Yes true. You had to have a 4-D classification in order ton go to Bethel. You could loss this classification if you short timed because you were not allow to pioneer for six months.
new boy
JoinedPosts by new boy
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Chapter 26 New Boy 50 years a Watchtower slave
by new boy inwe wanted sex too.
so why did he get married?
so they punishment you for leaving bethel and getting married?
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Chapter 26 New Boy 50 years a Watchtower slave
by new boy inwe wanted sex too.
so why did he get married?
so they punishment you for leaving bethel and getting married?
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new boy
In order to get a 4-D classification you had to be either a pioneer or a Bethelite. If you left before your time you were neither.
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Chapter 26 New Boy 50 years a Watchtower slave
by new boy inwe wanted sex too.
so why did he get married?
so they punishment you for leaving bethel and getting married?
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new boy
Chapter 26
By their love
So Steve move out of the room. I guess I wasn't friendly enough. Maybe he found a roommate who was more NPG friendly. I got to keep the room, that’s how it works there.
I got a new roommate. He was my old buddy Jack Sutton, one of the guys from the laundry. He was from Phoenix and I was from California. So we decided to decorate our room in a western motif. We had some old western posters on our walls and a poster of a bull fighter and a bull in old Mexico.
Anyway one night about 7:00 p.m. we get this knock on the door. It’s is Curtis Johnson the newly appointed home servant to the Towers. This Guy looked and talked just like the Nazis guy in the movie "Raiders of the lost Ark." The guy with thick black glasses and the shit eating smile all the time. He was bald headed and 5 ft. 4” a real tweeb. The perfect company man.
We said. "You are welcome come in."
You could tell he felt very uncomfortable. "No thanks, brothers, I'm here to talk about your room.
“Our room?”
“The decorations in your room."
"OK, what about them?"
"We don't like them."
"Who is we?"
"Well, the Bethel office."
"Really?"
"Really!" He said as he was twitching.
"We don’t like your bull fighting poster on your wall. A tour group might think we like killing animals."
"Brother Johnson, no tours come through the Towers Hotel and beside we don’t even look at the picture that way."
"Never mind about that, we want it down!"
“Alright." We said." We‘ll take it down."
We never said when we would take it down though. So when we moved out a year later to a different room, we took it down then. I’m sure our file was noted.
I'm afraid we haven't seen the last of our dear "brother" Johnson. More on him later.
Most of us went to Bethel, thinking we wanted to make it our life long career. What better place to be right before 1975, when god was coming back to kick some serious ass? That dream ended for the vast majority after just few months there, when they found out that something was very wrong. Otherwise why would anyone want to leave the spiritual paradise, they claimed it to be? With only 2-5% staying after their four year commitment had ended, and a very big percentage leaving before their time was even up. The average stay there in 1974 was only about eight months. It was not a happy place, they were leaving in droves.
When I went there they were calling in guys who had pioneered from one to two years. By the time I left they were calling in guys who had never pioneered. Since they were having a hard time getting people there they tried the “One year program.” They brought in a hundred new boys that all signed a one year commitment. Guess what? Most of these guys left at their one year mark or before. There was just a small percentage of people who stayed after there one year was up. It was just like Nazis Germany at the end of WWII when they were calling up kids and old men.
So getting a girlfriend and having sex, was looking better all the time. Hey! The Governing Body were doing it and most the bethel "heavies" were doing it. We wanted sex too.
Just why do you think Knorr got married? Did he get married for companionship? No! There are over 1,500 "brothers" back there he could have that with. He could do things with them, sit around and talk about the bible or go to a movie or play chess. There were plenty of "brown noses" for that. Did he get married to have children? No! It is forbidden to have children at Bethel. Did he get married to be with that one special person forever? No! He was going to heaven and she wasn't. So why did he get married?
It sure looks like good old fashion S.E.X.......to me.
Strange that most of the Governing Body were Germans at that time. Knorr, Franz, Swingle, Suiter, Henschel, Groh. Fekel, Schroeder, Potzinger. Sorry no women and no blacks. White, German, Pennsylvania Dutch in most cases. Hard men with hard hearts.
Even the Germans like sex too. I found that out after Knorr’s new boy sex talk.
So he and his buddies were able to enjoy that privilege. I say privilege, because not everyone was permitted to have it. Knorr came up with the new rules for having sex at Bethel, after he surprised the whole Bethel family and came back from a vacation married to Audrey in the early nineteen fifties.
New rules now. If you want to get married and stay at Bethel, you needed a total of fourteen years of full time service. So you were forbidden to get married for any reason for 4 years period, no matter what. Now you can add another six years go if you wanted to stay. Plus the other person need four years of full time service in also.
I didn't say forbidden did I? I guess I did. But the Bible clearly states at 1 Timothy 4:1-3. "The Spirit clearly says that in later times some will abandon the faith and follow deceiving spirits, hypocritical liars, They would forbid people to marry."
So that can't be right. I forgot the old double standard rule kicks in again, at this time! Just another Bethel Catch 22.
They would say, well you signed an agreement! Yes, you’re 19 years old and you should have known what you were signing, right? It most states a contract isn’t even legal until you are twenty one.
Some would say. Well, you could always leave before your time. Yes, if you didn't mind the reproach and the shame of being a “short timer” you could do this.
There was also the punishment aspect. So they punishment you for leaving Bethel and getting married? Yes, the punishment for leaving before your time was up was this. You could not pioneer for six months. So how is that a punishment? These loving brothers were brilliant who thought this up. Check this out.
If you couldn’t pioneer you would lose your 4-D classification. That’s means in 1970 you would go back to a 1-A classification! It was the height of the Viet Nam war. So if you got called up to the draft board, guess what? You were going to jail!
Why would you be going to jail? Because of being a conscientious objector the only option for a Jehovah Witness male would be prison.
So the bottom line was that if you left before your time, you could be heading to a real prison.
Not the one in Brooklyn Heights.
Of course they could have thanked you for the two or three years of service you did spent there.
That’s not there style. No, it was get your prison uniform ready and grab your ankles.
All this caused plenty of hardship, shame, heart ache, and even death. Plus all the unhappy marriages and all the unnecessary trips some poor souls had to make to the hookers on 8th Ave. Only a few guys did that though.
But really don’t you think, a loving organization would have people’s best interest at heart? As in, "Oh......brother we are sorry to hear you are having a hard time here at Bethel. So you would like to leave? Go, my friend and be in peace. May god be with you, and thank you for the time, you did spend here with us and of course, you can pioneer if you like."
But that sounds like something Jesus would say.
Did I say loving organization? Let me think....Yes! I think it says somewhere in the Bible. "By their love you would be able to recognize them."
Boy isn't that truth? There was no real love there. It started at the very top and worked its way all the way down to the local the local Kingdom Halls. Yes, there is a pretense of love but at the real core there is something altogether different.
All the double standards, unwritten laws and bull shit. It was just too much for most of us. I say most of us because, there are some there that love it. They fit right with the cold hearted bastards that were running the place.
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Chapter 25 New Boy 50 years a Watchtower slave
by new boy inchapter 25. lola la la la lola.
i’m not sure where i met steve h but it was love at first sight.
not physical love, thought looking back i don’t think he would have minded that.
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new boy
Chapter 25
Lola La La La Lola
I’m not sure where I met Steve H but it was love at first sight. Not physical love, thought looking back I don’t think he would have minded that. I was in love with the fact he had been there for almost two years and he had enough seniority to get us a room in the Towers Hotel.
The Society had got three floors in an old run down hotel in the heights called, The Towers Hotel. These rooms all had their own bathrooms. They went up for bid. If these rooms had been in the 119, 107 or 124 buildings you would have needed ten years seniority to get them. They were two blocks from the main complex and still had a bunch of “worldly” people living in there. So none of the Bethel elite wanted to live there. New boys however who wanted a decent room and didn’t want to live with six or seven other guys, jumped at the opportunity.
So Steve H and I were part of the first group of guys to move into the towers. We got room 211. A beautiful view overlooking ventilators and directly over the ballroom.
I’m twenty one and really knew nothing about homosexuals. Never met any growing up and even if I had met some wouldn’t have even known it.
My upbringing in the church had taught me that they were detestable in god’s eyes. That their sins were than much worse than fornication. These were the sins that got Sodom and Gomora destroyed. Bottom line is no tolerance for this with Jehovah’s Witnesses. They were hated back then and they are hated up to this day.
My heart goes out to the thousands of gays who have lost their families. There have mean many others who have even taken their own lives because of the guilt and shame their religion bestowed on them because of their sexual orientation.
They are part of our society and should be accepted as such.
However that is not how I believed back in the house of god. Many of them had been kicked out before I got there and many got kicked out while I was there.
I remember seeing two guys (not Bethelites) walking down a street in Greenwich Village and kissing each other on the lips. I was totally shocked.
A friend of mind another Steve, ran his hand through a table saw almost up to his wrist in the carpenter shop on Dec 26, 1972. He cut off his middle finger and destroyed 2 others.
They took him to the emergency room in Brooklyn. His hand wrapped in a bloody towel. He was in all kinds of pain. They moved him out of the waiting room into a smaller room. An orderly was helping him get into this gown. The orderly told him "We need to get a urine sample." Steve is going nuts. This guy is grabbing Steve’s penis for the test. Just then another guy comes through the door and sees what is going on.
"Jerry you sick fag! What the hell are you doing? This guy is bleeding to death and you are trying to get a free feel?”
I guess you really don't need a urine test, if you’re bleeding to death.
I must admit it does remind me of Bethel. You’re down and out, bleeding on the floor and they still want a free feel.
My poor friend Steve was getting screwed over by everyone. This orderly wants a free feel and Bethel wanted him gone.
The good brothers told him it would be best for him (not them of course) if he left Bethel. Why? Because he was no longer a $22 a month asset, he was now a ten thousand dollar liability.
He and his family had no money and no insurance, for the many operations he would need on his hand in the months to come. So he begged them to let him stay at Bethel. So after many talks, they finally gave in and let him stay. That was nice of them.
To say we were homophobic is putting it mildly. A group of guys there even beat up a couple of gay guys one night in the Heights. They felt bad about their actions the next day and went to Brother Couch to confess.
George set there with a smile on his face and told them. “Don’t worry about it boys, just don’t do it again.”
Their attitude was, since god was going to kill them all off pretty soon, why should he get all the fun.
They were hated by the society back then and they are hated up to this day. Of course the Witnesses will be quick to point out. “We don’t hate the people we just hate their actions.” Bull shit.
My new roommate Steve had all of the characteristics of someone who was leaning this way. He had all of the mannerisms and was very clingy. Let me put it this way, I wasn’t going to do a much of rum and cokes with him on a Saturday night and see what happened next.
He would say things like. “So what are we going to do together this coming Saturday after work?” I don’t know what are “we” going to do together? I started to ditch Steve after work.
On the same day Steve ran his hand through the table saw, December 26th 1972. A guy that lived in the towers hotel committed suicide. He jumped off the roof of the Towers Hotel and hit a parking sign on the way down. I didn't, really see him hit but I did see his blood and tiny bit his flesh on the sidewalk for weeks afterwards. No one cleaned it up.
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Chapter 24 New Boy 50 years a Watchtower slave
by new boy inchapter 24. feed the rounder.
i was dying everyday on the machines.
i prayed.
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new boy
I remember Norman Dignard. I'm not done with Wheelock, more to come.
I was in front of the entrance of the towers too on the second floor room T 240 there were only four really nice rooms on each floor
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Chapter 24 New Boy 50 years a Watchtower slave
by new boy inchapter 24. feed the rounder.
i was dying everyday on the machines.
i prayed.
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new boy
'Stuefloten's Sweat Shop' Yes that was another story I remember.
I say the press room "animals" with all due respect. They were the cream of the crop. I'm glad I ended my time on a press.
I was one of the first guys in the "Towers" room T 211 first then T 240.
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Chapter 24 New Boy 50 years a Watchtower slave
by new boy inchapter 24. feed the rounder.
i was dying everyday on the machines.
i prayed.
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new boy
Chapter 24
Feed the Rounder
I was dying everyday on the machines. I prayed. “Please god get me out of here.” There was no way I could do another two years. I was losing my mind.
I found a picture old guy with grey hair. His hands were folded as he praying. There was a Bible (not one of ours) and a loaf of bread on a table next to him. I hung it up on top my locker for all to see. I had no idea why I did.
One day my floor overseer Phill Gouckinbil saw it and said. "What is this brother Casarona? This guy is not a witness! Because that is not a new world translation bible on his table."
I said. "I thought he was. That he was one of the anointed ones, celebrating the pass over behind the iron curtain and that was the only bible he could get."
"Mmmmm." He said as he walked away.
I had nothing to lose. I was already at one of the worst jobs in the factory.
It must have worked. I got a job change two weeks later to the east freight elevator in building one. I thought I died and went to haven. I could walk around and even go to the bathroom anytime I wanted, without having to get permission. I was my own boss. Maybe there is a god after all.
My job was to move people and freight from the different floors in the oldest building in the factory complex.
That is where I meet the sixth floor press room animals, Great guys.
Just below the press room is the 5th floor ink room. These guys were "The Mash unit" of the factory. These guys got away with murder. They even had a place they could hide and one of them could take a nap, as the others were on look out. Their overseer was Norm Brecky. I really cool guy I thought, until Jimmy Olsen killed himself. Anyway he would go to bat, for his boys “The Inkies” which he did so more than once. These guys even took coffee breaks, unheard of.
A few months had passed. I was getting comfortable again, maybe a little too comfortable. I was starting to lose some of my “fear of man.” However, the bindery was just a building away over a sky bridge.
One day, I was down by glue room which is on the other end of the ink room. I was standing there with Mike Stillman and two other guys. Mike had this big wooden paddle about six feet long. He was beating the harden glue with this paddle it. It made a sound like a whip hitting bare flesh.
He would yell out. "Feed the rounder.” This was the machine from hell, I worked on in the bindery.
Slap..........”Feed the rounder.”..........SLAP! ”Please don't beat me, brother overseer!
“Feed the rounder.”...........Slap!"
We were all laughing. Just then walking up from behind us was none other than "Liver lips Linderman." The overseer of the whole bindery! He stood there for a minute quaking and finally said.
"Just what do think, would have happened if it was a tour group that had come over that bridge instead of me?"
Mike just stood there, with his paddle over his shoulder and said. "Well, I guess they would think we were normal, like everyone else!" Oh my god, I can’t believe what Mike just said!
Remember rule number one, never defend yourself.
Linderman stood there with smoke coming out of his ears and with a hateful look. He didn’t know what to say. How dare we stand up to him? He finally said. "You, you .......have done a very bad thing.” He turned and walked off. We are totally screwed, I thought.
That was it, I thought, bindery here we come…. back to hell!
But no, Norm came through again. He saved us.
That is, what is so nice about Bethel, it’s the love!
There is an old Bethel story that goes like this.
Phone rings in 5th floor bindery, new boy picks it up and says.
"This is Jack's mule barn, which Jack ass do you want?"
On the other end of the phone. "Do you know who this is?”
New boy. “No”
On the other end of the phone. "This is Max Larson factory overseer!”
New boy says. "Well, do you know this is?"
Max Larson says. "No!"
New boy says, "Good" and then hangs up. True Story.
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Chapter 23 New Boy 50 years a Watchtower slave
by new boy inchapter 23.
in 1970 i saw a move that changed my life forever.
which looking back, would have been a total blessing from god.
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new boy
Yes "corn" I think he was James Kennedy assistant for awhile in the press room. Even he was SR when he first got there too. I have another story about him in the press room. I'll tell it later in the book.
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Chapter 23 New Boy 50 years a Watchtower slave
by new boy inchapter 23.
in 1970 i saw a move that changed my life forever.
which looking back, would have been a total blessing from god.
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new boy
Chapter 23
“Catch 22”
In 1970 I saw a move that changed my life forever. I could have been kicked out of Bethel for seeing it. Which looking back, would have been a total blessing from god. We were so brain washed we were afraid of being kicked out of hell.
Or at least I could have got a good “service talk” for seeing it. Why? Because it was rated “R” and all rated “R” movies have been condemned by the Watchtower Bible and Tract Society for over forty years. It was such a great movie, I went out and book bought the book.
The story was about a bunch of guys living together in an institution and the institution was the army air force. The movie was called “Catch 22” and it was Bethel incarnate.
It started off with two officers talking as they are walking down a runway. As they are walking a plane crashes lands killing everyone on board they don’t even look to see what has happened. Officers and overseers who didn’t give a damn.
People like,“Major, Major, Major” who were promoted not because he was a spiritual person or his qualifications but because he was oldest guy in the department. Who had no idea how to handle people and hated the fact people wanted to talk to him. If you ever had a meeting with him “He would be out, unless he was in and then he would be really out.”
Then of course the insane amount of “Catch 22s” Where they say things they really don’t mean. You know if you find out about any wrong doing please come and “talk to us.” Or we are all equal here, just that some of us are more equal than others.
But the best part was at the end when they were finally going to let Yossarian go home. After they did everything they could to destroy him.
“You can leave here but there’s a catch.” They said.
“There’s a catch?” Yossarian was afraid to ask.
“Yes its catch 22. You can leave here but you have to go back home and tell all the people there how much you like this place.”
Yes, the movie was Bethel with all its insanity.
Then in September 1970, about 6 months after me. Roy my old pioneer partner showed up at Bethel. When he got there he was so self-righteous, he made me sick, he reminded me of me, when I first got there. I told him "I can’t say anything to you right know, come back and we'll talk again in six months" Of course he looked at me like I was crazy.
Poor Roy would fine out soon enough too. He got off to a bad start, they put him in a room in the 124 with Eugene Alcorn, a black "brother" from Detroit, with a real attitude. Roy hadn't even been there a couple of weeks and got a taste of "Bethel Justice." It seems he and his roommate Eugene got into a fight over the radio one night. Eugene had the radio on one night. Roy wanted if off at 11:00 p.m. so he got out of bed and turn it off. Eugene got up and turn it back on. Roy got up and turn it off. Eugene turned it on, you get the idea. Words were said and in the brawl, that followed, the sink in the room got busted. Now most guys would cover for each other. Instead, Eugene went to the Bethel office the next morning and told the brothers that, his white roommate didn’t like black people, He said Roy wouldn't let him listen to his radio, so Roy beat him up and that is why the sink was busted. I never did like Eugene.
They hauled Roy into the Bethel office. How it works at bethel is whoever gets there first with the story, usually wins. Pretty much just like in the in the kingdom halls. The reasoning is this, only the righteous one would naturally report the behavior of the unrighteous one. So by the time Roy got there, the decision was already made. Welcome to the bindery Roy.
Besides the about 48 hours you worked there a week, you would have other duties too.
There was dish duties. Since the waiters worked from about 6 am in the morning to about 4 pm in the afternoon, they needed someone to do the supper dishes. About once a month the Bethel family got that privilege. Funny thing is you never saw any of the Bethel “heavies" do any dish duties.
They we fun especially in the summer time. The worst job was working the dish washing machine on the "Hot end" there was 2 brothers loading the front end and 2 guys taking the 140 degree dishes off the back end. Your hands were on fire. You couldn’t wear gloves or the dishes would slip out of them and break on the floor.
That is where I first meet Dave Borga. He was Jim Pipkorn’s best friend and roommate from Wisconsin. He was the waiter that was in charge that night. He put me on the “Hot end" by myself because we were shorthanded, He could have helped me but he just set up on a counter just laughing. It was like that "I Love Lucy” show where she is in the factory with a conveyor belt, any way that was the last dish duty for me.
Then you had the night watchmen duties. Once every 2-3 years in the home, you pulled an all night watchman duty. It started about 9 p.m. The Watchman would get a day off and you would fill in. It was very creepy. It was dark and you had to walk through all three buildings 119, 117 and 124 (not the 129 no buddy cared about the 129) and their basements too. You did this loop three times in all the buildings and punched the time clock at different locations.
At about 3:00 a.m. in this dark basement of the 124 all of a sudden this guy jumps in front of me and screams! I could have died. I thought I saw ghost of Charles Russel himself. Guess who it was? It was Scott, the night watchmen, he said "he couldn't sleep and wanted to have some fun with me." What a jerk. About 2 years later, he was asked to leave (get kicked out) Bethel. It seemed he liked to sneak into the sisters bathrooms in the 117 in the middle of the night. They only at had one bathroom per floor, Knorr’s Idea on how to save money, I guess. He would lock the toilet door and wait until some sisters came in to take showers. He got quite a free peep show. I guess all those long nights working by himself finally got to him.
Good news, he is an Elder in Salem Oregon now. He was my overseer,e I was assigned to, at a district convention in Corvallis.
There was another guy, while I was there at the Watchtower farm, who was just as weird as Scott. He would sneak into a married couples rooms, in the middle of the night and lay on the floor next to a brother’s wife and copped a feel. Now, you know why Knorr hated Bethelites so much.
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Chapter 22 New Boy 50 years a Watchtower slave
by new boy inchapter 22. the machines conquer all.
after doweling’s committee meeting many of us got job changes out of the laundry.
i guess they wanted to bust the trouble makers up.
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new boy
I don't where I was at in the sewing department but I was the 5th floor building 3 when I was on the lines