Twinkie the Kid Monte Encore! – Sunset Observer #8…by Whitney Farmer – Un Pop Culture | @MDWorld

July 9, 2013 Whitney Farmer 14 Comments

Last week, we started a weekly bake sale at a biker bar across from a racetrack to make money for school supplies for the Gypsy kids we will see in August in France.

Mongols and Hells Angels stood peacefully beside each other looking over the desserts that our hands had lovingly made with mixed success.  The Harley Davidson sugar cookies suffered in the logo translation as carpel tunnel fatigue led to abandoning the design in favor of simpler styles. Alex the machinist had worked all night on these and struggled to forgive himself for each one not being perfect.

This week, we will be including some sugar-free selections because of special requests. Some of the more grizzled road warriors such as Hairball who MCs the night are battling diabetes. Not exactly a shoot-‘em-up confrontation like everyone would expect from this group, but just as dangerous. So health-conscious lemon bars will be made by Cookie, an aptly named member of our team.

I will be providing s’mores brownies because I want to do unto others as I would like them to do unto me, and chocolate chip cookies with Oreo cookies baked inside. This is an innovation I learned from a young Jewish girl named Hannah. And this proves again that it is a good idea to seek wisdom from Hebrew traditions.

But everyone will be looking forward to next week. This is the week that the Twinkie makes the promised comeback.

The retail price will reportedly be less than four bucks for a box of 10, unchanged from its price when all believed that the golden cake hombre had ridden one final time into the sunset.  If we sell them for a dollar each, this will be twice the profit, including the gas necessary to drive there. No labor from amateur bakers needed plus being individually wrapped in cellophane…? There is no better candidate to spread sweet love on behalf of the much-loved Gypsy kids…

…They will show up to our open air classroom willingly at 6:30 in the morning – even before we have had a chance to gulp down our coffee – and politely ask if, “C’est le temps à commencer L’École des Gypsies…?”

With the money that we make at the bake sale, we will buy crayons and paper and flashcards and books and maps and anything else that will help answer the questions that these young minds ask about the whole wide world that exists outside the thin walls of their caravans.

As beautiful as St. Tropez is – a frequent summer campground for the migrating community – I am hoping that we will rendezvous with them again in Royan. It is a smaller town on the Atlantic north of Bordeaux where they often congregate later in the season.  We know our way around that area because of our time last year. There is an open air book store near the gelato kiosk near the marina where we can buy very cheap school supplies. Our limited euros will go farther. And because we are probably going to be carrying in solar panel kits with us, we won’t have much room to spare in our baggage to bring much else. The kits will be used to recharge electrical devices that can hopefully support virtual classroom activities in the future. That’s the hope and plan…

With good reason, Twinkies are classified as BAKED GOODS.  It is GOOD to eat desserts. It is GOOD to make desserts. It is GOOD for bikers from motorcycle clubs to buy desserts from church ladies in order to buy pens and calculators for Gypsy kids who live in trailers parked in fields surrounded by acres of sunflowers that open their faces to the August sun.

Twinkies are good. Bikers are good. Gypsies are good. Life is good. The Lord is good.

Halleluiah! And yippee kai yea!

NEXT TIME: The Crown of Death?

Picture of a box of Twinkies, courtesy of en.wikipedia.org.