Speaker 1: Hey, everybody, it's Bill Courtney with an army of normal folks.
Speaker 1: And we continue now with part two of our conversation
Speaker 1: with Tanya Ray Piper, right after these brief messages from
Speaker 1: our general sponsors. So this first year, somebody's telling you, okay,
Speaker 1: it's November. Pick the one. These are the three guys
Speaker 1: who have birthdays, Three men or women who have birthdays
Speaker 1: in November, and you just start making cakes. I just
Speaker 1: thrown a.
Speaker 2: Cake and I dropped it off at the front desk.
Speaker 2: So probably six months in, one of a little volunteer says, oh, honey,
Speaker 2: my back is bothering me so much. Could you just
Speaker 2: take that cake back to the kitchen for me. I
Speaker 2: don't want to watch it. It was a ways from
Speaker 2: the front desk area back to the kitchen. I make sure.
Speaker 2: So I took the cake. I dropped it off on
Speaker 2: the kitchen encounter, I'm halfway down the hallway and literally
Speaker 2: surrounded by nine men in uniforms, Hey are you the
Speaker 2: cake lady?
Speaker 1: Oh you're kidding. They had no idea where it was
Speaker 1: coming from.
Speaker 2: No, I mean, and that's that's my I mean, my
Speaker 2: license plate says cake lady. I am the cake lady.
Speaker 1: That's how you became cake lady.
Speaker 2: That's how because of them are you or the are
Speaker 2: you the cake lady.
Speaker 1: Looking over here, Belda? But the logo, sir, that is hilarious.
Speaker 1: I have a small one for you, the cake Lady.
Speaker 2: I am the cake Lady.
Speaker 1: You're like officially a cake lady with your own environment
Speaker 1: sticker and everything.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I had one of my clients. I brought you one.
Speaker 1: Thank you very much. I love that. It says Kindness
Speaker 1: Breeds Happiness Jeremiah twenty nine to eleven thirteen. And it's
Speaker 1: like the crust that you see on the side of
Speaker 1: a fire truck, and instead of it having like department
Speaker 1: number or house number or engine number, it just has
Speaker 1: cake Lady on it. In the kitchen aid mixer center
Speaker 1: of it is a kitchen mixer, which is hilarious. I
Speaker 1: love it all right. So they say, hey, are you
Speaker 1: the cake Lady. You're surrounded by nine guys.
Speaker 2: And he says. One of the guys goes, not that
Speaker 2: we mind. We love what you're doing, but why are
Speaker 2: you doing it?
Speaker 1: That's a good question. I was going to ask the
Speaker 1: same thing, and.
Speaker 2: Well, you can't say, well, God told me to because
Speaker 2: then they think you're crazy, right, So I said, I
Speaker 2: like to bake what you guys, What you guys do
Speaker 2: on a daily basis is amazing, and why not bake
Speaker 2: for you instead of the women that get mad at
Speaker 2: me when I'm baking for I'm at work, So that
Speaker 2: in my mind that was why I was doing it.
Speaker 1: That kind of makes sense. But the thing is, you're
Speaker 1: standing on your feet all day doing hair. Then you
Speaker 1: go home and you're standing on your feet and I know,
Speaker 1: I've seen that cake cannot be easy to make and
Speaker 1: it's really good. I mean how many hours. I mean
Speaker 1: you're working your butt off doing those and then you
Speaker 1: got to deliver them, I guess before work. So you
Speaker 1: work all day, go home, make cakes all night, wake
Speaker 1: up early, deliver the cakes, and then go to work.
Speaker 2: It's a lot, it is, but I love every minute
Speaker 2: of it. Why so at the time, I just thought
Speaker 2: it was a fun thing to do. My year was up.
Speaker 2: I finally got a routine to where I knew when
Speaker 2: the guys were working I had, I got the number
Speaker 2: to the station I could actually talk to each individual.
Speaker 2: Now with the administration stuff, it was about sixty eight
Speaker 2: cakes a year, which sixty cakes a year.
Speaker 1: That's like five that is, that's a little more than
Speaker 1: five a month.
Speaker 2: There's yeah, it was.
Speaker 1: First year.
Speaker 2: The first year I did that. When my year was up,
Speaker 2: the guys go, hey, your year's up, what are you.
Speaker 1: Going to do?
Speaker 2: And I said, no, I just got my system down.
Speaker 2: I mean, I have a routine. I'm really liking this,
Speaker 2: so no, I'm not going to quit, so I am.
Speaker 2: That went on for about six years and then there
Speaker 2: was a merger happening with Lindwood Fire Department and department
Speaker 2: called District one and District one in Linwood were merging
Speaker 2: and it was going from my two lin Wood stations
Speaker 2: and sixty eight firefighters to fifteen stations in three hundred
Speaker 2: and fifty firefighters total.
Speaker 1: So now you got to choose do I? I would say,
Speaker 1: now you have to choose.
Speaker 2: So, because I'm a hairdresser, occasionally there's some of the
Speaker 2: guys will come in and get a haircut. One of
Speaker 2: the guys he's a battalion chief now and he was
Speaker 2: one of my lin Wood guys, and he goes, Johnny Ray,
Speaker 2: you were the topic of conversation in our last meeting, Like,
Speaker 2: oh lord, that does not sound good. He goes, yeah,
Speaker 2: when we merge, we were talking about if we're not
Speaker 2: at fifteen, were at station fifteen, we're not going to
Speaker 2: get cake anymore. I'm like, Devo, what are you talking about.
Speaker 2: Of course you'll get cake. I said, I don't care you.
Speaker 2: He goes, No, you can't do that. That's too much.
Speaker 2: And I'm like, don't tell me what to do. I'll
Speaker 2: do whatever I want. And I started thinking, I'm like,
Speaker 2: I just I like to challenge myself, and I thought
Speaker 2: this might be kind of fun to see. I thought,
Speaker 2: the baking part is not going to be a problem.
Speaker 2: I can do that, but the delivering I wasn't sure
Speaker 2: how I was going to do with the delivering before work?
Speaker 1: Can we get clear we're talking three hundred and.
Speaker 2: Fifteen, three hundred and fifty firefighters, not that. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 2: sixteen stations and yes, three hundred and fifty firefighters.
Speaker 1: That was then, and when did the start?
Speaker 2: Six years ago? Okay, now I've been baking for fourteen years.
Speaker 2: I now bake for sixteen stations, four hundred and fifty firefighters,
Speaker 2: plus all the girls at work, and last year I
Speaker 2: made five hundred and ninety eight things.
Speaker 1: That is in sane I'm slightly crazy. Yes, yeah, so okay,
Speaker 1: that's a that's a what kind of cake did you cream?
Speaker 1: That's a cookies and cream cakes? Which is which is
Speaker 1: a bun cancake cream and cookie icing, which is it's
Speaker 1: really really good. M's stick my finger in it when
Speaker 1: this is over again. But what other what.
Speaker 2: Kind of I mean no, I have made things I've
Speaker 2: never heard of before, like a peanut butter ducoa, what
Speaker 2: is that? Opera cake layer, Russian honey cake.
Speaker 1: Okay, they're getting spoiled. If these if these guys are
Speaker 1: now ordering up these kind of cakes from you, they
Speaker 1: are spoiled. So I have I would be like, you
Speaker 1: get the cake. I'd be like the cake Nazi, you know,
Speaker 1: like the soup Nazi. You want soup, you get the soup.
Speaker 1: You want cake, you get this ca. I mean I
Speaker 1: would actually tell them let them eat cake the cake
Speaker 1: I make.
Speaker 2: But see that that's that takes the personalization away from
Speaker 2: it they want.
Speaker 1: Well, I'm of course being facetious. It's just unbelievable that
Speaker 1: whatever they want, whatever.
Speaker 2: Cake, it doesn't have to be cake. I make cookies, cheesecake, pie,
Speaker 2: you name it, I make it. If I've never if
Speaker 2: I have never made it before, I find a recipe
Speaker 2: and I or I like.
Speaker 1: That coconut cream pie.
Speaker 2: So now coconut cream pie. If it's a large station,
Speaker 2: it comes in a nine x thirteen pan because it's
Speaker 2: feeding nine men and not. I can't just take them
Speaker 2: a little pie because it wouldn't be enough, So gosh,
Speaker 2: double in and make it big.
Speaker 1: Wow.
Speaker 2: So some of the stations have eight to nine. The
Speaker 2: majority of the stations are three men stations.
Speaker 1: Do you before you deliver a first time cake, like,
Speaker 1: make a prototype and taste it before you send it to.
Speaker 2: Half of them I've never tasted. I just hope it's
Speaker 2: okay if I've never made it before. McCay, could you
Speaker 2: give me feedback and let me know if that was okay?
Speaker 1: Do these guys get there and like the guy's birthday
Speaker 1: or the lady's birthday who is four gets a piece
Speaker 1: and everybody has just devours it? Oh? Yeah, do you
Speaker 1: have the fattest group of our people in the United States.
Speaker 2: When I get there, the guys are coming out of
Speaker 2: the gym, they're all sweaty, and I'm like, oh, you're
Speaker 2: getting ready for cake?
Speaker 1: Yeah? Sorry.
Speaker 2: They give me a hugger. Sorry, I'm sweaty man. It's okay.
Speaker 1: So you are now making about six hundred cakes pause
Speaker 1: what ever a year?
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean for firefighters for about just over four
Speaker 2: hundred and fifty. I do one cake or cookies or something.
Speaker 2: For the administration. There's about fifty in admin. So once
Speaker 2: a month admin get something. When they had their own mechanics,
Speaker 2: once a month of mechanics would get some because you know,
Speaker 2: they're all part of the thing that buyer service. They
Speaker 2: all make it happen.
Speaker 1: You've been a hairdresser for so many years, and I
Speaker 1: imagine you have a massive loyal following and make a
Speaker 1: great living doing it. There's some expense here, and I
Speaker 1: mean just a few months ago, eggs doubled, so there
Speaker 1: had to have been a lot I was, I bet
Speaker 1: that was. I mean there's a lot of money.
Speaker 2: Oh and I do a cookie of the month for
Speaker 2: the clients at the salon too, of course you did
Speaker 2: I do. Yeah, last month was scotch Us because there
Speaker 2: was no eggs.
Speaker 1: What about the I mean, so got to be expensive.
Speaker 2: Honestly, Bill, have no idea how much it cost me.
Speaker 2: I don't want to know because it will probably have
Speaker 2: a heart attack. The thing is when God tells you
Speaker 2: to do something, the means to make it happen. Always. Always,
Speaker 2: I don't ever go without anything. I always have what
Speaker 2: I need.
Speaker 1: Do you get donated as anybody?
Speaker 2: Now? The Union occasionally will give me money, which is
Speaker 2: wonderful but not expected, so I don't ever count on it.
Speaker 2: They hadn't given me money in about three years, and
Speaker 2: this last year they gave me a check for six
Speaker 2: thousand dollars, which was very helpful because I needed a
Speaker 2: new oven because mine was worn out.
Speaker 1: So that's unbelievable that you make that many cakes and
Speaker 1: deliver that many cakes. I mean, this is a you
Speaker 1: were taking care of an entire county full of fire people.
Speaker 1: Don't they have big, big kitchens in these firehouses?
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, I cook in them all the time.
Speaker 1: How does that work?
Speaker 2: So in the beginning it was just cake, and then
Speaker 2: you know, you get to after this many years, I've
Speaker 2: built relationships with a lot of these men and women.
Speaker 2: That cake is just the catalyst. Cake so much more
Speaker 2: than cake. So Thanksgiving every year, I choose one of
Speaker 2: the larger stations and I go in and I make
Speaker 2: the full Thanksgiving dinner for them, so they can invite
Speaker 2: their families and be with their families at Thanksgiving. I
Speaker 2: usually have about twenty to twenty five people that come,
Speaker 2: and I cook in their kitchens. They have amazing kitchens.
Speaker 1: You're telling me. The guys that have to be on
Speaker 1: shift during Thanksgiving, you go and cook for them and
Speaker 1: their families so their families can come join them at work,
Speaker 1: so their families are able to be together and have
Speaker 1: a genuine Thanksgiving dinner together.
Speaker 2: Yes, every Thanksgiving. That say for COVID, they wouldn't let
Speaker 2: me go in they didn't care, but the administration said no,
Speaker 2: I couldn't, so I had death.
Speaker 1: That is phenomenal. You have to have an entire community
Speaker 1: of people that adore you.
Speaker 2: So I'll tell you a story. After COVID, Arcelon was
Speaker 2: closed down for three months and I came back to
Speaker 2: work and I don't do well sing idle, so I
Speaker 2: but I told my boss. He said, lindsay, I just
Speaker 2: want you to know I'm never going to retire. I said,
Speaker 2: I'm just going to die here, and she goes, please
Speaker 2: don't die here, and I said, well, I have been
Speaker 2: told that if I collapse, to call nine one one
Speaker 2: and say cake lady down, and there'll be eighteen trucks
Speaker 2: here to revisement. And they're not kidding Bill. They said that,
Speaker 2: and he said, he goes, if anything ever happened, you
Speaker 2: make sure you say cake, lady down. I'm like, how
Speaker 2: are you going to know? They said, anything that comes
Speaker 2: from a nine one one call, it will come through
Speaker 2: their little pagers. So if somebody actually said cake, lady down,
Speaker 2: it would come through the pager, they would know that
Speaker 2: there was a problem with me, and they would all
Speaker 2: be there. And he was joking, but he goes, yeah,
Speaker 2: there's cake to be made.
Speaker 1: We'll make sure. Yeah.
Speaker 2: So the South County Fire is the name of the
Speaker 2: stations that I work that I beg for. They have
Speaker 2: a seventy six percent success rate and all cardiac events,
Speaker 2: which is phenomenal, number one in the nation. So they
Speaker 2: say it's because they have such a good morale because
Speaker 2: of cake. I'm pretty sure it's because of their training.
Speaker 1: It sounds like it's a part of just the entire
Speaker 1: culture altogether. Will be right back. So I read a
Speaker 1: story that you made a cake for somebody's birthday who
Speaker 1: happened to not be on shift, and they came back
Speaker 1: and you asked them how they liked their birthday cake
Speaker 1: and they said they didn't get any, so he made
Speaker 1: them another one. Yeah, what happened to the crew ate it?
Speaker 2: They are ruthless.
Speaker 1: They're ruthless on the cake.
Speaker 2: So this is the stories that they tell. There can
Speaker 2: be one hundred dollars bill sitting on the counter for weeks,
Speaker 2: nobody will touch it. One of my boxes shows up
Speaker 2: and that's gone. At the cake now it has That's
Speaker 2: why the logo is important, because there's a lot of
Speaker 2: people that will bring things to the fire station and
Speaker 2: the guys will go, yeah, we saw their kitchen. We
Speaker 2: just kind of put that in the garbage. We've been
Speaker 2: in their kitchen and we're not going to eat that.
Speaker 1: You want. Stole once told somebody that was interviewing you
Speaker 1: that when a new firefighter or when it came up
Speaker 1: some five rider told you that cake was the last
Speaker 1: thing they need.
Speaker 2: So that when I when I the merger first happened,
Speaker 2: I had one of my battalion chiefs from Linwood took
Speaker 2: me to all the other stations and introduced me as
Speaker 2: the cake as a cake leader to let him know
Speaker 2: what I had been doing for Linwood and that so
Speaker 2: I wasn't some That's why I like to have a contact.
Speaker 2: So I'm just not some random person showing up with
Speaker 2: cake or calling up and saying, hey, you have a
Speaker 2: birthday coming, what do you want? And like, who's the
Speaker 2: crazy creak lady? Right? So Chief Vanderpoolt took me around
Speaker 2: to all the stations and we went to one station
Speaker 2: that was it's in a rougher area where they see
Speaker 2: lots of lots of stuff and they're there also the
Speaker 2: ones that if anybody anything shows up, they pretty much
Speaker 2: will not keep it in the kit. It will get
Speaker 2: tossed because.
Speaker 1: I can't trust unfortunately.
Speaker 2: So one of the guys looks at me, and so
Speaker 2: the attitude there's it was a little bit painted, I guess.
Speaker 2: So one of the guys says, cake.
Speaker 1: Hairs cake.
Speaker 2: He kind of walked away, and I'm.
Speaker 1: Like, you need cake, you need cake, you need cake?
Speaker 2: Yeah, and you know what ca I go to that
Speaker 2: station now and I walk in the door, and you
Speaker 2: know what I get? Yeah, that attitude is.
Speaker 1: Completely different because they needed cake, they needed cake.
Speaker 2: I go there a lot actually was there. They invited
Speaker 2: me for dinner last week. Well, one of the guys
Speaker 2: needed the chief needed a haircut, so it's like, hey,
Speaker 2: can you come and cut my hair? We'll make your dinner. Sure,
Speaker 2: And I bring.
Speaker 1: Cake, so of course.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Although cake is very literal here also metaphor clearly as
Speaker 1: talking to you, I'm starting to understand that cakes appreciation,
Speaker 1: cake is love, cakes, thanks, cake is honoring cake is
Speaker 1: cake is so much money cake you think these firefighters
Speaker 1: families understand.
Speaker 2: Do you know how many times I get messaged on
Speaker 2: Facebook or Messenger from moms or wives or family members
Speaker 2: saying thank you so much for taking care of my son.
Speaker 2: I wasn't there to do it because they're not. They're
Speaker 2: either because they're at work.
Speaker 1: Sorry.
Speaker 2: I didn't know how much what I do was going
Speaker 2: to make a difference when I first started, So when
Speaker 2: when I was just making for Lynnwood. Now I tell
Speaker 2: them all the time that they saved my life, and
Speaker 2: the majority some of them know the whole story, the
Speaker 2: majority of them don't. So September of twenty eleven is
Speaker 2: when God told me to bake for firemen. The end
Speaker 2: of October that same year, something happened that I can't
Speaker 2: tell you details, but it turned our family upside down.
Speaker 2: And because I had committed to making cake for firemen.
Speaker 2: When when you have something that causes trauma in your life,
Speaker 2: our first response is to curl up in a ball,
Speaker 2: wallow in self pity, feel sorry for ourselves, and just
Speaker 2: give up. But because I made a commitment to make
Speaker 2: cake for firemen, I couldn't wallow in self pity. I
Speaker 2: couldn't feel sorry for myself. I couldn't just curl up
Speaker 2: on the ball and say forget it. I don't want
Speaker 2: to deal with this because I was making for firemen.
Speaker 2: So it gets you out of your own head. When
Speaker 2: you're doing something for someone else, can't feel sorry for yourself.
Speaker 1: The third thing we talk about all the time on
Speaker 1: the show is so the massive one million dollar payoff pitch.
Speaker 1: When you actually commit on a long term basis for
Speaker 1: the right reason to employing your passions and discipon scenarios,
Speaker 1: is you get a thousand times more out of it.
Speaker 2: Oh so much, I mean, And they're like, oh, it's
Speaker 2: too much, it's too much. I'm like, no, it's not,
Speaker 2: because at that time it's God knows what we need
Speaker 2: before we need it. And when he told me to
Speaker 2: bake cakes for firemen, I had no idea what the
Speaker 2: next few years were going to be And if I
Speaker 2: hadn't been doing that and I had that focus on
Speaker 2: something else, I couldn't, I wouldn't have had the strength
Speaker 2: that I needed to get through that tragedy in our family.
Speaker 2: So many I mean I look back now and I'm like,
Speaker 2: there are so many things that fell into place, and
Speaker 2: I'm like, oh, that's why that happened. I mean, I
Speaker 2: went through a divorce in two thousand and nine that
Speaker 2: woods devastating. I lost everything. I lost my home, my car,
Speaker 2: I had my two dogs, my clothes, and a dresser,
Speaker 2: and I moved in with my parents at fifty years
Speaker 2: old and Ember standing there. And I had been proud,
Speaker 2: And I mean, that's probably one of the biggest problems
Speaker 2: with my pride, that I had done all of the
Speaker 2: things that I did not without God, because I knew
Speaker 2: that he was the catalyst to everything. But I had
Speaker 2: done it without a husband. I had done it on
Speaker 2: my own. And then because of being married and making
Speaker 2: choices that I knew better, left me financially destitute. So
Speaker 2: I had to file bankruptcy, lost everything. And I don't
Speaker 2: know if I don't know if it's the same everywhere,
Speaker 2: but when you file bankruptcy in the state of Washington.
Speaker 2: You have to call consumer credit counseling and they're supposed
Speaker 2: to tell you how to get out of debt. Well,
Speaker 2: I did that, and the lady goes, oh, honey, you
Speaker 2: just need to walk away. Can you just walk away
Speaker 2: and move in with your mom and or your parents?
Speaker 2: And I'm like, really, you're supposed to help me get
Speaker 2: out of this, and she says, just walk away, and
Speaker 2: I'm like, so here, I am fifty years old. I
Speaker 2: move in with my parents, with my two dogs, my clothes.
Speaker 2: I didn't have a car. I had to give the
Speaker 2: car up in bankruptcy too. I had nothing, and I
Speaker 2: was the one where everybody lived with me. I was
Speaker 2: the one that took care of everyone. It was not
Speaker 2: easy for me to rely on someone else, humbly, very humbly.
Speaker 2: So I remember being in the guest room of my parents'
Speaker 2: house that was already furnished, so I didn't even have
Speaker 2: my own bed, and I remember standing there going, Okay, God,
Speaker 2: I'm going to choose to be content and where you've
Speaker 2: put me. And a year later, I started baking cakes
Speaker 2: and I looked back and I owed my parents a
Speaker 2: lot of money because of the divorce, and so to
Speaker 2: pay them back. My mom and I were at a
Speaker 2: family reunion and somebody said, well, how are you going
Speaker 2: to stay with your parents? And I said, well, I'll
Speaker 2: until I get them paid back. I said, but you know,
Speaker 2: I'm the girl. I'm the one that's going to eventually
Speaker 2: end up taking care of them. So I kind of
Speaker 2: like living with my mom. So who knows. Mom goes, well,
Speaker 2: we really like having her there. But she took the
Speaker 2: guest room. We don't have a guest room anymore. I said, oh, well,
Speaker 2: we'll just build a guest room on the back of
Speaker 2: the house. And she goes, oh, no, no, no, we
Speaker 2: do anything. We're building a master suite and I said, okay, fine.
Speaker 2: So we had started that the summer before before I
Speaker 2: started baking, and I built a nine hundred and fifty
Speaker 2: square foot edition on the back of the house. That
Speaker 2: was my mother's sanctuary. Her it was, it was all
Speaker 2: it was for her. So but when I look back
Speaker 2: at all this stuff, I'm like living with my mother,
Speaker 2: well my parents at the time. My dad' said a facility.
Speaker 2: Now But I I can look back and I have
Speaker 2: no regrets. My relationship with my mother we're best friends.
Speaker 2: I mean, as you can see, I take her everywhere.
Speaker 2: Everything happens for a reason. And if I hadn't listen
Speaker 2: to that voice about baking for firemen, that year would
Speaker 2: have been completely different. All that time of transition would
Speaker 2: have been completely different when they merged. When the two
Speaker 2: companies merged and it went from sixty eight firemen to
Speaker 2: three hundred and fifty firemen, my Facebook friends changed a
Speaker 2: lot too. And I realized that suicide and cancer are
Speaker 2: the two biggest causes of death, and first responders had
Speaker 2: no idea that suicide was an issue. And I'm thinking,
Speaker 2: I remember looking at a feed where two men not
Speaker 2: from my department, but in a close area that had
Speaker 2: committed suicide. Firefly said, committed suicide, And I'm thinking, but
Speaker 2: did they know Jesus? So I'm sorry. I'm doing this
Speaker 2: because number one, because God told me to, but because
Speaker 2: I know the morale of the station changes when cake comes.
Speaker 2: The chiefs have called me and said, hey, Tanya, the
Speaker 2: guys had a tough call. Can you bring cake? And
Speaker 2: it's not about bringing cake, it's because I am a
Speaker 2: comfortable person. I am like the mom, I'm I'm the
Speaker 2: firefighter mom. They can talk to me. They'll open up
Speaker 2: with me. I talked to a chaplain that worked in
Speaker 2: a neighboring city and that goes to our church, and
Speaker 2: I said, okay, when they asked me to do this,
Speaker 2: what do I say to them? And he says, time,
Speaker 2: you have to think of it as like a balloon
Speaker 2: that's about ready to pop if you can just let
Speaker 2: a little bit of the air out and just give
Speaker 2: him a little bit of relief so they can go
Speaker 2: on to the next call. So I'll be sitting at
Speaker 2: the stations and They'll ask me for dinner, and I'll
Speaker 2: sit and talk to him and say, Okay, how do
Speaker 2: you deal with what you see on a regular basis? Well,
Speaker 2: dark humor and alcohol, Tanya, Well, and how does that
Speaker 2: work for you? Well, it doesn't work.
Speaker 1: And so.
Speaker 2: The culture has changed a lot in the past five
Speaker 2: years to where they're recognizing what these men see on
Speaker 2: a regular basis. They have facilities now that they can
Speaker 2: go and they can get help for PTSD. And I
Speaker 2: can tell you story after story after a story of
Speaker 2: where I've been in a position to where I can
Speaker 2: talk to someone and help them with stuff that they've
Speaker 2: been going through. I talked to one of the guys
Speaker 2: and he says, you know, you think about people in
Speaker 2: the military, if they're actually in war and they're on
Speaker 2: the front lines, they'll do that for year, four years,
Speaker 2: if you know, or in the military for a certain
Speaker 2: amount of time. He goes, we do this day after
Speaker 2: day after day for years. They get over one hundred
Speaker 2: calls a day in the area that I that I
Speaker 2: bake for. There's some stations that they're I mean NonStop.
Speaker 2: There was a call right after I started baking for
Speaker 2: the Linwood Fire Department and it was fourteenagers on graduation
Speaker 2: night that were out and there was a semi truck
Speaker 2: that was parked on the side of the road that
Speaker 2: had trailer hitch. They were drinking. They ran into that
Speaker 2: hitch and decapitated the first two kids and killed the
Speaker 2: other the kids in the back seat instantly. And my
Speaker 2: guys had to go to that. They have to see
Speaker 2: that all the time. During COVID there was a lot
Speaker 2: of suicide, teenage suicide, and these guys have to go
Speaker 2: and they they have teenage kids. That was one of
Speaker 2: the calls that the chief called me. There was a
Speaker 2: fifteen year old girl who committed suicide and the medics
Speaker 2: that went to that call a teenage kids and they
Speaker 2: it's devastating to them. So when I the cake is
Speaker 2: a catalyst, it's a catalyst to build relationships with them
Speaker 2: where I can call them up and say, Hey, I'm
Speaker 2: going to come and make dinner for you guys tonight
Speaker 2: and just sit and talk.
Speaker 1: It's so much more than cake.
Speaker 2: It's so much more than cake.
Speaker 1: We'll be right back. I'm sitting here listing dolls. Oh No,
Speaker 1: ought to pull back. I'm going to do a pullback
Speaker 1: on you already.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: It's a professional talk that I've learned recently, and I
Speaker 1: make myself a little disgusted using the term, but insupport
Speaker 1: your dad he did this his whole life as a
Speaker 1: fire off a fire or EMT. But he made the
Speaker 1: same calls these guys made, or worse sometimes. But the
Speaker 1: point is, you know we got to hear from your mom.
Speaker 1: You know that he kissed her good night and goodbye
Speaker 1: every time and wouldn't even take out the garbage out
Speaker 1: kissing her, and that there was always this recollection that
Speaker 1: there was danger in what your father's professionals and only
Speaker 1: say all illustrate this point. It is clear you're making
Speaker 1: some little bright spot in an otherwise difficult day from
Speaker 1: many of these firefighters and EMTs also their families. You're
Speaker 1: not just affecting the firefighter. You're affecting the firefighter and
Speaker 1: the downhill side who they also deal with some of
Speaker 1: the same trepidation and fear, or at least little thoughts
Speaker 1: that you guys dealt with when your father went off
Speaker 1: to work. They're dealing with when their love. So your
Speaker 1: outreach to all these fire people is actually exponentially larger
Speaker 1: because these families know that even in the depths of it,
Speaker 1: every once in a while at work, my love the
Speaker 1: one's going to go to smile because of this crazy
Speaker 1: cake lady.
Speaker 2: Well, and then they get mad because the wives never
Speaker 2: get any They're like, they never please.
Speaker 1: Don't add please, don't add wives to the list. You'll
Speaker 1: never get any sleep.
Speaker 2: No, I know that that's not well, I do. I mean,
Speaker 2: like some of the guys. One of the guys, his
Speaker 2: wife has turned fifty and so I made her take
Speaker 2: for a birthday.
Speaker 1: I mean, it's unbelievable.
Speaker 2: There's never two there's there's never not enough time for cake.
Speaker 1: I guess you don't even have a website or anything.
Speaker 1: You just do you You say it like it would
Speaker 1: be disastrous for you to have a website for what
Speaker 1: to show what you're doing?
Speaker 2: Well, I mean I post, I post everything on Facebook.
Speaker 1: People find you on Facebook? What they do?
Speaker 2: Just my name? Well Instagram is I'm SCF Cake Lady
Speaker 2: sc SCF South County Fire Cake Lady, all.
Speaker 1: Right, and on and on Facebook? Is just your name? Right?
Speaker 2: Yeah?
Speaker 1: Okay, is with the middle or just just Tanya.
Speaker 2: I think it's Hanks and Piper because it was my
Speaker 2: maiden name and married names.
Speaker 1: Okay, all right, say it again.
Speaker 2: Any Ray hankson Piper which.
Speaker 1: You can found on Facebook, otherwise known as the Cake
Speaker 1: Lady from South County Fire. And there's a bunch of
Speaker 1: guys with you in the picture.
Speaker 2: Oh that was my birthday. They showed up at the
Speaker 2: salon with flowers.
Speaker 1: Tanya Ray has earned her name as the Cake Lady
Speaker 1: by baking and delivering birthday cakes for all of our
Speaker 1: firefighters at fourteen stations throughout the year. Today, firefighters surprised
Speaker 1: her at work with flowers and wishes for a happy
Speaker 1: birthday coming up on Sunday. And it's a picture of
Speaker 1: a bunch of fire guys standing behind you at Sibawitz
Speaker 1: or whatever the place is called that you do it
Speaker 1: Zuberans know that, and they're all just grinning like cheshire cats,
Speaker 1: And there you are in the middle of them, smiling.
Speaker 2: Happiest salon is kind of right in the middle of
Speaker 2: the territory. So because they whenever they get a call
Speaker 2: close to the salon, they just have to stop, buy
Speaker 2: and say and grab a cookie.
Speaker 1: That's hilarious. People listening here, go to Facebook and Instagram
Speaker 1: and check out what she does. And if you cannot
Speaker 1: be inspired to understand that something as simple as making
Speaker 1: a cake can change in entire communities. When I say community,
Speaker 1: not the city, the community being the fire and EMT
Speaker 1: and first responder communities outlook, I love the metaphor. It's
Speaker 1: like a bloom full of air about to pop, and
Speaker 1: you're not going to extinguish the whole bloom. But if
Speaker 1: you just let a little pressure off that, just a
Speaker 1: little way out, that the stress on the bounds of
Speaker 1: that bloom aren't so strong. And metaphorically, folks who deal
Speaker 1: with what these first responders deal with. After a while,
Speaker 1: that balloon gets really ready to pop. If you just
Speaker 1: let a little air out, and a little air could
Speaker 1: be in lending in ear talking. But you know what,
Speaker 1: just smiling and getting your inner child self excited about
Speaker 1: a birthday cake, something as simple as that. Do you
Speaker 1: allow yourself to appreciate the difference you're making these folks loves? Oh? Yeah? Good?
Speaker 1: Do you do you see yourself ever quitting? No? Uh
Speaker 1: huh no. No.
Speaker 2: I will quit baking when I can't bake anymore, just
Speaker 2: like I'll quit working when I can't work anymore. I
Speaker 2: love what I do in all aspects of it. My
Speaker 2: mom always says when people ask her, when people ask
Speaker 2: me if I if I you know who helps me?
Speaker 2: I'm like, my mom makes sure the kitchen is clean
Speaker 2: when I get home.
Speaker 1: That's it.
Speaker 2: That's it, because, okay, Bill, our kitchen it's a two
Speaker 2: butt kitchen. You can't get any more than I mean,
Speaker 2: if you're back to back, you're going to run into it.
Speaker 1: It is.
Speaker 2: Or yeah. And when they see the size of my
Speaker 2: kitchen and what I do in that kitchen, they're like.
Speaker 1: Really, do you have a double oven?
Speaker 2: No? I don't have room for right.
Speaker 1: All right, here's the deal. This is a call out
Speaker 1: to people in the Seattle Edmunds, Washington area. You realize
Speaker 1: what this woman, this crazy cake lady Tanya is doing.
Speaker 1: It would only seem appropriate that one somebody reached out
Speaker 1: to their Facebook or Instagram, it maybe offered a month's
Speaker 1: worth or you're worth of eggs. But the other thing
Speaker 1: is when you're making six hundred cakes a year about
Speaker 1: it's my guess, it's that my mouth right, all right,
Speaker 1: that's an averager to today. I would imagine a double
Speaker 1: oven would be helping.
Speaker 2: So I went to when I had to buy a
Speaker 2: new oven, we have a place called this Homers recycle.
Speaker 1: Yeah that over the year's got some miles on it.
Speaker 2: Well, the old one, yeah, I mean it was per
Speaker 2: oven okay, yeah, but I mean it did pretty well.
Speaker 2: So when I went to go get a new one,
Speaker 2: I went to this recycled place and I brought him cookies.
Speaker 2: The owner how to make friends and influence people. Yeah,
Speaker 2: what was the second time I went in? And the
Speaker 2: first I had gotten one and it was not It
Speaker 2: didn't work very well and it wasn't cooking evenly. So
Speaker 2: I took pictures and I said, his name's Dave. I said, Dave,
Speaker 2: this isn't working. Goes Oh well, that's unacceptable. Cake lady
Speaker 2: can not have an oven that doesn't bake evenly. And
Speaker 2: so he set me up with like a five thousand dollars.
Speaker 2: It's a gas confection oven. I mean I can have
Speaker 2: an app and turn it on from work if I
Speaker 2: need to. It's fancy, way fancier than the first one
Speaker 2: I had picked out, which was nice. But and I said, so, hi,
Speaker 2: that's fine. How much more? He goes, Oh, no, so
Speaker 2: I got a five thousand dollars.
Speaker 1: Who's this guy? We gotta plug it.
Speaker 2: I don't know his last name. It's Dave at this
Speaker 2: Homers recycle Scratch and Dent place.
Speaker 1: I love that guy.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, I mean he was awesome. And
Speaker 2: so for nineteen hundred dollars, I got a five thousand
Speaker 2: dollars brand new and had a little scratch on the
Speaker 2: side that nobody sees.
Speaker 1: So perfect. Yeah, but it's one well yeah, but.
Speaker 2: It's a confection has three racks. I can I can.
Speaker 1: Bake three cakes at once differently, well, not.
Speaker 2: Three cakes, but I can do two cakes. And I
Speaker 2: can do like three trays of cookies at a time.
Speaker 1: And also, so, yeah, anybody listened to me in Seattle.
Speaker 1: Think of the good she's doing for the first responders
Speaker 1: out there. Reach out to her. Buy eggs, buy flour,
Speaker 1: buy more pans. She has her favorite spoon, she travels
Speaker 1: with it, So don't worry about that. But something else,
Speaker 1: you know, a little bit of support for you would
Speaker 1: be appropriate. I think for what you're doing for everybody
Speaker 1: in your community, you're an inspiration. You're also hilarious to
Speaker 1: hang out with. I bet the fire people love it
Speaker 1: when you just flop down and hang out.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, we have a lot of fun.
Speaker 1: I bet you did. Alex, you have anything to say
Speaker 1: to Danya before we go? I think I'm good. How
Speaker 1: about you, Tanya? Is there anything you think we've missed
Speaker 1: that you'd like to cover?
Speaker 2: Oh? Do you want to see?
Speaker 1: Yeah? I want to see. Tanya's got a fire department calendar.
Speaker 2: Not firemen, it's fire trucks. Just so you don't think
Speaker 2: that I got a bunch of half naked firemen on
Speaker 2: my calendar.
Speaker 1: Oh I see, it's not that kind of fireman. It's
Speaker 1: a fire truck calendar. Got it. Yeah?
Speaker 2: So this now, this is all my mother. I am
Speaker 2: a tech tard. I do not do computers whatsoever. So
Speaker 2: I have a spreadsheet for every month. This is this
Speaker 2: month's fireman.
Speaker 1: Okay, one, two, three, four of fives?
Speaker 2: Yeah, thirty six she total? Is it at the bottom,
Speaker 2: so I know what I'm doing.
Speaker 1: This is a list color coded of thirty six uh
Speaker 1: people and their data birth, their rank and their shift.
Speaker 1: And can I read one of these people's names? It's
Speaker 1: a second on May six, Tony Mace and Corey Dow
Speaker 1: you're up. One of you is in plane field and
Speaker 1: one of you that's a.
Speaker 2: Different fire Oh yeah, pain Fields and fired. I kind
Speaker 2: of adopted them on top of the other. They're at
Speaker 2: the airport and they're all alone and lonely.
Speaker 1: And so Tony Tody Pace at Painfield and Corey Dowe
Speaker 1: at ten b on five to six? What what are
Speaker 1: we cooking? These people?
Speaker 2: So then then I write it on the calendar.
Speaker 1: So this is on neked Fireman calendar with our trunks by.
Speaker 2: Tony Mason is getting carrot cake on the seventh at Paynfield.
Speaker 1: All right, what's Corey?
Speaker 2: Well he hasn't responded yet.
Speaker 1: Wait no, there he is right there, German chocolate. Yeah.
Speaker 2: So that's my deliveries for that day, and my deliveries
Speaker 2: for that.
Speaker 1: Day that is on.
Speaker 2: That's just the beginning of this month. I just started
Speaker 2: texting them for this, but this this was last month.
Speaker 1: Smokes Alex. You need to put this on on social media. Yeah,
Speaker 1: hold it up. This is this is the that is unbelievable.
Speaker 1: Don't don't move. We got we got blueberry Chris, we
Speaker 1: got red Velvet Coffee, cheesecake, Baba Cakes, arawberry cake, something, monster,
Speaker 1: monster cookies, oh, monster cookie on cookies, chocolate can, banana cheesecake.
Speaker 1: Holy crap. There is every kind of cake on earth.
Speaker 1: And I don't know why you don't open a bakery,
Speaker 1: but I think, yep, there we go, because that's It's
Speaker 1: not about the money for you, is it. Yeah, it's awesome. Tanya.
Speaker 1: Thanks for being a memphisis is a great story. I
Speaker 1: loved telling your story. And somebody in the Wash area
Speaker 1: reach out to this woman's helped support her. She's doing
Speaker 1: amazing good for a lot of good reach out from anywhere,
Speaker 1: and all of you first responders that have to be
Speaker 1: listening to this on behalf of Tanya. Thank you for
Speaker 1: your service, thank you for what you do, and in
Speaker 1: the very very most still way, I hope you eat cake.
Speaker 1: Thanks a lot for being every time.
Speaker 2: You're very welcome.
Speaker 1: Thank you all right, let's eat some more cake, and
Speaker 1: thank you for joining us this week. If Tanya rap
Speaker 1: Piper has inspired you in general, or better yet, to
Speaker 1: take action by baking cakes for firemen or someone else
Speaker 1: in your community, or making a cake for your favorite
Speaker 1: podcast host so he can dive in with his fingers
Speaker 1: and his face only, and oh my gosh, that cake
Speaker 1: was good. Did you get any I did, But her
Speaker 1: intention was not for you to use your fingers. That's
Speaker 1: not why she brought it. It's the best wait to cake.
Speaker 1: You dive in with your fingers and you just scruff
Speaker 1: it down your face, your curit email. If the cakes
Speaker 1: for yourself is what most listeners are thinking right now,
Speaker 1: well that cake was for me, wasn't it. I mean
Speaker 1: the rest of us were going to have something too.
Speaker 1: Get your own podcast show and maybe someonell cook you
Speaker 1: a cake. But that was my cake and I loved it.
Speaker 1: It's awesome. So anyway, if don your Apiper has inspired
Speaker 1: you to do any of that or something else entirely,
Speaker 1: please let me know. I'd love to hear about it.
Speaker 1: You can write me anytime at Bill at normal folks
Speaker 1: dot us and I promised I'll respond, And if you're
Speaker 1: sending a cake, I'll give you my address. And if
Speaker 1: you enjoyed this episode, share a friends and on social
Speaker 1: subscribe to the podcast, rate and review it. Join the
Speaker 1: army at normal folks dot us consider becoming a Premium member.
Speaker 1: There all of these things that will help us grow
Speaker 1: an army of normal folks. I'm Bill Courtney. Until next time,
Speaker 1: do which you can