by philo 15 Replies latest jw friends
Ah yes the pioneer shuffle.. that brings back memories
Another one I learnt while working with a pioneer - knock on a door in the street that your meeting in, so you can start counting the time and then walk right across town of course taking the scenic route, to do the next call.
Whenever Mitch and I go back to Valdosta, Georgia where I was a pioneer I always point out the local pioneer interest points.
The house we always started our time at, about 1/2 mile from the hall, no one ever home. Recently, it has been fixed up and looks much more lived in so they probably can't use it any more.
The Suwanee swifty we always took our morning and afternoon breaks at. We followed the 15 minute rule rigidly in reporting our time.
I used to get up in the mornings and hand write witness notes to start my time. That was before word processing programs and printers and copiers in the home. Wouldn't take much time to do that now.
I was an expert at stretching time out by finding the most indirect way of getting to various return visits. We had tons of rural territory, so as long at the gas would hold out, we'd truck back and forth between Naylor, Statenville, Twin Lakes, Lake Park, Bemiss and Dasher. Sigh, some cool memories.
We also used to take a couple of older pioneer sisters with us who were great for parking in houses for a goog 1/2 hour to 45 minutes or being late to finish bible studies by 15 or 20 minutes. Nothing like sitting under a nice shade tree on a sunny summer afternoon and snoozing those hours away whilst the breeze blew through the car.
The whole time thing was done. If I was organizing this I would require a set number of houses to be called on each month. That's what the society needs, a good efficiency expert.
I love your storys! They seem like yesterday, thankfully that was like 12 years ago for me! As a kid, if another kid was allowed to go with me (instead of an adult), we would just go to each house and silently knock on the door and wait and wait and wait and then silently knock again - for some reason - no one was ever home at our houses! ;)
daisy
hahhaha.......all you guys are the best
Can I just tell you guys that a non-JW has no idea what it's like to have to go out in field-service and just talking about our common experiences makes me as giddy as a school girl! :) These stories are cracking me up! Hey and you know what, now that I think about it, my dad - the self-rightous elder that he was, used to do some of the things you guys are talking about - walking slowly or visiting another JW family that lived in the area - pretty hilarious!!
later!
daisy
I remember using the term PKT (pioneer kill time).
I remember getting started at 5:00 am doing street corner witnessing downtown and then going to the KH for the Service Meeting(30 mins away) We would only deduct time for the service meeting, we didn't believe in the 15 min. rule. We usually went door to door in the morning and bible studies in the afternoon. We would finish the day with a 2 hour dinner study. Our bible study would make us a dinner complete with homemade biscuits. We usually put in 10+hours on that day!
We also had rural territory so we always did the driving around the country-side thing and hoping someone would get stuck at a door for an hour so we could nap.
Speaking of getting stuck, I remember my brother letting me drive "once" before I had my license. We were on a back road in the country where there were very few homes. I was in the process of backing up in someone's driveway and as I slowly put on the brakes, I slowly went backwards over the hill in their back yard. I had gone back far enough that I got my dad's huge suburban stuck on the hill in mud. We spent about 15 minutes trying to get it back up the hill with no avail. So, my brother took over and decided to go ahead and back down the hill and try to drive it out another way. Well, he backed the suburban down the hill and landed the suburban in a foot of MUD, he then proceeded to spin the tires digging a one foot trench in their yard about 15 yards long and then drove the suburban around their swimming pool (sliding in the mud the whole time) and drove back up the hill getting it stuck again exactly where it was stuck to begin with. An hour later we found a neighbor down the road with a tractor that pulled us out.
Just imagine a great big circular black ditch dug around your swimming pool. It was a mess! We left a note with an apology and received a very angry call later that night. They ended up being very nice about it and didn't make us repair their yard.
Thanks for the walk down memory lane.
mpatrick
He does not believe who does not live according to his belief.-Thomas Fuller
