new boy

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  56

  "How Awful This Place Can Be!" Life at Bethel by Keith Casarona

  by Dogpatch in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  remember the video of all the nice dudes who were on the governing body in the 70s?

  (here's a refresher).. well this is what their lives were really like - the same as when i was there.

  by the time it got to the end, all was left was chicken backs.

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  new boy

  Yes my new repostings are cleaned from the ones I did 8 years ago plus I have added some new information, that wasn't there before.
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  5

  My Bethel Experience Part 4

  by new boy in

  1. jw
  2. experiences

  black thursday september 1972. .

  knorr gathered all the bethel "heavies" and gb to the kh in the 119 building.

  the three freds (circuit overseers) and about 50 brothers.....thats right only 50. the other guys chickened out, they knew it was going to be a blood bath.

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  new boy

  • Black Thursday September 1972

  Knorr gathered all the bethel "Heavies" and GB to the KH in the 119 building. The Three Freds (circuit overseers) and about 50 brothers.....that’s right only 50. The other guys chickened out, they knew it was going to be a blood bath. I was there with 7 others from the Laundry.

  It started out with Dan Smoally (not even 30 years old and partaking) telling about what Max Larson (head of the whole factory) told him "there was NO WAY he was one of the ANOINTED!" Max at the time was a member of the great crowd. I mean how could God pick him, some kid? When Max was there at Gods house for over 40 years? Sometimes I wonder how God picks those anointed guys anyway, God can be strange sometimes.

  Well the stories of Bethel's Elders misconduct and abuse of power kept flowing.They were shaking the pillars of the organization! Knorr got MADER and MADER...........he would have loved to have killed us all, if he could have! Everyone knew these men were above the law. How dare we! Where the hell is JEHU, when you need him?

  As Knorr when off on all of us. As he was ranting.................all of a sudden Fred Franz stood up and said "These men are appointed to their positions of (power) responsibility NOT because of their spiritual qualifications. BUT because of their secular abilities!" The room was silent.

  Knorr said "We will LOOK into these matters".......................END OF MEETING.

  So............................What happened? There was only ONE committee meeting. It was about my Laundry overseer, Ken Doweling .......They gave him a slap on the hand. He was moved out of the Laundry.......and by the time I left Bethel 2 years later, was promoted to where else, the Bethel office! Back in the most powerful office in the home.

  He was "a company man" and "company men" always take care of their own......Just look at the elders in any KH.

  They didn't kick the 3 Freds out (bad publicity and we know how the "brothers" hate publicity)..........instead they just make their lives living hell...........They even put Fred Barnes (in his 50's) on a "gather" a machine that even 19 year olds have a problem staying up with............He had a heart attack.......they were kind enough to take him off it.

  The rest of us "Laundry boys"..........we were screwed! We had done the unforgivable, by binging up wrong doings of bethel overseers...Our Bethel careers were over. There was only one thing left to do, serve our time and get out.

  I was sent to the bindery........It made the Laundry look like haven. They put me on a sewing machine. It was the night shift. A sewing machine, is a machine were you sit and sew signatures together in a flipping motion that you do 40,000-50,000 a day. After three months, I was put on a bindery line were you would stand, all day between 2 machines. You would take the book out of the "rounder" and put in the "back liner"----16,000 to 17,000 times a day. If you begged your line overseer .......he might give you a 10 min. break to go to the bathroom every four hours. They could have bought a machine to do the same thing but it only cost them $22 a month for a warm body to do the job.

  The saying was "There is no shaft at bethel, every job is a privilege of service" There is another saying too “I don't care if you pee on me, but don't just call in WATER!”

  One time an army general come through on a tour of the factory.........He was shaking his head. The tour guide said "I'm sure you could get your troops to do the same thing"..........He said " Are you kidding.. No way"
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  12

  My Bethel Experience Part 3

  by new boy in

  1. jw
  2. experiences

  don't get me wrong...........there was no one more self righteous, than me at 19. i moved to kansas at 18 to pioneer and even printed up cards that said............ .

  "have sword, will travel"---------contact casarona salina kansas------ aaa which of course meant available after armageddon..

  oh, i was full of myself!

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  new boy

  • Don't get me wrong...........There was no one more self righteous, than me at 19. I Moved to Kansas at 18 to pioneer and even printed up cards that said...........

  "HAVE SWORD, WILL TRAVEL"---------contact casarona salina kansas------ AAA Which of course meant “Available After Armageddon.”

  Oh, I was full of myself! Thought of myself as a spiritual gun fighter. To defend TRUTH, JUSTICE and all the WATCHTOWER BIBLE AND TRACT SOCIETY stood for. Little did I know I had no chance of winning my first big gun fight! We have meet the enemy.....and he is US.

  There is nothing more righteous then a new boy at bethel. So there you are at the center of the WORLD WIDE WORK...........HOME of the GB....You know you are going to see the "Shakina Light" at any moment........Then it happens ..The lies, the pride, the cruelty, the politics, the favoritism,......You say to yourself.........well it just a few people I'm SURE the "brothers" in real power have no Idea what these overseers are doing.So what do you do?

  There is a chain of command.........and one thing you would NEVER do is go over that overseer's head that is called "END YOUR BETHEL CAREER IMMEDIATELY"........most of us who went there, wanted to make it our life's work.

  We saw it many times.......Some overseer would pull some shit. Like what my overseer said about a sister that worked in the laundry. He told my roommate that "That sister L.......is like a cow in HEAT she what’s it bad."...............Not a disfellowshipping offense.........but nothing a loving "brother" would say about a sister who needed to have sex.

  So the new guy would go to Max Larson in the factory or George Couch in the bethel home and tell him what happen...........After they heard the story, they would get a smile on their face and ask you "So tell me Brother newboy?.................how LONG have you been here?"........the newboy would say something like "Two years sir!" "Well brother Newboy brother Pompous ass has been here 22 years! Thank you for coming by!"

  • You could then say goodbye to your bethel career.......2 months later he would be on a one of the machines probably a sewing machine in the bindery which is the penal institution of the factory or the laundry which was the penal intuition of the home.

  It is a "Good old boy country Club" and you are NOT a member. Not yet. You are not even considered a real member of the family until your 4 years are up. Then your obligation is up. If you still want to stay which most didn’t and 98% left at thazt time or before. Than, when you have eaten 4 years of shit and told them you "LIKE IT" you can become a "Company man."..........and become one of them. Sieg Heil.

  So anyway.............back to the gun fight...........Where the self righteous new boys would help clean up the Lord’s house. The stuff my overseer was doing......well the stink was rising to the havens, but what it do? Remember the “Gary’s going to die” thing plus there was all kinds of other strange shit.

  Our assistant overseer told an EX CO what was happening. He said ALOT of these things were going on in the house of god and someone should step up and say something. So he and 2 other EX COs felt the same way. They were the three Freds. Their names were FRED BARNES, FRED FERDEEN and FRED HILMO. Great men who had of vision of truth, righteous, fairness but those things had no chance in the gun fight with the "country club boys" the real power at bethel.

  They asked anyone that had a problem with and overseer to come to the towers library. Over a hundred brothers showed up and started telling their stories............Oh my GOD. You couldn’t believe some of these things that were said. So after all was said....Fred Hilmo said “We need to talk to Knorr about it.” So he told Knorr what was going on. Knorr said "We should have a meeting with all the brothers (REBELS) to have a discussion on these matters"

  You know what he was planning to do. He was going to play Jehu on our asses! He was going to “clean the house of god” not of the wrong doers…..just the people that reported it.

  I will tell you in Part 4, about the big shoot out known at bethel as "Black Thursday" until then.
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  7

  My Bethel Experience Part 2 Memory Lane

  by new boy in

  1. jw
  2. experiences

  back to the food..........the saying there was "its the best food in the world before they cook it" the coffee was the really bad.

  they would take a 55 lb.

  bag of good coffee beans and boil the shit out of it.the joke was if anyone could find the guy that made the coffee, and kill him, our production would go up and armageddon could finally come.

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  new boy

  Back to the food..........The saying there was "Its the best food in the world before they cook it" The coffee was the really bad. They would take a 55 lb. bag of good coffee beans and boil the shit out of it.The joke was if anyone could find the guy that made the coffee, and kill him, our production would go up and armageddon could finally come. When they had liver for lunch only half the family showed up, which (saved them money)........an old timer named Wilbur Ruth about 85 years old would......would walk through the factory and tells what was for lunch each day, (we never knew ahead of time) he would say "liver to make you quiver and ice cream to make you shiver"...............

  Poor Wilbur..........One day my friend Tom Plank operator of Press 6 and me pulled Wilbur aside and asked him why he never got married "Oh.......I WANTED to, but back in the 30's and 40's we couldn't get married and stay at bethel we had to made a vow of celibacy.........and armageddon was going to COME any day..........When Knorr showed up with a wife after an assembly in the early 50's that changed everything.......but for me it was too late............I was in my late 60's......Who would have someone like me?"

  Then there were the married couples..........who never had kids. Not allowed to at bethel. Some of those women were down right bitter.......armageddon was coming any day, why would you want to have kids?

  One of the bitterest old ladys there was Ester Lopaz .......One of "sister" Knorrs best friends. I meet her on Doc Dixon's table it was, what we called a "dead" table. Dead because no one talked to each other.You had the righteous "company men" and the factory workers on the same table. You would go, eat and get the hell out of there.

  At bethel when a plate of food came on a table, the table head would pass it down the right side, then when the next plate came, it would go down the left side, so everyone would get a fair chance at some food. Not on the good doctor's table his wife would always get it first.............so if you sat on the other side, close to the end you were screwed. I was two seats from the end. One day we were having fried chicken......by the time it got to the end, all was left was chicken backs...so I took three backs...they passed it out..........came to the end again.........all backs...........did it again........all backs.........So there I'm with a plate of all chicken back bones piled high.......Dixon looks over at me and says "You sure are making a PIG out of yourself, brother Casarona"!

  The love started my first day at the table. Ester said "Who are you?"......."I'm brother Casarona"...."Well, were are you from, brother Casarona?" I said "Kansas" (though I was raised in California, I pioneered in Kansas, you would never tell an old timer you were from California they hated bethelities from Califorina, way to liberal) She said "well, where were you from before Kansas?"...............I said.......Errrrrr California"..........she said "IT FIGURES" (all ready judged)..."Well" I said "You sure can feel the LOVE on this table!"........She said "WELL sometimes love is having to correct the brothers when they NEED it"..............I said "WELL SISTER Lopaz I think I'll let the BROTHERS do that".....................so the war began.

  After 4 years, I turned in my 30 day notice in february 1974........everyone thought armageddon was right around the corner...........and thus any one leaving Bethel, the house of God ( and his protection) the biggest possible fool.............At my last lunch at bethel, Ester looked over at me and with this big grin said "You better eat EVERYTHING on your plate...........because when you leave here, you are going to STARVE!".............I didn't say a word, but I thought to myself, I would rather starve out there, then eat one more meal in here with all you self rightious assholes. I guess God only had enough power to save those at bethel.

  In 1996, I made my only trip back to bethel with my wife and kids.......I made a point of tracking "sister" Lopaz down. YES!........... The old bat was still alive........well in her 90's. I had her paged.........She looked at me and said "YOU, YOU...........YOU".........I said "Yes its me, and you were WRONG!"......I grabbed her hand and put it on my belly and said.........."I DID'T STARVE to death, as you can see!"

  I was in the group that got the first new boy talks in the spring of 1970. There were 8 of them, Knorr gave the "sex at bethel talk" (or why there is no sex, at bethel talk)........I would give a $1,000 bucks for a copy of that talk.........there were 53 of us guys and 3 "sisters" in there.......the girls faces were red..One of the quotes was knorr saying "I don't want you to do anything with IT, except PEE..........for 4 years"

  I was also the first group of bethelites to be assigned out to other congerations. Before our group, you would have to go to Brooklyn Heights or King County for a year.......If you were good, they would give you an outside hall. My hall was Inwood.........at the very tip of Manhattan. It was a 45-60 mins. subway ride. So book studies was a 2 hour train ride, for a 1 hour meeting.

  On my first ride there..........I met a guy, a bethelite who was leaving after 4 years, My first day was his last. He was only 24 years old...........He looked like 40......So I asked him "Do you have any words of advice?"..................."YEA".......he said....."Keep your mouth SHUT and do you work......they don't give a shit about you here"...........WOW I thought this guy as a BAD attitude! That will NEVER happen to me! HA!

  Part 3 tomorrow

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  Confession