Well it is 4:00 a.m. in the morning and I can't sleep, so might has well write.
Everything at bethel is seniority........"how long have you been here?" If you wanted a better room you need some seniority, rooms would go up on a bid system. If you had more time in, then another guy, and a room went up for bid, you got it. If you were a new boy, and all your friends were new boys, it could be a year or two before you got a decent room and 10 years to get a room with its own bathroom, pre towers days. There were 2 man rooms, 3 man rooms, 4 man rooms, and 7 man rooms.........everything from an 7 man room in the ghetto, the 129 building, to a luxury apartment in its own building (like the good Doctor got). I don't have a problem with a system like that............a system that rewards seniority and education....
Oppppppps, did I say education......Yes, I guess I said it..........Remember at the time......"higher education" was HIGHLY DISAPROVED of (you can tell from my spelling)..............and after high school, there was only ONE thing to do and that was to pioneer. We only had a few years left before 1975 and we didn't need NO stinking education, we needed to SAVE as many people as possible! A couple of people I knew, when to college and GOT so much SHIT for it, you wouldn't believe it. And they needed to get shit for it too.........because "the society" knows the DEATH of any religion is eduction and knowelge!.......So that is why most of the JWs today, in their 40's 50's and 60's are blue collar workers.
You were a real rebel if you went to college, then. Greg Chase was my press operator of "HOE 10" after bethel he went to college to be a chiropractic physician..............He told me years later, that when he was going to college, they hated him in his local KM, how dare he try and make something of himself .. However after he got out of school, different story........"The Brothers" called him DR. Chase..........they loved him....they wanted him to go back to bethel, they wined and dined him and his wife.They offered him a very nice "comp package"........he said "NOPE".
Sooooooooo........at bethel you were REWARDED for not listening to them about getting a "higher" education.........they treated you better (with more respect) and you got a better room, and a better job! They actually treated you like a real person. Guys would come to bethel with a degree.........do you think they put them in the bindery? Nope ........they got a great office job, no machines for them. AAAAHHh.........the first glue of the "double standard" in the Lord's house .......those wonderful "unwritten rules." ...........................As they say if it looks like shit and smells like shit, and taste like shit, it COULD possibly just be.................
Sorry, I got side tracted again..............Working in the Laundry I got to see into all the rooms there, except Knorr's (you had to be Jeaus to enter there)......and there are some really nice ones.To save money, most of the rooms in the 107 and 124 buildings were dormitory style, with one women's and one man's bathroom on each floor.......Thats why it took so much seniority to get a room with a bath there wasn't many of them, then. They watched you like a hawk in the 124, 107 and 119. It seemed like that most of the tight asses lived in the 124 and 107...........though there was plenty of cool guys mixed in too.
Then the society bought the Towers Hotel. They opened up 3 floors for bid. GREAT rooms all with their own bathrooms. If you had a year or more, you could get in.You would have thought everyone would have wanted them, but since the hotel was full of worldly people, most of the tight asses stayed were they were. I was one, of the first people in the Towers, room T 211. I didn't have the seniority to get a room, but a guy on my table did, Steve H....and he wanted a new room mate........................which brings me to my next subject,.ROOM MATES.
Hay! There are all types..........and God bless them all. But some of them could make your life a living hell. It wasn't unusual for a newer guy there to bunk with and old timer, but most of the time it was someone you knew, you either worked with, or went to the same KH with. When you were new you didn't have a choice.........you could get anyone.
My old pioneer partner Roy Baty come to bethel about 6 months after me. When he got there he was so self righeous, he made me sick, he reminded me of ME when I first got there. I told him "I don't want to be around you, now Roy, come back and we'll talk again in 6 months" He got of to a bad start, they put him in a room in the 124 with Eugene Alcorn, a black "brother" from Detroit. ROY hadn't even been there a couple of weeks and got a taste of "bethel Justice".......It seems he and his room mate Eugene got into a fight over the radio. Roy wanted if off at 11:00 p.m.and turn it off................. Eugene got up and turn it on...........Roy got up and turn it off............Eugene turned it on.......you get the idea................in the braul, that followed, the sink in the room got busted. Now most guys would cover for each other. Instead, Eugene went to the bethel office the next morning and told "the brothers" that, his white room mate wouldn't let him listen to his radio and beat him up, that is why the sink was busted. They hauled Roy in.................How it works at bethel is whoever gets there FIRST with the story, usually wins...The reasoning is, only the righteous one would naturally report the behavior of the unrighteous one. So by the time Roy got there, the decision was already maded.........................Welcome to the Brindry Roy. You really did't want "the Brothers" to know your name at bethel. Once your name got out there for any reason, once you got a "REP" you were screwed."OH yes.....I've seem to have heard or your name, before brother Trouble maker" We have a machine just for you. You really wanted to be the man with no name a.k.a.THX-1138.
I don't know what to say about Steve H.........my first room mate in a 2 man room, except he kinded of creeped me out.......he had all the mannerisms of an NPG (non practicing gay).....and there were plenty of those there..........and quite of few practicing too.. There were guys who loved the fact that there were 1000 19-23 year olds guys and few women at the Lord's house. Don't get me wrong!......I love gays NOW, but I 'm speeking from my mind set of 1972. This guy had way to much clingingness for me. He would say "So what are WE doing today?"........."I don't know....what ARE are we doing today?"....sorry charlie.
If you weren't Gay or and NPG at bethel, you were homopobia...........I knew some bethelities who beat the shit out of some gay guys in "the Heights" one night just for the hell of it. AH the love. There was this one new boy that got jumped walking to the squib building from the 124, by 2 thugs. It guess he was a black belt before coming into the borg...........He kick their asses one guy was draging the other guy back to their car and begging him to stop the beating...............He went to George Couch the next day to turn himself in.........George said don't worry about it......He was our hero, we loved him.