just when you think you've made friends with a "normal" person (page 5)

LisaRose

I worked with a guy who had conversations with "beings from another planet". He had written books about his discussion with this person. I was a JW at the time, it kind of freaked me out, I thought it was a demon or something. He gave everyone nicknames, I was Lumpy. I asked him why, since I was about 105 pounds then, he said I was the kind of woman who would get lumpy when I was older, and dang if he wasn't right. Our boss was fishface, a woman who only wore clogs was Thumper. He said to me once "Lumpy, I am afraid of Thumper" l said "what are you afraid of Les? "I am afraid she is going to come in here and thump me" he said. He once sang the " the bluebird of happiness" to me, in its entirety, he had a really good baritone. He was a loon, but interesting. Thumper was sort of interesting too. Along with the clogs, she only ever wore dark corduroy Levi pants, a cream colored pheasant top, and always a Beehive hairdo. She told me once that at home she went nude, always. Strange bunch.

Hortensia

As long as I feel pretty sure the person isn't dangerous, well I just enjoy the stories. Lots of entertaining stuff going on out there. LisaRose, that must have been a fun place to work, with the guy to talked to aliens and Thumpy.

kurtbethel

Funny thing is that the county is red-neck Tea Party Republicans who want to secede from the U.S., but this little town is all believers in fairies and angels and 10-foot-high spirit guides and tiny Lemurians and invisible cities.

Makes you wonder what they put in their tea.

Around these parts we had the Heavens Gate people who killed their mortal containers so they could beam away to the Hale Bopp mothership. In the east county there are the Unarius people who have celebrations to welcome the Space Brothers from the 33 world Galactic Federation. Over 60 years ago George Adamski used to meet Venusians on Palomar mountain. Then there are a bunch of people whose worship a being from the Pleiades and have meetings in contact places called kingdom halls.

UFO cults do well around here.

dozy

I know what you mean. Maybe I still have something of a judgemental mindset from being years in the JWs , but often people I meet believe the most bizarre things and I find it difficult to just accept that they can have an opinion , even though it just seems rubbish to me.

One guy from work I was chatting to who seemed a really normal person suddenly started talking about how all the Apollo moon landings were faked. Rather gormlessly , I began to mention some of the evidence to the contrary ( such as the recent high res pictures from the moon that show the lunar vehicle tracks & flags ) and he started to get really heated. It was all a bit disconcerting. We now stick to safer topics like the weather and the sport. Oh well - different strokes , different folks....

nancy drew

I like it when people are willing to take a walk on the unusual side. You do have to be cautious though because as i recall listening to someones crazy ideas turned me into a JW and it took many years to escape.

jgnat

In Quebec we've had the Order of the Solar Temple, which got a lot of media coverage until the newspapers clued in that they were being used for free advertising. And then there's the Natural Law Party, which ran in our national election promising World Peace once a critical mass of people had mastered Yogic Flying.

Hortensia

Hi Kurtbethel -- you're in my hometown!

Yes, loads of weird little groups. I don't mind if it's sort of a hobby with them, but it gets a little weird when they take it so seriously, and dangerous when they get to the point the Heaven's Gate people reached.

Thanks for all the stories, folks. Nice to know Mt. Shasta isn't the only home to loony beliefs.

rip van winkle

NANCY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

just when you think you've made friends with a "normal" person

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