by Dogpatch 501 Replies latest jw friends
thanks for your work, Atlantis, you are a gem for us all! :-))
Chrisjoel,
No, they have innoculated themselves carefully against surprise. No Dunlaps or Rineharts can write books, sneaking in secret Christian doctrine while the other farts pick their noses.
"The gall of these whippersnappers. inserting salvation by faith, one hope, and ALL THOSE DAMNABLE DOCTRINES OF THE SNIVELING MESSIAH into our spiritual paradise!
"We worship FREDDY ALONE.
"(no trinity)"
[eat snacky smores]
Randy
Thanks Randy
I enjoyed reading Warren's accounts. I have a question about this statement:
I had quite a bit of liberty of movement through the factory as an electrician, and I was becoming better known with all the supervisors and was able to go just about anywhere without question.
Does Bethel restrict where Bethelites are allowed to go?? I imagine that there are restricted areas, like where the GB are, but in general are their "guards" that question Bethelites that wander into areas to which they are not assigned??
Hi Iamcleared,
you say,
Does Bethel restrict where Bethelites are allowed to go?? I imagine that there are restricted areas, like where the GB are, but in general are their "guards" that question Bethelites that wander into areas to which they are not assigned??
You know where you don't belong, and Bethel is (or at least was in the 70's) very territorial. Like a pack of dogs, everyone knew their place in the pecking order. Like a monastery no doubt. Looks kept you in line. :-))
Randy
Fascinating stuff. Thanks for posting it.
Thanks!
Warren adds a few pressroom stories:
Randy, Great... now I'm a star. I will tell you a couple stories you will appreciate as a pressroom member. I created some serious havoc in the pressroom on a couple occasions, and interestingly, it was indirectly related to my "punishment" by my department overseer, Steve Furnas, intended to isolate me from the other members of the electrical crew. Steve was a good guy, but it didn't save me from my very first committee (factory committee) meeting to address some liberal thinking that I expressed to a workmate about the 144000. This was around the middle of 1979 and they essentially told me to keep my thoughts to myself. I have no special training in schmoozing, but whatever I said at these interrogations, including more to come, seemed to have plenty of grease on them. As my wife tells me now, it's because I'm tall... :-) My isolation job lasted almost a year with them assigning me to light-rounds for all 4 factory buildings. That means I had to check, and repair as necessary, every single light bulb, lamp, and light fixture, in all the factory buildings. That gave me access to every department, and nook/cranny of the buildings. Believe me, some of those buildings are like dungeons in the basements. (only one place worse... doing night watchman clocks at the Squibb buildings). I got to know and befriend a lof of really great people, and gradually make my own schedule of places to be and go. Don't get me wrong, it was a generally boring deadhead job. Event #1: I was checking out the lamps in the Building #3 Electrical Service Room. As I was doing my job checking and replacing lamps I leaned against one of the large disconnect switches, and heard a quick bang. I looked around to see what might have caused the noise and saw nothing. The handle of the switch had not moved, so I concluded that it was something else and I should not be concerned. I then continued on to the corner stairs to replace the small 25W bulbs, of which all were replaced each month whether they needed it or not. Later that morning, I found my way back to the electrical department. Steve Furnas called me in and then asked me if I was working around any of the electrical rooms. Uh oh, what happened? I replied that I had replaced a couple lamps in the Bldg3 electrical room. He asked me had I touched anything? I knew something was about to be bad. I lied and said no. He asked me if I was sure... I again said no, and then asked why the questions? He told me that Harris #1 (maybe #2) had gone down and they didn't know why. Of course, there must have been a huge mess when the press shut down at high speed and no brakes. I had watched many other times when the pressroom was waist high in crumpled up masses of white paper. The electricians also spent more hours investigating why the event happened before they could repower and restart the press. Generally, any further press production for the day was pretty much over. By my examination of the electrical room at a later date I saw where I must have bumped into a small red button on the large Pringle switch. It's a release of the spring loaded switch mechanism inside. Being a newboy electrician, I had no clue at the time. I suppose this has remained a mysterious secret for some until today. Event #2: Working in the MAN pressroom on light-rounds I noticed that one of the 8 foot fluorescent lamps above a press was burned out. The press was running. I had seen the pressmen walking the upper catwalk often while the press was running, so I got the idea that I could go up there to and take out the old lamp. It was no problem making my way to the top and grabbing the lamp, and even started making my way to the metal ladder, when the lamp decided to bump the handrail. Only a small part of the 8 foot glass lamp broke off but a few small pieces of the glass fell onto the speeding paper web. I watched the glass bounce and skate on the paper for a couple seconds and then disappear into the machine to wherever. I continued down the ladder to the floor and saw the pressman frantically looking at the copy coming off the press and then started touring the press. They saw me on the floor holding the lamp in my hand and asked me if I was working near the press. I said yes and told them the story about the small glass pieces. Actually, it was sigh of relief for them.... at least they understood the real reason. While upset with me they explained that there is so much pressure between the plates, paper, and rollers and anythings will mess up the print on these letterpress machines. They showed me some of the print copy that showed clearly the large blank areas in the type. I learned from Steve Furnas that the downtime and fabrication of new plates was going to be very costly. All I could say was sorry and it was dumb move on my part. I really thought it was end of my Bethel career, but it turned out to be my savior. I was taken off of light-rounds for good from that day and they "promoted" me in charge of electrical operations for Building #3!! Realize at this point I still have about 1-1/2 to 2 more years in Bethel before I would leave. After this point my story is possibly one of the more unique as a factory worker. I would, until I left Bethel, not be allowed to work on group projects again, especially the new MAN conversion project that was just starting. Within a few months though I would be allowed complete autonomy as a electrician/engineer. Permission from the top, maybe Wisegarver (not sure), was that I would be given my own area and workplace to pursue my own designs which I had recommended earlier to resolve some downtime problems with the bindery equipment. Also, there was a new move toward electrical energy conservation and I had recommended the design of some new programmable devices. My department overseer and his assistant would only walk by and ask how I was doing. Nobody understood a thing I doing.... and I mean nobody, except Bill Hunkins, and only maybe. Bill was a real electrical engineer from Iowa and cared less about what I was doing. He was a factory elder and I think he was asked to look over my shoulder from time to time to report to the overseers, who weren't comfortable being clueless about their subject or what he was doing. This, in itself, is a whole other story to tell. (how I and the factory mechanic's overseer, a genius mechanical artist, together would create a state-of-the-art machine that would be later called the 'Starship Enterprise' by not so creative bindery workers). This period proved to be the most productive and fascinatiing of my stay at Bethel. In fact, my final year at Bethel, I never spent an hour in Field Service and rarely showed at my congregational meetings, except Sundays mostly, in Lindsay Park, Brooklyn. I had an excuse due to my "special" Bethel work. Finally, the elders had a meeting with me in the summer of 82, which I thought was to say they were going to put their foot down and report me for my non-existence. Instead, they wanted to let me know that they were recommending me for elder.... only that they hoped I would put some time in for field service. I told them that I wasn't finished with the "secret weapon" yet and needed a bit more time, and therefore declined... for now. Cheers for now, Warren Well if you did that on 3-6 we would have hung you up by yer balls, boy! :-)) ROFL Randy
Karl Kline meeting was most memorable. Karl got quite fired up, doing all the talking, and began drooling on himself. He always seemed to have a slight speech impediment. He had 2 open books in front of him marked on various pages that he read passages from and stated the heresy of the ideas and how opposed these ideas were to "Freddy's". He named the authors, clearly mentioning Ray Franz and Rinehardt Lengtat. The books were "Commentary on James" and "Happiness".
I find this quite interesting, because in Ray's second book ISoCF, he makes mention of how Karl Klein flipped out over Ed Dunlap referring to the group as a "central body of elders" instead of the "Governing Body", in some of the literature. He apparently stewed and bitched about it for two years and would occassionally have to leave the room for "becoming quite loud and vehement" and was paranoid enough to believe that there was a "subtle effort to eliminate ther term "Governing Body"-----a warped view that he seemed to be obsessed with to the point where he accused Ray and the others of not taking the matter "seriously" enough and he concluded "What's wrong with the term 'Governing Body' anyway? That's what we ARE. We DO govern!"
Ah, nice to see the spirit of a sound mind working amongst one of Christ's brothers eh? Not to mention the quality of being humble and not thinking too highly of oneself either.
:he concluded "What's wrong with the term 'Governing Body' anyway? That's what we ARE. We DO govern!"
There are two other things that are noteworthy about Karl Klein. When the GB was voting to admit him as a member of their starchamber, it was told he was very nervous about whether he would get the appointment or not. When he did, he declared "I now have the most important job in the world!"
The other thing about Klein which explains a lot about what he did was the fact that Bethelites used to say he was "braindead from birth."
Farkel
Wow, great stories. Keep 'em coming.
