- We started attending the Wakefield R.I. KH after the marriage. At the first meeting I went to, "Buddy" Weber came up to greet me. He had left a very good job in Seattle. He had his own radio talk show making big money. He was now a janitor, living were the need was greatest in the USA. At the time R.I had the worst publisher to normal people ratio in the country 1 to 1600. I'm just standing there listening to him as he is giving me the "What he has done for Jehovah story." What his "spiritual credentials" are and how wonderful his kids are, were they were pioneering, how he had given up a good job so he could serve the Lord by cleaning windows in Rhode Island, because the end was coming soon in 1975, just a few months away Blah Blah.......Blah
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- It reminded me, so much how the JWs love to martyr themselves and how much they say "We are all equal." On the other hand, they love positions, that deep down inside they believe that some are really better than others and that they are working their way into the "New System." When I first got to Bethel I loved it too. Than after a while I hated being introduced as "This is brother Casarona he is a Bethelite." After a while that meant nothing to me. I wasn't more or less spiritual than anyone else.......So I'm listening to "Buddy" tell me how wonderful he and his family are, except his son Mike Weber his son, he wasn't pioneering at the time, Thus he was a piece of shit, even though he didn't say it like that, I got the drift............So Buddy asked me if I was visiting the hall. I said "No that we moving in". He said......."Well you have moved to the wrong place because they really don't need any 'help' here." I thought I'm not here to "Help" anyone. I just wanted some place to hide and lick my wounds.
We had rented a small 800 sq. ft. upstairs apartment of this huge old New England house in Narragansett, for 90 bucks a month, it use to be the servant quarters but there hadn't been any servants in there since the great stock market crash of the 1920's.
After 4 weeks of the honeymooning and rest. The money was almost gone......So it was time to get a job. Before Bethel all I ever did was work in fast food restaurants, at minimum wage. I had no job skills. I did have a letter from Bethel stating that I could work a 1920's freight elevator and operate a letter head press (which no one was using anymore). Two job skills that are of no value in the real world. I had done some "G" jobbing, as a house painter at Bethel. So I went Door to Door looking for odd painting jobs. The first day out I got some painting work, thus "Pioneer Painting Company" was started. My card said at the bottom "Licensed, Bonded and Insured"............I wasn't any of those things......I did drink "Bonded whiskey, I did have a driver’s license and car insurance, but that was it. It should have been called "Wing and A Prayer Painting Company"
That summer in 1974 we went to the District Convention. There we got the "New Light" that we NOW could have "limited contact" with disfollowshipped persons. So Debbie who hadn't seen her real father in about 10 years, thought now might be a good time for a road trip to California, to see her him. Since I was going to be the best man in Roy Baty's wedding in Kansas, we thought we could kill two birds with one stone. So in September we left in my 1966 ford Econoline van, for what would be an 8,000 mile road trip with a 150 dollars and a gas credit card.
Our first stop was Bethel, we picked up Roy. He had "made his time" and like me was waiting a whole week to get married. We drove to Kansas in 2 days. The week before the wedding all hell broke loose, there was one BIG problem! Roy wanted to have beer at his wedding. No one could remember anyone ever having any alcoholic beverages at a "JW" wedding in the Salina Kansas before. This turned into a huge problem with half the congregation saying they were NOT going to attend. The main guy against it was John Norman from Abilene. Roy asked me what to do. I said "Screw them Roy, they made you wait 4 years for this girl, you deserve a beer and besides, didn't Jesus drink and make wine at a wedding? You know Jesus our LEADER?"..........Well I guess someone always has to be the first one.......to do anything...... right? If they only knew how much booze the boys back in the headquarters drank, including their leaders, they would shit a brick!
This was the same congregation, Roy and I pioneered in for 2 years, before we went to Bethel. We are talking tight asses. We had one congregation gathering in 2 years. It was a picnic after working all day remodeling the Kingdom Hall. Roy and I stood around eating corn on the cob with all the old ladies, it looked like a Quaker meeting. A week later our CO Merle Freeman (he looked and talked like Elmer Fudd). Got up at the service meeting and read a letter from the "Society" that warned us of the dangers of "organized gatherings”, a place where there could be over drinking and immorality. It seems the brothers in Southern California would rent out a whole roller ring once a month for their kids. Some of them would be drinking and screwing in the parking lot. The Society got wind of it and thus the letter. So "Elmer" is reading this letter to us. After the letter he said. "So we won't be doing any more of those!" meaning like the panic the week before.....with all that corn on the cob. We were getting the cob again all right.
Well, Roy got 5 cases of Coors beer. It was a Great wedding and yes most of the tight asses did show up including John Norman. He enjoyed the beer along with everyone else!
They just wanted to make a pretense of being righteous.
The brothers don't you just love them?