We started attending the Wakefield R.I. KH after the marriage. At the first meeting I went to, "Buddy" Weber came up to greet me. He had left a very good job in Seattle (He had his own radio talk show) and was now a janitor, living were the need was greatest, at the time R.I had the worst publisher to normal people ratio in the counrty 1 to 1600. I'm just standing there listening to him as he is giving me the "What he has done for Jehovah story" what his "spiritual credentials" are, how wonderful his kids are, were they were pioneering, how he had givien up a good job so he could serve the Lord my cleaning windows in Rhode Island............because the end was coming soon in 1975, just a few months away Blah Blah.......Blah.......It reminded me, so much how the JWs love to martyr themselfs and how much they say "we are all equal".......but on the other hand, they love poistions, that deep down inside they believe that some are really better then others and that they are working there way into the "New System". When I first got to Bethel I loved it too........then after awile I hated being introduced as "This is brother Casarona he is a Bethelite" After awile that meant nothing to me ........I wasn't more or less spiritiual then anyone else.......So I'm listening to "Buddy" tell me how wonderful he and his family are, except his son Mike, he wasn't pioneering at the time, thus he was a piece of shit, even though he didn't say it like....... that I got the drift............So Buddy asked me if I was visiting the hall. I said "No that we moving in". He said......."Well you have moved to the wrong place because they really don't need any 'help' here"...........I thought I'm not here to "Help" anyone......I just wanted some place to hide and lick my wounds........
We had rented a small 800 sq. ft. upstairs apartment of this huge old New England house in Narragansett, for 90 bucks a month, it use to be the servant quarters but there hadn't been any servants in there since the great stock market crash of the 1920's. After 4 weeks of the honeymooning and rest. The money was almost gone......So it was time to get a job. Before Bethel all I ever did was work in fast food restaurants, at minium wage. I had no job skills. I did have a letter from Bethel stating that I could work a 1920's frieght elevator and operate a letter head press (which no one was using anymore). Two job skills that are of no value in the real world. I had done some "G" jobing, as a house painter at Bethel. So I went Door to Door looking for odd painting jobs. The first day out I got some painting work, thus "Pioneer Painting Company" was started. My card said at the bottom "Licensed, Bonded and Insured"............I wasn't any of those things......I did drink "Bonded whiskey, I did have a drivers license and car insurence, but that was it. It should have been called "Wing and A Prayer Painting Company"
That summer in 1974 we went to the District Convention. There we got the "New Light" that we NOW could have "limited contact" with disfollewshipped persons. So Debbie who hadn't seen her real father in about 10 years, thought now might be a good time for a road trip to Califorina, to see her him. Since I was going to be the best man in Roy Baty's wedding in Kansas, we thought we could kill to birds with one stone. So in September we left in my 1966 ford econoline van, for what would be a 8,000 mile road trip with a 150 dallors and a gas credit card.
Our first stop was Bethel, we picked up Roy. He had "made his time" and like me was waiting a whole week to get married. We drove to Kansas in 2 days. The week before the wedding all hell broke lose there was one BIG problem! Roy wanted to have beer at his wedding. No one could remember anyone ever having any alcoholic beverages at a "JW" wedding in the Salina Kansas before. This turned into a huge problem with half the congergation saying they were NOT going to attend..The main guy against it was John Norman from Abline. Roy asked me what to do. I said "Screw them Roy, they made you wait 4 years for this girl, you deserve a beer and besides, didn't Jesus drink and make wine at a wedding? You know Jesus are LEADER?"..........Well I guess someone always has to be the first one.......to do anything...... right? If they only knew how much booze the boys back in the head quarters drank, including their leaders.......... they would shit a brick!
This was the same congergation, Roy and me pioneered in for 2 years, before we went to Bethel. We are talking tight asses. We had one congergation gathering in 2 years. IT was a picnic after working all day remodeling the Kingdom Hall..Roy and me stood around eating corn on the cobb with all the old ladies, it looked like a Quaker meeting. A week later our CO Merle Freeman (he looked and talked like Elmer Fudd). Got up at the service meeting and read a letter from the "Society" that warned us of the dangers of "organizied gatherings",a place were there could be over drinking and immoralality..............It seems the brothers in Southern Califorina would rent out a whole roller ring once a month for their kids. Some of them would be drinking and screwing in the parking lot.The Society got wind of it and thus the letter..................So "Elmer" is reading this letter to us. After the letter he said............."So we won't be doing any more of those!" meaning like the pinic the week before.....with all that corn on the cobb...we were getting the cobb again all right.
Well, Roy got 5 cases of Coors beer.................It was a Great wedding and yes most of the tight asses did show up including John Norman...........He and they were the ones that drank most of the beer!........They just wanted to make a pretence of being rightious..............Ahhhhhhhh..........the brothers....... don't you just love them?