From April 23, 1992 forward......and this one's not going to be as funny as I thought it would be before I wrote it.....
After I sent that April 22 nd letter to the GB, I went off on a tangent in my letter writing........Why? I noticed one day as I was pouring over some scriptures in Revelation in my NWT reference version.....that the name "Apollyon" was referenced with an "a".....hmmmmm....that set me thinking.....I hadn?t always been the type of person who has a tendency to "gloss over" or ignore the "bad" and see what is good in a person or situation, but the WTS had surely pulled the "wool" over my eyes and I?d been duped into being an almost total "Pollyanna" where their doctrines had been concerned, and consequently my family had been destroyed and I?d lost years of my life and valued friendships. And having now become so judgMENTAL over the WTS lack of scriptural adherence, I recalled the scriptures in Revelation about not "adding anything to" the scriptures. But they HAD....and I?m not just talking about little reference letters.....I?d already discovered in my intense scriptural research of the NWT that there were many, many words that?d been added, taken out or changed from their original intent. Also, I remembered that scriptures in Revelation had denoted that those chosen were to be given a "new name".....and I accordingly began writing to the GB, presenting myself as "Apollyona", as I began REALLY rippin? the GB a "new one".....I uncovered every discrepancy I could find and wrote them about it, not just detailing their error, but deriding them horribly with a wry sense of humor, tweaking ?em in every way possible and giving them a verbal "thrashing"......like a "Mormon on a mission".....trying to elicit a response.....I was allowing anger to overcome my better judgment....
And as I did this, I was noticing that the words in the scriptures (which is mostly all that I read anyway) could easily segue into a sort of "jabberwacky" that often made sense, but in a different way.....for example: II Tim. 4:3 "...teachers for themselves to tickle their ears." could be re-translated to read, ?T (for the tree of good and bad) cheers for dumb selves to trick all their rears," meaning that the tree of the knowledge of good and bad was cheering or "pumping up" the egos for "guppies" (ie: gullible ones) to trick their asses....leading them down a "primrose lane," so-to-speak. Of course, I didn?t notice this particular scripture at that point in time. It was as though the words in the scriptures had become alive with new meaning. I felt like "Charlie Bucket" in "Willie Wonka and the Chocolate Factory"....that I?d been given the whole "chocolate factory."(WOOOHOOOO!)......and I began using these word variations in my letters to the GB....even referring to them as the "wild-a beast" (wildebeest or gnu re: gnu-whirled translation)......
During the beginning of this time period, and within a few months of that April letter to the GB, we were finally evicted from our bungalow on 7 th . I recv?d the funds from AFDC for another move, but had no help now, so I kept only our barest necessities that hadn?t been sold and discarded everything else we?d owned, including most of the WTS publications, of which I had many......and we moved into a cute little studio apartment on Hickory Street, which was perpendicular to Valley Parkway and across from the front entrance of Palomar Hospital, our apartment being a few blocks down Hickory. I continued my letter writing to the GB while there, but I forgot to mention that each time I sent out a letter to the GB, including the April 22 nd one, I also mailed copies to their Branch offices....at least one on each continent and of course to the congregation from which I?d been df?d.
While we lived on Hickory Street, several strange things occurred . One day, a new acquaintance of mine, named Pandora, told me there was a man in the apartment parking lot with a boa constrictor that I should see. I went out to the parking lot and, sure enough, there he was....I didn?t recognize the man and couldn?t tell you now what he looked like, because what was most noticeable to me was the fact that he had this monstrous (huge) serpent wrapped around his neck and shoulders. I wondered what this meant in the greater "scheme of things"......but then....I was often noted for not being able to see the forest for the "trees."
Another day, Pandora came to me and told me there was a friend of hers she wanted me to meet....She said his name was Michael and that he had a car that he?d weirdly painted with writing all over it and the police had made him re-paint the car, because it was too distracting in traffic.....he was in the parking lot, too, so I went out there with Pandora and she introduced us.....Remember the magazine ad with the little blond girl standing behind the screen as the tawny-headed, freckle-faced boy was offering her a bouquet of flowers?....well.......Michael turned out to be a tawny-headed, freckle-faced guy....kinda grungy looking.....and his car (he was SO proud of it) was an old clunker with primer patches all over it.....and had many quoted scriptures painted haphazardly all over it......I had no idea what this meant at the time..... but......he sure did remind me a lot of that little freckle-faced boy in the magazine ad I remembered. Did yall know that flowers can also be pronounced with a long "o" sound?
And one time, when I was waiting at a bus stop on El Norte Parkway.....there was a strange woman sitting on the other end of the bench at the bus stop.....now....about six months after my df?ing, I took up smoking again....because I could....without guilt....so as I was waiting for the bus, I lit up a cigarette......she jumped up and snarled at me that I was smoking up her air.....I told her that since the wind was blowing in the opposite direction that could hardly be possible, but if she believed that, I?d be happy to change seats with her.....nothing doing.....she was furious and began pacing back and forth, ranting and raving.....believe me when I tell you that I stood back and allowed her to board the bus first when it arrived.....and I wondered just exactly whose "air" I was "smoking up" with my letters.....
I also had several dream/visions while we lived on Hickory.....in one of them there was a brick wall (of a house or building) with a window in it....on the window sill was perched a monkey...playing around in the window. Very mischievous that monkey.
In a very profound dream/vision, I was driving West on Valley Parkway in a very large older model vehicle.....as I drew nearer to the intersection with Hickory, my vehicle kept accelerating, going faster and faster, I tried to put on the brakes, but when I looked down....there seemed to be one or more glass cylinders on the floorboard that kept rolling around and getting under the brake pedal, blocking me from being able to put the brakes on.....I would reach down and try to grab one, but they kept rolling away.....and when I looked back up through the windshield, I was flying in the vehicle...in the air.....hurtling toward the building across from Palomar Hospital which had become a very tall, solid brick wall in my dream/vision. My vehicle took me through the brick wall, punching a large hole in the wall towards the top.....and I suddenly found myself walking....without a vehicle....in darkness.....I stopped....looking around me....but could see nothing......then suddenly, there appeared an opening of brilliant white light above me.....beaming down on me and creating a vacuum by means of which I was suddenly sucked up out of the darkness......at the end of this dream/vision, I was conscious of wondering about the hole in the wall that my vehicle had created even though I was still sleeping.....so I took myself back to the outside of the wall where the hole was.....to inspect the damage....but the hole was quickly being filled in with more bricks, as if by invisible hands......using mortar made with the dead grass from the grassy area in front of the wall.....
There was another dream vision that seemed to be a sequel to the one I just described....Right across from Palomar Hospital is a beautiful building....cream stucco...topped with marine blue clay roofing tiles....it looks like a huge, beautiful villa, with a courtyard inside and swimming pool.....it was finished, but no one ever moved into the building, so it was abandoned....someone told me that Tom Selleck purchased the building back then, but I?m not sure. Anyway, in my dream/vision, I was standing on a balcony outside a corner rear room on an upper floor of the building.....overlooking Hickory Street. It was at a point near the end of the tall brick wall that I?d hurtled through in my previous vision.....but this time, the wall was much shorter......and I could see the end of it......and for whatever reason I suddenly found myself soaring through the air from the balcony, hurtling into the shorter brick wall.....only this time.... everything went black.....there was no more consciousness of anything to me.
And while I lived there on Hickory Street, two brothers moved in above my studio apartment.....they were Hispanic and one of them was fairly attractive I noticed, but didn?t think too much about it......then one day, when I was outside my back sliding doors, sweeping my patio.....the cute one came around the corner and...when he saw me, he blasted me with a huge smile that almost took my breath away....I?m surprised my jaw didn?t hit the concrete under my feet.....instead of responding in kind, I scowled at him and turned my back, continuing with my sweeping.....I also noticed one day as I walked past the manager?s apartment, and he was wearing shorts and standing outside her door talking to her as he leaned back against a rail....he had the most beautiful thighs I?ve ever seen on a guy....they were breathtaking, too.....yep....I think there was a little "payback" smile and some teasing going on from "you know who".....he was still "around." I normally don't notice those things about guys.
Also, while we lived there, the manager seemed to want to befriend me at first....late one afternoon, she suggested we go to a coffeehouse in downtown Escondido called the "Metaphor"....the decor was retro ?60's, hippy-flavored, with assorted art deco paintings donated by customers, old books on display and assorted other ?60's paraphernalia, a sidewalk caf é area and a bandstand where combos would play or poetry would be read on different nights......when we took our seats with our coffees at a small table in the back room where the bandstand was, I noticed a little guy sitting at another table near the wall......he was dressed in khaki-colored slacks, jacket and golf cap.....and he looked like Michael Douglas, on whom I had a slight "crush" at the time, since I?d just seen "Romancing the Stone".....as the manager and I sat there talking and admiring the memorabilia in the room, the little guy sauntered past us and went to the piano on the deserted bandstand....he began playing Ray Charles? "Wha?d I Say".....and though he had no sheet music, it sounded as though he were playing precisely from sheet music without any variation....and though he kept the beat, there was no "soul" or "heart" in the music...it wasn?t very pretty.....when he finished, he returned to his table....but....on his way past our table he was singing as though to himself..... "You Are My Sunshine".....he veered toward our table on my side, coming closer and singing louder as he passed me on the way to his table......weird, to say the least.....and no...he wasn?t drunk.....and I was wondering ?How does a person segue from "Wha?d I Say"....to "You Are My Sunshine"....in that short of a time?....and what was he doing coming so close to me singing that song? Had we met before??
When I had discovered that the psycho-hose-beast apartment manager had "molested" my son (which was why she had appeared to want to befriend me so eagerly) and we went to the district attorney and had her charged and convicted and her father (the owner) soon thereafter had us evicted, we eventually moved to "the zoo"....a sad little apartment strip in San Marcos....but the last vision I had prior to discovering we were to be evicted was wherein I was in my apartment there on Hickory.....I don?t remember the circumstances and the construction of it was different....but I needed to get out of there desperately.....must have been in fear of something there....anyway....during the dream/vision there appeared to be a regular door for exiting.....and another narrow opening appeared at the last minute and I went through it instead of the door and left, brushing crumbs off the front of my clothes as I exited the apartment. We left at 3 AM after I called a taxi to carry our belongings and moved into a motel on El Norte Pkwy, where I payed for our room by the month.....out of our AFDC funds.....and I "brushed off" those "crumby" people that lived in that apartment complex on Hickory as we left.
In the next installment, I?ll cover our trip to Tijuana and our move to "the zoo".....sorry....the next one?s gonna seem sad...however...it will also cover a very different writing style in my next letter to the GB and an enlightening dream/vision.
Frannie B