Posts by ramtrucker

50

What's the biggest lie/rumor that has ever been told about YOU?

by VampireDCLXV in

most of us here know what a hypocritical, backstabbing bunch of gossips many of the jw's tend to be.

far too often, a jw wont tell you to your face what's eating them, but they'll sure tell others.

when i started waking up (the second time around) this made me very paranoid.

ramtrucker

One of the earliest rumors/gossip was that my first wife and I had premarital sex. We were married on Feb. 4th 1961 and she delivered our first son, premature at 6 months pregnancy in late December of that same year.

Some years later at a different congregation an older "sister", spread rumors that I had an affair with her son's ex-wife. Nothing of the sort took place. Those things started my drift away from the JW's, although I continued maintaining a presence, going to Memorials and Circuit and District Assemblies until my first wife filed for a divorce from me early in 1999.

After the divorce I married, "out of the truth", so that made me an adulterous husband of course. None of her family know the truth, that she left me for a fellow she met on the internet who promised her a new home and new car. He never followed through with the promises after she came home from spending 5 days with him and announced she loved him and wanted a divorce. What a laugh now, but a huge loss at the time, as I'd known her family since I was ten years old.

21

Creative Days, How Long?

by Slidin Fast in

i really don't know where the wt is on creative days now, they used to be 7000 years long but now seem to be un-named fudged "thousands of years".

this immediately starts to put the fossil record into a more sane place until you realise that adam ius still believed to be created in c4026 bce.. so we have fossil records going back almost unarguably into geological timescales, oil (from living things) miles below the surface of the earth.

coal (fossilised trees) also far below the surface of the earth but man 6000 years old aprox.. no wonder we aren't hearing much on the creative days.. s f.

ramtrucker

I personally believe that each creative day was as long as Jehovah needed to finish a particular phase of creation.

I base this on my own experience when I'm working on a project. I might take as long as ten days, or year, or years, or as short a time as an hour to finish a project.

When I figure I'm done, I call it good, just as Jehovah did when he finished a particular phase.

16

my 15 year old neighbor

by asilentone in

jw
friends

i am laughing at my 15 year old neighbor doing the parallel parking practice.

she is a disaster.

.

ramtrucker

I don't know about other states, nor whether it's a required skill now, but when I took my drivers test back in November of 1959 it was required, here in Washington State.

My dad was abusive, both physically and mentally so learning to drive with him was a no-no. I bought a '52 Dodge Club Coupe with some of the cash I earned picking fruit that fall, and started driving without a license.

I figured on getting my license on my 19th birthday, which falls in November. I had to have Dad go along with me, and on the way to the testing office, he told me I'd never get a license.

I fooled him, I aced the test, including parking parallel parking, which I'd actually not tried until I took the test. My score on the driving part of the test was 96 points, the written test I passed with a 98.

My wife was with me just recently when I parallel parked our car prior to going into a bank. As I exited the car, she commented, "your parking skills are excellent, but I don't know how you do it." She went on to say, she was taught not to start cutting the wheels until the front wheels were even with the back wheels of the car one is parking behind." I just shook my head.

23

If we were alone together in the woods 100 miles from nowhere

by John Doe in

jw
friends

and a tree fell on me, pinning me to the ground, and all you had was a dull pocket knife, would you perform a field amputation of a leg or arm to save my life?

.

ramtrucker

Why would you assume I have a "dull" knife in my pocket.

I've carried a knife in my pocket for 95% of my nearly 70 years on this planet.

It's usually sharper than what one might call dull. At times it's razor sharp, or very near so.

AS to whether I'd perform an emergency amputation, would depend on whether I had material to stem the flow of blood, take care of the wound once I did the procedure.

I think I'd much rather look for a way to lever the log off the victim. Since I've done a bit of gathering firewood and have rolled trees/logs over, I figure I might be able to move said tree.

18

What Are Your Favorite Foods To Eat?

by minimus in

jw
friends

i had a delicious lobster pie the other day that did not too much butter in it.

it was superb.

my gf had a terrific prime rib.. i'm hungry!.

ramtrucker

My favorite food is pretty simple. Pinto beans ladled over a dish of fried potatoes.

35

Meetings: Are They Morons?

by metatron in

jw
friends

so, the new arrangement for meetings includes a jam-packed ministry school/service meeting and book study that ends at 8:45pm in many halls - unless they go overtime!.

these geniuses tried to create a family night because they realize witness families are falling apart so they created an awfully long meeting instead that will often take place on a thursday night - just prior to friday when countless kids have tests in school scheduled!.

good for them!

ramtrucker

As I remember from my time spent at the Kingdom Hall when I was in my teens and early adult years, the meetings started with the Service Meeting at 7:30, which ran until approximately 8:30.

It was followed by the Theocratic Ministry School which was supposed to be an hour long, so the Thursday night meetings would end at 9:30.

Quite often the meeting(s) ended at around 9:40 in the evening.

There used to be a short intermission between the Service Meeting and the Ministry School as I remember.

I pretty much stopped going in the late 1960s before things really started changing.

Sunday was pretty much the same way. We had the Public Talk which lasted a full hour, then a short break, followed by a song which led into the Watchtower Study, including prayer and ended, most times well past the allotted time of one hour for the Watchtower Study.

Things have certainly changed over the years, including the time spent at Circuit Assemblies and District Assemblies.

When I was a kid, we never got home from a Circuit Assembly any earlier than say 11:00.

2

If you have

by John Doe in

jw
friends

a tombstone, what kind of tree do you want it to be by?

will your stone be in a private field, or in a public place?

what flowers would you want growing?

ramtrucker

My stone if I have one will be in a little cemetery outside of Anatone, WA. (extreme Southeast corner of Washington State). The cemetery is basically a pioneer cemetery, started back in the late 1800s. Many of my wife's ancestors are buried there.

There might be a pine tree growing near, I'm sure there will be wild rosebushes, and all kinds of wildflowers that grow of their own accord in the Blue Mountains of Washington.

There is no lawn, the grass is native grasses such as bunch grass. Upkeep is very low. My wife's brother's usually go out with a weedeater or two and knock down the higher grasses in the early spring, once the snow melts off.

The cost of the plot, six graves, was less than $100.

32

We live in a beautiful part of the world.

by Gregor in

today my wife and i left the house at 9 am and had lunch at a restaurant in cannon beach while looking at this view.

we were home by dinner time.. .

ramtrucker

Haystack Rock is one of my favorite views. The northern coastal area of Oregon has long been a favorite of mine. As a child of 5 or so, my dad moved us from Eugene, OR, taking up residence in a little motel that featured individual cabins on the east side of Highway 101. A couple of years ago, during a trip down that way, I realized that one of the cabins still existed, although it's probably gone now, victim to the condos being built along each side of Highway 101. (Dad was a logger and found work cutting centuries old windfalls out of the many canyons that run down to the ocean.)

My younger sister and I'd walk across 101 in those days, 1945, and play on the beach all day if the weather wasn't too bad. It'd be nigh impossible for an adult to cross that highway today, because of the near bumper to bumper traffic.

The Columbia Gorge is also a favorite of mine. I and my bride of 7 + years often like to travel the old highway up the Gorge to revisit the sites I and she have come to love over the years.

45

Relief for nighttime leg cramps

by Billy the Ex-Bethelite in

okay, i'm closing in on 500 posts, but have almost no 'new topics' to my name.

i don't feel like starting anything profoundly spiritual.

so, i'll share this tip that has worked for my kinfolk.. on both sides of my family, we frequently suffer from nighttime leg craps.

ramtrucker

My wife will wake with cramps/muscle spasms in her legs. When that happens she asks for a small glass of apple cider vinegar, and drinks it.

Sounds crazy, but in just seconds the spasms start easing up. In a pinch any vinegar will do, but the apple cider tastes a bit better than others.

Being a bit of a skeptic I tried it when I had a spasm recently, and found that it works for me too.

8

a basic of abuse

by lancelink in

i have been studying psychology this past semester at college, and i had a different type of question for this site.

when abuse of any type occurs ( whether it be toward children, or adults) usually animal abuse can be found linked .

somewhere in the abusers past.

ramtrucker

My father, still alive at age 92 was somewhat abusive to animals. I've seen him when I was a child, and older, abuse several animals over the course of growing up under his parentage. On one occasion, I was forced to take a hammer and kill some kittens I'd "adopted" from the neighbor. Basically they were feral cats, although young enough that I'd caught them, and had them hidden out, feeding them milk when I could sneak away. My actions were somewhat lacking in judgement, but I was like eight years old at the time, and had no personal pets. He'd heard the kittens mewling, searched them out and found them, and realized I was hiding, thus came the edict to kill them. Not long after that, I caught a female collie and drug her home to our little farm. She had a litter of puppies which he shot when they were around three months old. He had some justification. They played rough, and liked to pull at my clothes, tearing them, so they were a nuisance in that respect. Later he shot the collie when she came in season because he didn't want more puppies. I've seen him take pick handles and shovels to cows in the dairy barn when he milked them because they were giving him a problem going into their proper stall. Some years later, after I'd grown, I worked for a veterinary hospital. My parents had bought another dairy, were milking on the average of 45 cows daily. They operated it as a family, so the younger siblings had to work their tails off in order to keep things going. They didn't have a family pet. I had a young Australian Blue Heeler come in to be put to sleep, so took the dog up to the kids. The dog survived a couple years on the farm, then my dad shot it because in his estimation it took too much time to take care of. There are more instances of his cruel and unjust treatment of animals, but I'd spend hours relating those things. As far as being abusive to my mother and my siblings, as well as myself, (I'm the eldest of five children), he was very much so. Even going so far as telling me not once but several times in the past 10 years or so, that he'd be in prison now if the authorities had found out just how abusive he was. He's been a witness since 1949. His most common comment about why he's lived so long, is to wonder if Jehovah has kept him alive because of the bad things he's done in his life. As to whether he's a sociopath, I'm not qualified to diagnose his mental illnesses. I do know that he suffers from anxiety problems, and has for probably 50 years at least.