Chapter 68

The next few weeks were just life, work, and our special times together. On a Friday morning, Sue came up to me on the patio and said, "You better go back to the bedroom. Your new lady is sick."

I was out of the chair instantly, heading to the big bedroom. Mercy and Juanita were sitting on the bed looking toward the bathroom. I could hear Kathy gagging as if she had been throwing up.

"What's the matter, Honey, did you eat something that didn't agree with you?"

That comment brought some giggles from behind me. I glanced at them and they looked down as if they were guilty of something. I took a washcloth and wet it covering her forehead, cooling her off.

Kathy looked up at me and said, "Well, so much for being careful. You're going to be a dad again. I can tell you for sure, none of the boys ever made me sick but Barb nearly killed me for a month. Hope you wanted another daughter."

I looked behind me and saw three smiling faces. I had to ask, "Are you sure? Are you sure it's not something you ate?"

"I should have swallowed instead, that's for sure. That's the only time we've not been careful. You only got a little in me and the rest was all over both of us. No sir, this is the real McCoy. We'll get a test kit, but I missed my period and now I'm probably about, ah, what is it, six weeks?"

Kathy turned and hugged me, "I'm sorry, Steve, I didn't mean to get pregnant. With all the kids that are already coming, this is going to be too much."

I pulled back from Kathy, "Hardly, now it's a baker's dozen plus one. We'll have fourteen. That should just about be a record, even with three ladies. Your kids are going to be mad at me though for doing this to you. I'm sorry, Kathy, I should have been tougher with you and pulled out faster."

"Oh no, you don't. It was feeling so good that I was sorry I let you out at all. It was our first time back together. It's only fitting that the last time we were together we made a baby, and the first time back together we made another. This time I will get fixed. This is the last. I'm glad I'm going to have another baby with Sue and Mercy. We'll all have babies at the same time. This will be fun."

I helped Kathy up and she brushed her teeth and gargled, saying the only way to keep from throwing up was to eat something. Then every time she felt it coming on she had to eat a little. She asked that we stock up on some Seven-Up for her as that seemed to help before.

Sue and Mercy were standing in the doorway, rubbing their growing bellies. Mercy said, "Come on, Dad, we better watch you or you're going to knock up the entire park."

Sue followed with, "Let's see, all at once we're going to have Mercy's three, my two, Kate's, and now a couple of months or so later, Kathy's little girl."

Mercy said, "I'm having a boy and two girls. Steve is already calling yours twin boys, Kate's hoping for a girl and so far the ultrasound agrees, and now Kathy says it's going to be a girl. We'll have six little boys and four little girls besides Kathy's other three boys and a girl. This is going to be expensive."

As soon as I went out onto the patio, Bessie asked, "Is Kathy okay? Did she eat something bad?"

Kathy came out and gave her Mom a hug and said, "Remember how sick Barb made me?"

"Oh no, Kathy, tell me it isn't so. Are you really?"

"Yes, Mom, really. I missed my period, but I thought it was because of all the excitement. Steve isn't even mad. He's smiling and figuring out that he's going to have six little boys and four little girls running around here besides my older ones. There's just too many to count."

Sue came out and said, "I guess we should be making some donations to Women's hospital."

I said thinking of all the time we were going to be spending there, "We won't have to, we'll be their best customer this year."

"You know," I said, thinking about the number of kids, "before Kathy told us that we were going to have another, I was already counting thirteen and thought this would be fourteen. How was I making that mistake?"

Juanita said, "You're not making a mistake. It's easy Steve, if you count Kate's little one. He may be theirs, but the baby is still yours, that will be fifteen."

Bessie and Kathy looked at me harshly, with Kathy saying, "With all the ladies you have, you're cattin' around?"

Sue said, "It's not like that, Kathy, Kate and Jim can't have any more and Kate asked Steve to help her with another. She says she may want one or two more after this."

"And you're okay with this?" Kathy asked.

"It's a long story, Kathy, but suffice it to say that Kate was invited to be a part of us. Once she was pregnant, she was able to put her marriage back together. So far they are working out. I'll tell you all about it later."

Kathy had a thoughtful look, "I guess it's okay, but how many kids are you going to have there, Stud, before you decide to clip that thing."

Mercy said, "Not until Kate has all she wants, then if he wants to, he can. Sue and I know where they come from and we will both probably get fixed. I just hate to do that because you never know when you might want another."

Kathy said, "Yeah, I know. I had thought about getting fixed when Barb came and again when Greg came along. As you can see, I didn't and should now definitely plan on it. So Sue and Mercy, I assume you have a good gynecologist?"

"We do, Kathy, and we'll take you to see her as soon as we can get an appointment," Sue said. "You may need some special vitamins since you've had multiple births. She gave Mercy and me some different ones this time because we've had babies before."

Soon, everyone that had been within hearing distance of the exchanges were smiling and teasing me for knocking up half the park, or at least some of the good looking women from the patio.

Later that day, Sue and Kathy did the test and sure enough, the blue line showed that another baby was on the way. They made an appointment for Kathy to get examined and bought the requested Seven-Up. Now every time you would see Kathy, she would have some crackers and a can of Seven-up.

As a result of this new announcement, I gathered my ladies together to discuss our future. I had cleared this with Ben already, so I stated something to all the ladies as a group.

"I wish for Mercy, Juanita, and Kathy to legally change your last name to Sharp." They all looked up at me quickly, but I held my hand up to keep them quiet for a minute longer.

The way I would wish it to be done would be your full name as it is today with Sharp as the last name. This way you will never lose the name identity you originally had. I think Sue should change her name to add Phillips before Sharp as well. For you Kathy, if your kids would want, I would be proud if they were to add my name to theirs.

I was attacked. Four ladies came at me, hugging and kissing me, knocking me to my back, with them piled on top. Kathy said, "I wondered how you were going to do that. It's a pretty sneaky way to gather all of your women and family even closer. Now I'll really have three sisters, even if we are wives. This is the craziest poly group ever."

Sue said, "I had wanted to keep the Phillips name as I want it to live on, even though there isn't a boy to keep it going. This is just as good. We can do this."

Juanita was out and out crying, near sobbing, "It is so beautiful to have your name and my Manuel's name as well. This is the most you could ever give me, my Steve."

Mercy just smiled ever so sweetly, "Thank you for giving me your name. Our babies have your name and I will have your name, but I needed mine to be the same too. Thank you, I love you."

Weekends are always pleasurable. This one was nice as Sue and I took the kids up in small planes on Saturday. We lucked out and were able to get our 172 and another one, so we had room for J.J., Carl, and Barb with me, while Ben, Dennis, and Tina rode with Sue. We flew out over the beaches, checked out the sharks, flew by the yacht club and over to Zephyr Hills to watch the skydivers. On the way back, Sue decided we needed to go down to Sarasota-Manatee airport for an ice cream as they have the best around, right in the private aircraft terminal.

When we got back, Kathy asked if she could go up for a while, so we went back to the airport with Carl and Bessie and did about the same circuit, except we didn't go down to Sarasota. We flew up to Panama City and back along the coast, seeing lots of boaters and tons of rays in the water.

Sunday, Henry brought out his corvette. This was the first time he had it on the road and he was in a panic over it possibly getting a rock chip, or even worse, into an accident. The car was gorgeous, but it wouldn't be any fun to own if you didn't drive it.

Sandy and Mandy had finished their panel truck. They had chopped the top giving the truck an awesome rake. The front windshield was only about six inches so the slope of it was steep. They had small — narrow front wheels and huge wide racing tires on the back. The truck was mostly flames, but mingled within the flames were characters from Shawna and Hank that were either funny or near xxx rated. The truck even had a title, "The Andies' Candy Wagon."

It didn't take long for the new families to become an important part of our little society. The big kids made life fun as they were so busy. Each had some form of hobby that made them unique. The best part was their part in taking care of the little ones. The four older kids played outside with the six middle kids, and played inside and on the patio with Sean, Lizzy, and Mike.

Those three were little devils. They were very mischievous and always into something they shouldn't be. When they disobeyed, the punishment we found that was the most severe was to sit them in three separate corners, in different rooms, followed by putting them in separate play areas. They hated that the most. You knew how close they were at nap time. They always insisted on a single pillow and the three would lie down together and sleep like that. In the evening, when Sean went home, there was always some crying because Lizzy and Mike didn't want Sean to go and Sean didn't want to leave the other two.

Just when Kathy was showing, and Mercy, Sue, Hanna, Debbie, and Deanne were getting pretty big, Tiny held a Friday party for us in honor of Star. The announcement came from him, "Tonight is to honor Star and the tremendous effort she has given to market our special homemade tools, the new book, and for her production of Phil's and Judy's seminars. It's hard to believe that we've been able to continue our productivity with Phil and Judy so busy away from home, but as we all know, they have trained good replacements."

"Star now has forty-four tools in manufacturing and being marketed in various industry magazines. She has published our first book that has an even one hundred tools that were deemed good, but not necessarily marketable. So far the book is selling like crazy. The forty-four tools are selling well enough that we are working on a plant in the back of the park to manufacture these tools locally.

"Now, the part that everyone wants to know about. This department is showing one hell of a profit, even while paying fees to the tool creators and some handsome fees to our two entertainers giving the seminars. This profit goes right into our 401K plan. Steve has set aside the profits from this department to benefit our plan exclusively." Lots of cheering and applause.

Star has selected the next twenty-five tools to be manufactured and marketed, and has another one hundred tools for the next book. Our sales leaders, Phil and Judy can rest though, as Star has put together a seminar on DVDs and CDs, along with workbooks and other materials the viewer would normally get if they attended the seminar in person. So now we have Phil's sales seminar and Judy's customer service seminar ready to be shipped. The advertising goes into industry magazines this coming month and they will also be sold at the seminars Phil and Judy will continue to infrequently give. They have cut down the amount of seminars to ten each for the coming year. They figure that it will be easy to fill that many as we will be going back over some heavily populated areas."

"So let's give it to Star, she has earned all of our praise and in honor of that, Star is now the Vice President in charge of special tools and promotions. She has four people in her department right now, and will be adding several more as she will be in charge of the new plant. Star, I toast you and your success."

Star was standing with Tiny and took the microphone when he handed it to her. Tears were streaming down her face, but since she had not been wearing makeup, they were just big tear stains.

"This is a shock. Thank you, Tiny, Thank you, Steve, and thank you all for helping me gather the information for all of the products. I know I was pushy and disruptive, but the only way to market these things is with you being videotaped using the tool and again making it. These images, as you've seen, are used in our advertising and it gives the buyers authenticity of the tool. Most of them slap their foreheads and say, "I could have made that." But they didn't, and that's why you are on the patent and you are making some extra money. So, thank you all for helping me. I'm going to continue to be a pain in the butt, but it will be all for us. I didn't know that Steve put all our profits into our plan. That just makes my job more important. Thank you all."

I wanted to say something to everyone, so I went up to get a hug from Star, taking the microphone. "There is some news from our plant in Ireland. A lucky leprechaun has invaded the new plant there and produced orders that effectively sell more than we have forecast to be produced for this entire year. Since most of the customers would prefer not to wait so long for product, we have contracted to double the size of the plant which I'm told will triple our production. I'm not sure how all that works, but that's why we have really smart people designing our plants."

"Our R&D group has some interesting developments. They have licensed Sony's polyester battery technology in an attempt to develop better batteries for our forklifts and transportation carts. Some of their new batteries are in a passenger van that we use to bring some wheelchair workers to the park every day. So far, everything is working well. They have added some new polyester solar panels to the top of the van to extend its range. It isn't totally self-renewable so far, but they are working on it. I'm told the new solar panels are able to use even cloudy sunlight to gather some energy. Who knows, perhaps we will be onto something."

"For this last thing, I want you to listen closely, as it is important for all of the folks in all of our companies. For anyone that does not own their own home yet, please look into one of our homes, condos, or duplex units. All of our employees are eligible for a very low interest loan at a price that is far below market. The only request we have is that you do not reveal or broadcast your purchase price or the terms of your mortgage. When these properties are sold out, we may not do any more developments for a while because land values and construction costs have skyrocketed. This would be good for us, but probably bad for those who purchase at a high price. Keep in mind the cost of the monthly mortgage payment will include your property taxes and homeowners insurance. The county does the appraising, so your company cannot do anything about the tax amount. For those who wish to own their own home, look into it now."

There was kind of a hush over the crowd as many were thinking about whether they should buy now or not.

Charlie, Tiny's dad, asked for the microphone. "With the expansion on the north side of the park, the strip of land that we purchased goes back past the lake and includes a great deal of property back there. Steve will probably agree to open it up for more mobile homes. We will be establishing spaces for both single and double wide homes back there. Services should be available by the end of May. Those who might wish to live out here with us, please consider your discount for a lot right here in our own utopia."

The rest of the evening was full of questions about what kind of special deals we were giving for the properties and the mortgages. I could only refer them to the sales organization, where a special real estate group was handling the sales.