My Neighbor , Tammy Faye??

I heard a rumor from someone a while back, not sure from who now; Tammy Faye Messner (aka Tammy Faye Bakker, yes that Tammy Faye) was moving to the KC area. Specifically, the rumor was that her husband, a builder, had bought a lot in the exclusive gated community of Loch Lloyd, a few miles south of the city. Loch Lloyd is a bucolic area, huge lots on rolling hills with a lake surrounding a golf club. I have never been there, but told it is quite nice. Nothing much more was said. I wondered why she'd come here. I thought she was a true southern fried girl. And does KC have enough make-up outlets?

It seems to be true, as she revealed this week that they are indeed moving to the KC area, but did not specify a location. The reason given is to be closer to her husband's family in Wichita. Now we have both of them here, as I believe Jim Bakker is living in Branson, along with all the other dead and washed up entertainers.

Tammy Faye is quite ill it seems, last I heard she was wracked with cancer and was down to less than 75lbs and dropping. The Doctors had stopped treatment, there was nothing more for them to do.

Of course, she and Jim were the center of the PTL scandal, one of the biggest news events of the 1980s and the biggest religious scandal since the Reformation. Jim and Tammy's televangelist empire came crashing down through greed, fraud and illicit affairs. I will never forget Tammy on TV as she was reacting to the guilty verdict singing...

"On Christ the solid Rock I stand
All other ground is sinking sand"

...mascara running, squeeky voice breaking. I can never hear that hymn without thinking of that moment, and shuddering.

As Tammy Faye separated from Bakker, she began to change a bit. Just a bit. She never lost her naive outlook on life. Everything was God's will to her, everything was God's gift. If she air-conditioned a dog house or bought a Rolls, it was God's gift for her faith and work. She honestly believed that. Even now, as she is sick and frail, she clings to that faith.

Oddly, she has a new audience and a new set of supporters. Her unlikely rise to gay icon arose from a popular documentary The Eyes of Tammy Faye, a biographical chronicle of her life. Narrated by RuPaul, it focused on her campy appeal and that sweet, almost childlike naivety. While still well, Tammy Faye appeared at several gay pride events with a message of forgiveness. More cynically, some have said she was exploiting the community, becoming another tragic diva to garner sympathy and adoration from gay men. A nouveau Judy Garland.

Seems we might be neighbors... well not really, Loch Lloyd is pretty far south of me. I doubt we will meet at the grocery store let alone at Missie B's. To me the verdict on her is still out. But at least we can watch it close up.