About me and the rest of the Apple Dumpling Gang…
The Apple Dumpling Gang consists of me and my two best friends, Angie (uhohitsangie) and Debbie (debbiesspace). The name was given to us by Debbie’s late husband, Al. He called us his three favorite women.
We all met about four years ago through Cub Scouts…which is a whole other topic all together. Angie’s and my sons were in the same den and Al was the Cubmaster of the pack and Debbie was the committee chair. Angie and I hit it right off and have been pretty close since the beginning. We have had our ups and our downs but in the end, we have each other. Al and Debbie’s son is a couple of years older than mine and Angie’s but they since they were so involved with the running of the pack, we got to know them and became friends with them too. Al had a way with getting people involved by telling them it only takes one hour/week… which is a total crock of B.S. but what can you do, once you’re in, you’re in for the duration.
Well the origins (or at least the naming of the first member) of the Apple Dumpling Gang can be traced back to Al during his term as cubmaster. Al was a big fan of cupcakes so Angie always brought cupcakes to the Pack meetings just because he liked them so he gave her the first nickname out of all of us…Cupcake. He used to tease us about how he liked to undress the cupcakes and eat them naked…such a dirty old man. Of course, there were never any kids around when he said this. For Halloween a few years back, Angie and I thought it would be cute to use this nickname and make her a biker named “Cupcake”. We went and got pink fabric and some lace and made her chaps and took a denim vest and bedazzled it and used pink puffy paint on the back and wrote cupcake. This may not have been that cute to outsiders, but to us and Al, it was funny. You see, in a prior life, Al was a biker and to see Angie in pink chaps with ruffles instead of fringe, well you really had to be there to get the whole effect.
Anyways, Al and Debbie’s son crossed into boys scouts and they moved to Oregon, which is three towns away, so we kind of lost touch with them for a little while due to the before mentioned crock of B.S being truly B.S… we never had free time between going to our real jobs and Scout (which is more Drama that this page has room for). But then we found out about Al’s condition and began to realize how bad it really is. Angie and I banded around Al and Debbie to give as much support as we could possibly muster. Al even brought his son down to join our Boy Scout troop when they knew they were going to move back to Rock Falls.
Well, in July of this year, Al went into the hospital again, but this time, the prognosis was not good. Al’s pastor came in to see him one evening when Angie and I were there to visit and Angie introduced herself as Cupcake. When Pastor Bob went to leave, he said to me, you must be Chocolate Pie then and of course Al said “she is now” so I was dubbed with the second nickname in the Apple Dumpling Gang, “Chocolate Pie”.
A couple days later, I had brought in a picture in a frame for Debbie that was of her, Angie and I that Al had taken in May when we were camping. Al seen the picture and asked if he could keep it in his room so he could show the nurses his three favorite women. Later when Pastor came in to see Al, he referred to me as Chocolate Pie which peeked Debbie’s interest and the story was retold. I asked if Angie is “Cupcake” and I am “Chocolate Pie”, then what is Debbie’s nickname and Al responded… Apple Dumpling and we were the Apple Dumpling Gang.
Al passed away July 27th and Angie and I were right there with Debbie and Al’s sons through the very end. It has been very hard without him, especially watching his family trying to cope with his death and not being able to fix it or understand that kind of pain. I have not had that kind of loss in my life. But I also feel that it has made Debbie’s, Angie’s and my friendship that much stronger.
I have to chuckle at something that was said by Pastor Bob at Al’s funeral. He was reading Al’s obit and when it came to survivors, Angie and I were listed but he read our names as Chocolate Pie and Cupcake to the whole church and I could not help but laugh at that. Later, Debbie, Angie and I decided that next summer, we were going to take Debbie’s pop-up camper and take a road trip somewhere and call it…”The Apple Dumpling Gang’s Wild Ride” or something like that.
