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Posted on 04/04/2004 3:17:12 PM PDT by Willie Green
For education and discussion only. Not for commercial use.
I've never been down this road before," says the woman sitting in the front row of the tour bus.
In more ways than one.
The bus is headed west on state Route 160 toward Pahrump, destination: Sheri's Ranch. On it are members of the Purple Sage chapter of the Red Hat Society, a social club for women 50 and older who wear red hats and purple dresses and think there's nothing graceful about growing old.
It is a field trip of sorts, organizer Olga Scheel says when she calls to invite a reporter and photographer to come along.
But isn't Sheri's Ranch a ...
"It's a brothel," confirms Scheel.
How many members are going?
"Fifty-six," Scheel says. "That's all the bus will hold."
That may be all the bus will hold, but the trip proves so popular with Red Hat Society members that more go along in a minivan and car.
You might call it Red Hats meet Red Lights. Decked out in a red hat ringed with purple flowers, Scheel explains that the idea for the trip came about after she heard of another Red Hat Society chapter taking a similar one.
"I had no idea how many would be interested," she says, "but this is going to be great fun."
And how. The hourlong bus trip alone involves group renditions of the quiet sign, singing, kazoo-playing and inspection of a male chastity belt.
The last is part of a drawing for prizes Scheel promises are not dust collectors, but "practical or funny" items. Whether the male chastity belt fits in the practical or funny category probably depends on your frame of reference, but winner Maggie Fill is sure having fun with it.
"I hope the poor sucker who wears this never heard of Viagra!" Fill says. "My God, this even looks uncomfortable."
As she makes her way down the aisle back to her seat, she says triumphantly -- or is it smugly? -- "It's mine to do with what I want."
Maybe so, but the illustrated instructions that come with it make their way through the bus. Slowly.
A few minutes later, Scheel calls the number held by Diana Shelburne, a founding member of the chapter and one of its leaders.
"Call another one," Shelburne says. "I'm afraid of your gifts."
Other members content themselves with enjoying the scenery.
"The World Famous Mountain Springs Saloon," one reads from a sign.
"Never heard of it," another says.
And from the back of the bus: "Did you know Joshua trees only grow at 3,500 feet? That's how you know how high we are."
Scheel delivers brothel-business factoids, such as the origin of the term "ranch" to represent a brothel (because trade was often in livestock, which was left outside). She notes ranch employees perform "the standard act and a great many fancy acts," and then lists them.
She promises that the members will be able to query the ranch guides about "all those things you wanted to know about a brothel but were afraid to ask."
"You may not agree with their profession, but they are working for a business," Scheel says.
From the back of the bus: "To each his own."
Upon reaching Pahrump, the bus takes a short jog down a side road and pulls up to a building decorated much more sedately than most of the gentlemen's clubs in Las Vegas. Despite that, several members pose on the steps in front of the sign, waving their purple boas.
As they settle in for a buffet of tea and finger sandwiches in the brothel's bar, general manager Laraine Harper takes a quick break to explain that she welcomes tours to Sheri's Ranch "because it's our opportunity to educate the general public about what goes on in brothels." She gets quite a few tour groups, she says.
"When they leave here, they feel better about the industry," Harper says.
Though the Red Hatters nearly fill the bar -- prompting confusion among four young people who start in and then turn around to leave, until Scheel assures them they aren't in the wrong place, and two men who ask if this is perhaps a reunion of former brothel workers -- a few of the brothel workers settle in to talk. Some of them pose for photos, wearing the members' red hats.
The group later splits into halves, with the first leaving to tour the brothel and the second settling in the parlor, where lineups take place. With its fireplace and hardwood floor, it looks much like the lobby of an upscale restaurant, except that the menu involves another kind of dish. The menu is fairly explicit, but the accompanying pictures no more so than many Las Vegas billboards.
Ranch employee Veronica patiently fields questions -- many of them as explicit as the menu -- in an impromptu session in the parlor. The second half of the group then leaves for the tour, some of them getting their pictures snapped in the S&M chamber, the Budweiser-sponsored whirlpool room or the laundry area, where a sign instructs employees, "one trick pack at a time."
"Didn't we have a ball?" Edna Miner says later. Miner, who will be 90 in July, says her daughter was shocked that she was making the trip.
"I guess she thinks there's no holding you back when you get old," she says.
"I was excited," she says. "I thought, `These are things you don't talk about and you don't know anything about.' And secondly, I think it's good for everybody to know things. You always surmise, but you don't know. To me it was great to get an inside look."
She says the trip changed her mind "in as much as I had the feeling they were much more coarse and common people. I was amazed to find quite refined ladies."
Shelburne says the trip didn't change her view of brothels. "I just felt so very sad, looking at the young girls." She didn't take the tour. "There's some things I don't need to know. My compassionate nature says gosh, I would try to find them a better job."
But, she says, "I think I was in the very, very minority."
On the bus on the way back, Scheel announces that the members have been invited to the brothel's annual summer party, and asks how many are interested. Hands shoot up.
Better reserve the bus.
Something tells me this is not the Linux group by the same name... either that or I'm using the wrong distro!
I laughed out loud at this...
LQ
"Seperate checks, please"
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