OK, Nighwarrior. I guess juicy is subjective. I was witness to my share of scandals. While I was there, there was a witch-hunt to find anyone who was involved in a homosexual scandal. Many people left, including a good friend who had arrived in my group back 74. I know it was a witch-hunt because my fried told me all about it. And when he left, he went back to his congregation without any problems. Had he done something wrong, he would have been censured. Ill get to that at another time. Im also looking for a photo of something that happened at one of the buildings (the old Squibb building) that I think might surprise some people. Typically, it was not publicized at all by the WT and only mildly spread through the congregations. Stay tuned. In the mean time, heres another excerpt of my story. This takes place early on before I was baptized:
Sometimes I wonder how I ever became a Witness when I consider some of the things I went through. For example: on several occasions when Johnny would come and pick me up to go to the Book Study, instead of going to the regular one in our area, he would suggest we go to the one that Juan attended. After three or four of these arrangements, it turned out to be too late to attend the Book Study on time. Our trips to Juans place for the purpose of going to a Book Study had become more of social get-together. Wanting to make use of the time, since we had missed the Book Study, it was suggested (I dont remember how) that we go for a cruise. For whatever excuse, we ended up at the Bowery district in lower Manhattan. Ultimately what happened was that we ended up watching the hookers from our vehicle picking up clients on the street. At one point Johnny, on a dare, went up to a stand on a corner where there was a prostitute hustling. He just wanted to see how far she would go. Sure enough, she approached him and as she leaned over the counter, I could see she wasnt wearing any panties. They had a big laugh about that. Since I had not experienced anything like that before, for me, it was like watching a car crash. You know whats going to happen, but you cant turn away and not look.
It turns out, as I later learned, that Johnny had been censured in the congregation because he had taken Alma, his fiance to a motel to have sex. Apparently, the whole thing had been kept quiet and their engagement had continued. I do remember listening to that little voice in the back of my head while prowling around the Bowery saying: This isnt right. In spite of that, I plodded on and matured in the organization. It was probably around 1969 and I had come to the point where I was going to have the privilege of giving my first talk in the second school. This was usually conducted in a back room of the Kingdom Hall with a small group of brothers and sisters and not in the main hall in front of the congregation. That was prime time. I had relied upon my High School training to compose a short discourse on some topic and I thought that I had made a good try. I dont remember whether it was good or not, I was extremely nervous, but Ill never forget the overseers, brother Chastains, criticism of my presentation. He asked the audience: What is the first thing we have to do when we compose a sermon? Hes answer was Think! Meaning that I hadnt. Regardless of how poor my presentation was, I thought that his comment was tactless. In fact, another brother, Rene Vasquez who had been a missionary in Spain, made additional comments to attempt to soothe the situation and even offered a bit of praise for my effort. Had it not been for that, I would have been totally discouraged to give any further talks.
It was at that Queens Crescent Street Spanish congregation that I met Raymond Franz, who later became a member of the Governing Body and Thomas Cabeen, who lived at Bethel, the home for the mostly specially called youth at the headquarters of the Watchtower Society in Brooklyn Heights, N.Y. I remember asking Thomas once while he and Raymond Franz and a few other people were crowed in a car on our way to field service: Tom, whats Bethel like? He sort of chuckled and said: Its like nothing youve ever experienced before! Its like no other place on Earth. Even then, I understood that he had had experiences that would categorize the place as not being close to Eden. I accepted that and strangely enough, I didnt judge him negatively for it. After all, he knew what he was saying, without saying too much.
Etude.