governor.

Tad Saplin and Rachael Louise Heat eloped six years after they left high school. It was destiny – they were destined to become parents in seven and one half months. Tad’s experiences and traits and Rachael’s needs and beliefs bonded like gold and mercury. The young Saplins wanted things, lots of things, and while other young couples in their situation might be focused on making a home, Tad and Rachael focused on making money. In the sixth month of their marriage, with Rachael’s pregnancy so advanced that  she’d have made Rush Limbaugh look svelte, Tad took a job that took him away from home and left her alone two weeks at a time. The newlyweds were together less than half the days of any twelve month cycle, a schedule they happily accommodated for him to “make some real money in a good paying union job,” a job that flew him and hundreds of others to work on company jets for work cycles of two weeks on and two weeks off. In a community where most employment involved retail or bartending, Tad had landed a very desirable job, and he kept it.

When first married, Rachael tried to guilt Tad into using his fishing money for family things. But Tad’s fishing license was an inheritance. It was a perk acquired at birth. He wasn’t inclined to share his birthright with a wife born in Iowa, even if her parents relocated before she had her first tooth. Later, when he began to win tens of thousands of dollars racing snow mobiles, she became his loudest cheerleader and promoter. (As Governor, Rachael Saplin came within a walrus whisker of exercising improper influence when she got Tad and his teammate a lucrative endorsement from a big oil company. But she smiled, and winked, and wore her push-up bra to the meeting with the Investigator General…)

She got involved in the Parent Teacher Association when she enrolled Field in pre-kindergarten, but the PTA interest waned quickly. Through a friend, she learned there was a vacant seat on the Azzolla town council and she padded her bra and approached one of the long term councilmen about running. Sure enough, he saw twin commodities that he believed would make Rachael Saplin an asset to the town council. Then, he engaged his brain and saw yet another pair of standout traits that convinced him to back her candidacy: her lack of intellectual curiosity and the inability to see her own shortcomings. This was the early 1990s, he was her father’s age, and naturally assumed that the young woman, a former candidate for the title of Miss Azzolla, was a narcissist who would love the title but wouldn’t want to work very hard. He expected that she would take his direction on how to vote. He was wrong about that last part.

By the time she and Tad talked, she’d made up her mind to run and had already filed with the town. “Tad, God’s calling me to be in public office,” she said.

“God’s calling you? That shows up on caller ID? I’ll hang up so you can take that call.”

Rachael ignored the sarcasm.“I heard it very clearly while I was praying last night. ‘Rachael, run for town council.’ That’s what I heard.”

“I’m sure you heard those exact words.”

“Stop that. I’m serious.”

“So am I. I meant that.” And Tad did mean it. He was sure she’d heard those words -  not from God, from her ego. But, if it made his wife happy, he’d go along. He thought of his grandfather’s saying:“If momma ain’t happy, ain’t nobody happy. If papa ain’t happy, ain’t nobody cares.” For Tad, those words were as good as gospel.

With the backing of the councilman and members of his party, Rachael Saplin won a seat on the Azzolla Town Council. Four years later, tired of approving parade floats and regulating garbage collection schedules, she wanted more power. With three children - Field and Cristol in school, and their little sister Maple a toddler – Rachael announced her candidacy for mayor saying “Ya want somethin’ done, give it to a busy person. And there’s no one busier than a mom.”

Rachael Saplin took some votes for granted – those of women who had children at home and the votes of good citizens who cared passionately about things like banning library books and restricting the sale of falafels by street vendors. Still, those wouldn’t be enough to win, and Tad helped Rachael fashion a campaign to bring more Azzles out to vote for her. It was clever yet down to earth. The Saplin campaign promised to change town ordinances so that bars could stay open until 5am.

Election Day results proved that Rachael Saplin was a savvy politician. She had found a new voting faction, unemployed alcoholics. In Azzolla, there were enough of them to make a difference and she won by fifteen votes. No matter who ran and who won, the real winner was apathy. Apathy’s landslide came from those who simply stayed home, leaving the town which had reached a population of 5,000 to be run by someone voted in by 365 Azzles.

When she took office, Rachael was surprised to find she had to scramble to get up to speed in the job. First, she asked everyone on the staff to resign. Then, she didn’t know how to get the work done with the inexperienced lot she brought in. The fire chief whose resignation she accepted, had no problem telling everyone “She doesn’t know what she doesn’t know.” After a scathing commentary in the paper, she was ready to quit. Then Tad suggested she do what they did in big business, add another layer to the management team.

“That’s the answer! Tad, you’ve got an amazing grasp of government!” Once the city manager was hired, she was able to schedule hair, tanning and nail appointments on weekdays, and left early enough each day to tune in to Oprah at 4 pm. She loved being set free from the drudgery of actually working. The new manager was competent, and she didn’t have to be. Life was good.

When the paper ran another critical editorial, questioning the cost of having two people on the payroll to perform a job only one was elected to do, she fired off a response saying she believed in “Surrounding yourself with good people.” Who could argue with that? Promises to find “good people” and to surround herself with them became standard in all Saplin speeches from then on, especially as she ran for higher levels of state government.

The Azzolla Valley was a visual contradiction. Its geography was responsible for long, dark winters and short summers; Mother Nature provided the majestic natural beauty of the surrounding mountains; and three generations of Azzles were responsible for the town’s aesthetic ugliness. Entering on either of two approaches, visitors were greeted by a shabby hodgepodge of poorly built structures and strip malls with numerous bars, gun shops, diners, tattoo parlors, tanning salons and Laundromats. The juxtaposition of structural detritus against scenic splendor earned Azzolla the title of “The Other Appalachia.” During the Saplin years, the town became even uglier; a feat few would have thought possible.

With a blind spot as big as Alaska, Rachael Saplin thought everything she touched was made beautiful. Mayor Saplin was proud of her record. At the close of her second term, Azzolla was called “the meth capital of the state;” it had one meth house per 650 adults. That same year, a national report labeled Azzolla High School  a "dropout factory." Did these facts embarrass Mayor Saplin? Not one bit. If anyone mentioned them, she changed the subject, “Oh, golly. There will always be things to work on. What’s important right now is that sports complex…

The new sports complex had been her “baby.” Fiscal prudence had been thrown to the wind, the building built on land the town didn’t own, and construction costs far exceeded foreseeable income. The town’s surplus when she took office had become a twenty million dollar debt because of that building, yet she had an answer for that, too. “What good’s a surplus? Money is for spending.”

While Rachael was making friends and enemies in the valley, Tad Saplin put in year after year on his job. He worked fewer days than a schoolteacher, but was away from home like a long-distance trucker. Some couples in this situation found it hurt their relationship. Not the Saplins - they liked to pursue separate interests and they did well apart. In the summer, Tad returned to his birthplace to run a fishing operation and to catch up with old friends. In a good year, the business kept him away the month of July; in a poor season he was gone six to eight weeks. Deep-water fishing provided money for him to spend on the love of his life – snow mobile racing. Racing was expensive. Equipment, maintenance, clothing, entry fees, and other racing necessities sucked up thousands of dollars annually.

Rachael was jealous of the money, time and affection Tad showered on his hobby and often called it “Tad’s mistress.” Tad didn’t mind, he thought it was funny. Many times he’d take his machine out at midnight and would stick his head into the bedroom before he left to say, “Going out with my mistress. Don’t wait up. Gonna ride her all night.”

Though they weren't sharing a bed, Mr. and Mrs. Saplin marketed themselves to the public as a couple devoted to family. It was part of the game of politics and necessary for Rachael Saplin’s next foray  -  a run for State Comptroller. 

One of the men running against her was certain her fiscal missteps as mayor would cause her to be eliminated early. He had prepared for the candidate’s debate by memorizing facts. That was his first mistake. Trusting that she would answer questions put to her was his second. Skillfully, with a down-home folksiness and innocent smile, she changed topics and dodged questions, managing to avoid giving any factual responses. Tad, behind the stage and out of sight, was amused. Good luck, buddy... Tad thought, I've been trying to get the truth out of her ever since she told me she was only a couple weeks pregnant that summer...  

Frustrated, he prepared to directly challenge her in the next debate. When she again said nothing but platitudes he shook his head and said, “Mrs. Saplin, if you aren’t going to answer the questions, why don’t you just say so?”

Simultaneously she blinked, pulled back her head, and paused, looking shocked. Then, relaxing the tension in her neck, she spoke as if talking with a child, “I may not answer the questions you want answered but I am going to talk directly to the people.” Smirking, she looked out at the audience and into the camera. “I’m going to tell them what I want them to hear.” Proceeding to babble semi-coherently, making no real point, and ending with a nod and a wink, she was the epitome of patronizing over-confidence and ignorance. Her supporters found her “spunky,” “refreshing,” and “candid” - all the key measures of the shallow end of the voting pool. 


Rachael Saplin was in her glory; she lived on praise and attention. She loved being unpredictable and breaking the pattern followed by all the other candidates (she called them "the good ol' boys"). 


She was convinced God had a plan for her life. She knew she was following His plan. She wasn't meant to be president of the PTA or president of a Fortune 500 company (not that she knew what a Fortune 500 company was) - she was called by God to be the first female President of the United States of America.  And she was determined that nothing  - not motherhood, Tad,  nor apple pie - could take her off that course.