But he looked absolutely nuts. He visited a farm and was kissing all the fruit to bless it. Everyone laughed as if it was "cute". Seriously, I was disturbed. I remember sitting there thinking, "These people are nuts!"
People of the 1930s era that actually did believe that King David lunacy have told me that same thing around the 1960s - they laughed it off because they thought it was "cute" and maybe just a little off in a grandfatherly old man sort of way.
It is important to remember that this was exactly at the same time that the name JW was invented and that the Great Crowd/Remnant doctrine was created - the exact same time.
And they really believed King David was going to be coming back to life and walk up to the door at Beth Sarim.