Warren Schroeder from Bethel on Freddy, Kline and the apostate books! (page 18)

Tom Cabeen

Hey JW,

The only two brownstones the WTS had when I was there, to my knowledge, was 34 Orange and 86 Willow, (where Doc Dixon lived on one floor and some guys lived on another floor). I was in 86 Willow, but never got invited to Dixons' floor. I would not call these homes "luxury" from my current perspective, but nicer in important ways than a standard Bethel room, which was more like a cheap but clean hotel room, (like a Motel 6 in Indiana, for example). These brownstones had a real kitchen, not just a sink, and some even had window air conditioners (but no central air). They also had nice finished wood trim, hardwood floors, and the like. Standard Bethel rooms had metal door frames and metal casement windows. No frills, if you get the idea.

Ed and Betty lived at 119 Columbia Heights, in a nice room there. We visited Ed and Betty in their room, but it was not like a regular apartment, (no kitchen) just a nice room with a private bath. Not much character (read no hardwood), but new and clean.

Tom

james_woods

Hi Tom - and thanks. It has been many years now, but the apartment where we visited with Ed & Betty was on the first floor of a brownstone for sure. It must have been around 1972 or 1973. It had one bedroom, kind of set apart from the living area but in the same general space, and a little kitchen not unlike what you would find in a "Homewood Suites" hotel nowadays...like I say - pure luxury compared to what I saw of the living quarters of my young guy friends who were doing time at Bethel.

BTW - I had completely forgotten about Doctor Dixon - I knew him too, and actually went to him for medical purposes after he had moved back to Oklahoma City. Nice guy - I always wondered what such an educated man could have possibly thought of the whole Watchtower experience.

For some reason, neither Ed nor his brother Marion ever mentioned Dr. Dixon again - maybe we were all just pre-occupied with the big tragedy of the Franz rebellion.

BTW2 - you did know, I guess, that at the latest word Betty is living in an assisted facility in Edmond Okla.? She has pretty much fallen to something like Altzeihemrs, much like my mom. Ed of course passed away years ago of a sudden heart attack, and Marion finally died from just extreme old age about two years ago.

shadow

I was in Dixon's apartment for my newboy tour with housekeeping. All I remember is the impression that it was quite lavish. The carpet was thick and housekeeper had to rake it while backing out the door. Nothing like the 4 man room I shared in Towers. We had no AC and yes it did get hot! Anybody here that was in construction instead of a factory zombie?

wschroeder

Tom wrote: The press was belching out lots of smoke, which was illegal, and the EPA was trying to catch us, so we were running the press at night so the Society wouldn't get caught polluting and have to pay a big fine.

I got involved in a meeting not long after the dryers were installed on the Harris presses. The gas fumes were polluting and it was my understanding (no verification of this folks) that they were caught by the EPA. We received these large drawings of catalytic converters. You can guess what was the new priority project for the department.

Dogpatch

thanks CC, you are da man!

SALTPETER

I totally forgot that one! They used to give it to Bethelites, or they took it themselves, or some dumb thing.

Randy

VM44

Leolaia wrote this about 34 Oranage Street:

34 Orange Street was the address where Watchtower osteopath Mae J. Work and Dr. Linus Work lived in the twenties and thirties. She was on staff at Bethel and used the Abrams ERA machine to diagnose and treat health problems. It was her practice that Roy Goodrich condemned as "spiritism", and she defended her use of the "ouija-board"-like machine in the pages of the Golden Age (30 April 1930, p. 483). She also published another article in 1931 on how the ERA machine cures cancer caused by aluminum.

So the Society had owned this property for quite a while before they decided to sell it last year (2007).

Dogpatch

Cab sez,

Reggie used to call me up after Randy left the organization, all upset because he left. I told him that Watters was a good man (what was I thinking!?!) and that Christian living was more important to me than doctrine.

Yeah, I used to date his daughter or niece, forgot which. He had high hopes for me. Old school anointed, but I had lots of those as friends. I used to pioneer with Guido Fulgenti in San Luis Obispo, who served at Bethel under Rutherford, and he used to tel me stories! Guido was convinced the end was coming in 1974, not 1975 (A Franz glitch?) Anyone else have an old-timer friend who was cueing in on '74? Not uncommon. Dating nonsense.

I forgot that Reggie ratted on you. How lame. As lame as Fred Fredean was, being the resident "bad attitude" (BA) and enjoying that status, unitl the Franz Incident, then acted the opposite. Kinda like Swingle.

I hope Fred woke up, at one time he was a fun guy. The guys that turned rat bastard fink really annoy me.

Randy

Dogpatch

one thing to Reggie's credit, he did get me a job at Anderson Lithograph in L.A. that helped me make enough money to quit working for a year and start writing. Thank you Reggie! :-))

Randy

Tom Cabeen

Speaking of saltpeter and sexual hyperactivity, Randy, some quick research suggests that the whole "saltpeter causes impotence" thing is a myth. It is apparently not uncommon to hear the saltpeter rumor in the armed forces. One of the proven uses of potassium nitrate is that it is an necessary component in gunpowder. Maybe somebody at Bethel just reassigned the meaning of "discharge", from firearms to Bethelites. (Is that a zeugma?) Tom

compound complex

The old ranchhand discharged his duty and rifle while attending to the cattle rustlers.

Handy with a sharp knife and tongue, Chef Maxim minced his garlic but never his words.

Zeugma (from the Greek word "?e??µa", meaning "yoke") is a figure of speech describing the joining of two or more parts of a sentence with a single common verb or noun. A zeugma employs both ellipsis, the omission of words which are easily understood, and parallelism, the balance of several words or phrases. The result is a series of similar phrases joined or yoked together by a common and implied noun or verb. In a modern sense, the zeugma has been classified as a synonym for syllepsis, a particular kind of zeugma, although there is a clear distinction between the two in classical treatises written on the subject. Henry Peacham praises the “delight of the ear” in the use of the zeugma in rhetoric, but stresses to avoid “too many clauses.” The zeugma is categorized according to the location and part of speech of the governing word.

CoCo

Warren Schroeder from Bethel on Freddy, Kline and the apostate books!

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