I was not "born in".
I was recruited.
I've told the story dozens of times.
It began as a "best friend" at school comraderie and ended with my baptism 4 or 5 years later.
I had no desire up front to join any church or attend any services or even to associate myself with people who talk about "god" and "faith".
It creeped me out.
My family was not sociable. They were like hermits.
My grandmother had been reared Catholic and had attended Convent school. She told horror stories about the stern, disciplinarian Mother Superior and corporal punishments by the nuns.
I had the bible read to me barely at all. Attending a Sunday School class only once with my cousin Debbie was about the total experience I ever wished to endure.
Then, along came Johnny.....
Fast Forward past all the little jousting attempts to get me interested....
I was goaded....challenged....ridiculed slyly.....and baited into arguments.
If you were going to be friends with Johnny you WERE GOING TO TALK ABOUT THE BIBLE with him!
That sort of co-ercion was new to me.
So...
in order to be able to defend myself and not appear a total ass, I began studying; if only to get some sort of firm footing and context.
My frog got boiled.
We now arrive some years later. I was attending every Kingdom Hall meeting and "book study" that Johnny was. I can't say that I was intellectually stimulated, but, Johnny was. Intensely so!
As male best friends sometimes are, we were competitors in every way!
And, by golly, I wasn't going to let him show me up!
I'd study just to be able to make more intelligent comments! Ha!
I'm telling you all this to give you a clear idea of my own "spirituality" in the early years when I was 12, 13, 14. I was baptised at age 16, by the way.
There is a French word: milieu.
Milieu \Mi`lieu"\ (m[-e]*ly[~e]"), n. [F., fr. mi middle (L. medius) + lieu place.
Environment.
The intellectual and moral milieu created by multitudes of self-centered, cultivated personalities. --J. A. Symonds.
I got steeped like a tea bag in the milieu of Jehovah's Witnesses and gradually acquired the flavor of one.
At no one point did I experience a thrill of conversion because, suiting my own sanguine personality, JW's are aloof. So was I.
And then, Johnny told me about this little old lady who sat in the front row of all the meetings with her pill box hat on and old fashioned clothes.
She was nicknamed "Boots" and her last name was Richardson. In hushed and mysterious tones, Johnny identified her as an astronomer might so name a heavenly object obscured from view except with highly sophisticated lenses and acumen!
"She is of the anointed."
There! Something about the way he spoke those 5 words created my first thrill!
I was inhabiting the same space with a person especially selected by Almighty God among the entire human race from time immemorial TO LIVE WITH JEHOVAH while the rest of us remained flesh and blood on earth!
Might I say: Wow!
If you were in the same room with a President you might feel giddy. After all, they were chosen! Elected!
Boots was ELECT.....the elect......anointed.......singled out for special and holy enterprise!
I confess to stealing glances and staring.
But, what exactly did this REALLY mean?
Johnny explained as best he could. Jehovah's spirit communicates DIRECTLY with their own spirit to notify them of their special calling!
He compared it to getting a personal phone call from your father who lives many miles away.
Since I had never met my own father I could immediately and emotionally connect to that situation!
A week or so later, Johnny took me over to Boots Richardson's house for an old fashioned tea and cookies get together!
This was an exciting prospect for me, let me tell you! Probably, it is like a devout Catholic getting to meet the Pope in person!
It was a Saturday after field service when we arrived at the little cozy house with the picket fence where Boots lived.
I felt like any teenager feels going out on a special date for the first time. It sounds silly or melodramatic, but, I assure you it was electric!
Boots was very short and I am very tall. I towered over her. She told me I reminded her of the actor, Randolph Scott. I mumbled something ridiculous and took a seat on an overstuffed couch cushion. I sunk down where my eyes were practically level with my knees. This must be how a Mastodon felt bogged up to its knees in the La Brea tar pits.
We got sugar cookies and balanced a Tea cozy and peppermint tea on our knees. I nibbled like a pet mouse while Johnny engaged Boots in small talk.
In fact, he was hogging the conversation and I was jealous.
Boots wasn't paying much attention to what my friend was saying because he was boisterous by reputation and rather self-centered.
She looked over at me and fixed her blue eyes on mine; tilting her head slightly.
"Are you interested in the bible?" she asked me simply.
And it threw me.
What did THAT mean? How should I answer? Is this a test? What did she really want to know? Did I seem like I was pretending?
I flinched and answered, "In what way?"
She ignored my question and launched into a personal biography! It was practically non-sequitar to Johnny's babbling.
"When I was about 6 years old my grandmother would sit me on her knee and read the bible out loud. I watched her fingers as they touched each word as she read them. I learned to read that way."
Boots smiled and popped a sugar cookie fragment into her mouth and ruminated; lost in her own thoughts. A minute passed.
She continued...
"One day, my grannie was reading in Matthew and I was surprised that the words suddenly went from black to red! It was Jesus speaking!"
I smiled. I had had the same experience watching my own grandmother reading her bible.
"I saw that as a miracle. I haven't changed my mind!" The little old lady sipped from her gold-rimmed teacup and dabbed her lipstick with a lace hanky smearing the rosey color on her lips.
I glanced over at my buddy, Johnny. The expression on his face was priceless. It was sort of like a teenage girl watching Elvis gyrate his hips.
I couldn't help myself; I had to ask: "What do you mean, Boots? Miracle?"
Her tongue swirled under her top lip and she reached into her mouth with her fingers and plucked a lodged crum loose....and...proceeded...to pull it out and examine it........and.......pop it back into her mouth and swallow it!
"Right," Boots nodded, "Jehovah had turned the black words into red words at just the moment Jesus started speaking!"
And, right then and there, my memory stops!
I don't recall any further part of the conversation or even saying goodbye and leaving or the conversation with Johnny on the drive back from Boots house.
I blanked it out!
Strange?
Perhaps. But, I have my own theories......