As I
mention before I was going to move to California when I left Bethel, to get way
from Debbie's parents. So I thought the best thing to do was to go to the
Service Department and ask them were they "Needed Help" in the Bay
area of Northern California. This shows you how totally delusional I really was
at the time. I thought I could still "Help" others, by moving to area
that needed help. Yeah right! Just what a congregation needed another
"Burned out" exbethelite. So I went to Merton Campbell. He was in the
Service Department. He said. "Well
they don't really need people in that area.....but were we could really use you
is in Kansas! Hays, Kansas!” Many say that life is one big circle. I pioneered
in Salina Kansas before I went to Bethel, which is about 70 miles from Hays
Kansas. It was way too soon to make that circle back to Kansas. Then I
remembered the movie Doctor Zivago. Where he said in the in the movie. "Happy
men never really volunteer for anything.”
Merton
Campbell was a nice guy. He was one of the heavies in the Service Department. He
saved our asses with the "poker table incident."
We
were board so we started playing cards on Saturday afternoons. So we bought
this poker table and put a bed spread over it. So one Saturday we invited a
couple of guys over to pay poker. We are talking a real penny ante game. We
invited Ron Tellson over to pay. So after a couple of hours of paying, he gets
up to leave. We count up his chips and tell him he owes us $1.34........He said.
"Are you guys kidding right?"...."No" we
said......."We were paying for real money." He said "We can't be
playing for real money"......."We can't?" we
said......."No.....GOD hates gambling, of any kind!" He said......I
looked over at Jack and said "O.K. let’s forget the whole thing. We’ll
never do it again and keep your $1.38 too." He said "No way, you guys
need to turn yourself in to the brothers and if you don't, I will!"
The
brothers always looking out for God and the organization.........It reminded me
of the "secret police" in Nazis Germany......We must keep the
"Zee" Organization clean of the penny ante poker players! So you
guess it, we turn ourselves in......The Key to turning yourself in, is......You
can choose WHO you go to confess your sins to. Usually the choices fall
somewhere in between, Self-righteous, tight ass and someone who might believe
in a little bit of mercy? We choose the latter, Brother Campbell. He thought it
was kind of humorous and told us NEVER do it again........and yes we needed to
get rid of the poker table too. We sold the table to Dave Borga the G-Job king.
Next week Ron asked us "Did we turn ourselves in?" "Yes
Sir!"
So
anyway, we didn't move to California. We moved to Narragansett, Rhode Island.
Southern R.I with all the swamp Yankees. It was about 10 miles away from
Newport. There was a toll bridge in Jamestown for 2 bucks......I thought that
would help keep her parents away. Funny thing is, after we got married her
mother never gave us any flack. It seemed her big fear was of Debbie getting
pregnant out of wedlock the whole time.
We
were in the Wakefield Rhode Island congregation, cold as ice. The Swamp Yankees
would laugh and say if you move here "NOT your children but their
children......will be thought of as TRUE New Englanders." Little did I
know that was really true? This one brother move in there, in 1947 from Alabama
after WWII they never did warm up to him after 30 years. It was one of those
Kingdom Halls were three families ran the whole show. It was the Conns,
Burgesses and the Brayton’s (one of the oldest JW families in R.I) I never
cared much for John Brayton the youngest of the boys. I thought he was a Jerk
with small man syndrome.
It
was August of 1972, John and his gang came down to bethel. His on again, off
again girlfriend Linda Antonelli, was trying to make him jealous by throwing
herself at a friend of mine Dave. There was a big party in our room, I told
Linda and her cousin Patty I wanted to talk to them about the games she was
playing. So we went to "The Towers" library and talked for about 45
minutes. When we got back to the room, John had left to go back to R.I, leaving
the girls high and dry, they had a car but no money, it was dark and there was
no way they could have found their way out of Brooklyn on their own. There was
no money for a hotel. So we kicked everyone out of our room and told the girls
they could spend the night there. As I was leaving the room I noticed a guy
sticking his head around the corner. So I went back to the room and told the
girls to lock the door and open it to NO one. Jack and I spent the night in
Pipkorns room on the third floor.........next morning they were gone.
Two
months later, Jack and I get this letter from Linda A. In it says, her
conscious was been bothering her and Patty, about being in the in our room that
night after everyone left. They knew it was against Bethel policy for girls to
be in a Bethelites room all night. They had sent one letter to us and another
one to Bethel. So next thing we knew, we were in George Couch's (Home Servant)
office. As we were sitting there, sweating bullets. George says "So
Brothers just what do you think those two sisters were DOING all night in your
room with those two Brothers.........anyway?” “WHAT?" we said
together........"What do you thing they were
doing?"..........."What?" again we said. We found out two
bethelites went back to our room after we left. It looks like...... we all got
screwed that night but we never got a kiss, they could have kicked us both out
for that but for some reason they didn't.
Well
my friends, it is March 4, 2007 at 11:11 in the morning (this is when this was
posted) I just got a call from my son and daughter.........It seems their
mother, Debbie my ex-wife of 27 years just got engaged to Jay Miller from Tigard
Oregon.
I
wish her and her soon to be JW husband the best...Wow! Isn't life strange?
New
Boy
