Posts by TMS

82

Have You Ever Met A "Celebrity" or Actually See One Face To Face?

by minimus in

jw
friends

while i was in new york i walked by two men and one looked like the comedian jackie mason whom i adore.

i looked at him and said, "i just wanted to say how much i enjoy your shows.

i've seen you perform a number of times".

TMS

Never having lived in one of the meccas of the rich & famous, I've run into just a few so-called celebrities. Thank you Minimus for such a carefully worded thread title. As a holy JW I was reluctant to say much to prominent worldlings, lest it be viewed as "idol worship".

Muhammad Ali: While attending Kingdom Ministry School in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania in early 1970, a couple of local brothers gave us a bus tour of the sights of the city. We saw Charles Taze Russell's grave with the epitaph "faithful and wise servant" clearly inscribed. We toured a church that used to be a Watchtower building. A loony elder from California got the holy spirit and shouted out: "God damn this church!" A self-righteous Cleveland elder let it be known that he didn't attend KM School for such frivolous activities as a bus tour. He stayed on the bus, reading his Bible. At a stop light a bunch of us almost at once saw Muhammad Ali, the heavyweight champion. I think it was the California loudmouth again who shouted out: "Cassius Clay!" Ali looked up and smiled to the waving elders.

Most of my other "sightings" occurred at my 30 year employment with Kroger(a job made possible by following the slave's direction on education).

Garth Brooks: A stocky man in a black cowboy hat came through my checkout line late at night. He was very polite, paying cash for a snack item. I did not recognize him at all. Moments later two teenaged girls wanted to know what Mr. Brooks had purchased. I told them. One girl squealed: "Oh, I just LOVE Cheetos!!"

The Everly Brothers: I did recognize these guys, especially after hearing they were in Little Rock for a concert. They were in the store at about 1:00 am after a concert. The had a shopping cart filled with frozen vegetables, no meat and a microwave oven. I just assumed they didn't want to eat at Denny's.

Natalie Cole: Bought some pantyhose and a couple beauty aids.

Sidney Moncrief: Former Milwaukee Buck and Arkansas Razorback star, probably could have been elected governor of Arkansas at the height of his popularity. His mother, Mrs. Perkins was a regular customer. His estranged dad was nearly a streat person, but wore a faded t-shirt with the inscription: "Number 32 is my son".

Bill Clinton: Did a photo-op at one of the stores I worked at. Very personable. He sacked groceries and carried them out for the ladies for almost two hours. This was during his last run for the governorship of Arkansas.

Ed Bradley: CBS "60 Minutes" man. Saw him at a mall. Can't remember the story he was working on. He was buying a gift for his aunt who lived in Pine Bluff.

Anthony Davis: Working in field service with an almost clueless elderly circuit overseer, Joel Meeks. I think it was September 1973. The USC Trojans were in Little Rock for a game with the Arkansas Razorbacks. For some reason the USC coach John McKay had the Trojans sightseeing on Main Street in Little Rock. The street ends in almost a ghetto where we were preaching. Meeks asked me who all these boys were. I told him about the USC-UA game. I remember having Anthony Davis, the later Heisman Trophy winner walk right by me. I'm short by any standard(5'7"), but Anthony and I met eyeball to eyeball.

tms

93

YOU "THINK" YOU KNOW.....BUT...YOU DON'T KNOW!!

by Terry in

the door to door work is a sham.. the central activity of the watchtower bible and tract society is not spreading their so-called "messege" about the kingdom of jehovah established in the heavens in 1914. that's a load of propaganda.. the door to door activity is feckless in producing converts.

in fact, it is an immense failure of mammoth proportions!.

but, it is a diversion.

TMS

Terry,

I understand your suspicions while leaning toward HS's description of the GB's mental state. But many questions could be asked concerning the proper use of the "King's interests".

Forgetting non-JW charity for a moment, why not sell a few buildings and build hundreds of modest Kingdom Halls in the third world?

If it's not greedy to hoard real estate, it is certainly miserly. Is it not the modern equivalent of "burying your talents" to be found in the Lord's Day with millions of dollars of donated monies tied up

in real estate holdings? Or is real estate really the "worldwide work" the contribution box refers to? Isn't maintaining a large stock portfolio gambling with the Lord's money?

tms

41

'63 Convention - Rose Bowl fiasco

by Gregor in

jw
friends

) day ordeals.

the pasadena rose bowl is in a canyon and this was dead summer, temps.

over 100,000 in attendance.

TMS

Yes, the Watchtower deprived me of my first week of high school education by scheduling the Pasadena convention the first week of
September. That arrogant scheduling, coupled with the cost of the trip caused some families in my Washington state congregation
to miss the spiritual banquet. Uncharacteristically, my family were among the casualties. Actually, we were still limping financially,
partly due to the 1950, '53 and '58 crosscountry treks to New York for the epic Yankee Stadium and later added Polo Grounds assemblies.
My dad almost never had a steady job after sacrificing a good one for the '58 trip.

After vacation pioneering the first month of the summer of '63, I spent the other two months painting houses and doing janitorial work
with George P. I was determined to not miss the "Around the Earth" assembly and bought my travel package from a grossly overweight
brother I had not met before. The package included bus fare to Pasadena, hotel and daily transportation to the stadium.

The bus we boarded was an out-of-service Tacoma city bus, well-worn, but serviceable. The trip to L.A. was unremarkable, except for an
especially acrobatic two year old in a "sweetpea" feet enclosed pajama outfit who used the above luggage rack as a trapeze. Twice he made
it nearly to the driver before being pulled down. That performer would now be about 46 and probably beyond his gymnastic career.

We got to L.A. on Sunday morning, no time to check into the hotel, so we were driven straight to the Rose Bowl into a huge traffic jam, the
veritable freeway parking lot. I asked the driver if he would mind if I walked the rest of the way. He said he would not. Just be on the
bus after the sessions. I saw our bus pull in two hours later and took note of where it was parked. Some of the brothers and sisters had
trouble getting to the bus after the sessions, the last stragglers as much as an hour late. The normally jovial non-witness driver was
extremely irrated at this nightly annoyance. He asked one of the JW "preachers" to address the group. Jim Hughes took that responsibility
and firmly laid down the law.

Our hotel was a condemned building on Figueroa Street where the new Los Angeles Music Center was to be built. Entering the lobby, I heard
shrieks and gasps as the JW's saw their rooms. My own prissy aunt and uncle met me at the door, saying they weren't staying there. I
actually had a key to two rooms to check out and took the one with two twin beds and a clawed bathtub. Each bed had an undersheet and a
patchwork bedspread. When I got back down to the lobby, I saw the fat brother who had sponsored the trip. He was listening to an old sister
gripe him out, threatening to "call the Society". He turned to me and asked: "Are you leaving too?" I told him I liked the room. Putting
a hand on my shoulder, he said: "Thank you, brother". I was more than satisfied with my 80 cents per night room.

We got to the hotel very late each night. I usually spent a few minutes talking to the night desk clerk who was full of stories about
thwarting robberies and kicking general ass. He mentioned a choke hold that would put me out in seconds. I told him to try. My next
recollection was breathing into a bottle of smelling salts as he lifted me up, laughing. I cut out the horseplay after that. With no tv
in the room, I used the third story wooden-framed window as a tv screen, peering down on Figueroa Street. When an argument turned into a
knifing, I ran down to the lobby. The desk clerk told me to not to worry about it.

Between sessions, I blew off standing in a cafeteria line for an hour and just walked around. So, when I got back to the hotel, I was usually
hungry. I walked down Vine Street to a Chinese restaurant that was closing. They served me a large plate of leftover rice for ten cents. I
made it back there twice more just at closing. They probably thought they were feeding a runaway or homeless boy. During my latenight walks
I ran into leather-jacketed, cigarette-dangling juvenile deliquent who wanted to know what I was up to. I told him about the assembly. He
told me he had met several "cool Jehovah Witness chicks."

Before each session we were given a basic botany lesson: "The berries on the beautiful oleander bushes around the Rose Bowl are poisonous.
Brothers and sisters, do not allow your children to eat the oleander berries."

The assembly itself was a veritable book fair. I had just enough money left to purchase all the releases: "Babylon the Great Has Fallen!
God's Kingdom Rules!", "All Scripture Is Inspired of God and Beneficial", the large annotated NWT, the fat, green edition, and, of course the
brochure "Everlasting Good News Around the World". A lot of new light for one assembly.

The school principal was not too pleased with my absence for the first week of school. The old battle-ax who taught world history and wore her
Catholicism on her sleave tried her best to flunk me, giving me D's on essays that I used to always get A's on.

But I may have gotten my money's worth on the Pasadena trip. In life experience, if not in religious truth.

tms

157

Judicial Committee Preparation

by Marvin Shilmer in

jw
friends

judicial committee preparation.

recently a friend inquired about how to best prepare for a judicial committee hearing from the prospective of the subject individual.

at a minimum i recommend the following:.

TMS

Mr. Shilmer,

Obviously, your recommendations have nothing to do with fighting disfellowshipping, but with
establishing precedents or evidence for future court action

Since I do have considerable JC experience(1968-95), I considered your suggestions from the
standpoint of how they would be received by the committee and the effect on the hearings.

Questions 1-7 might test the patience of the chairman, but should be answered respectfully.
The request made in question 8 to have an advisor would of course be denied as per Society
policy. The request in question 9 for the elder to initial the written record of his responses
would be denied.

Your next series of suggestions would likely cause the hearing to be aborted. Once the defendant/
publisher/attendee refused to answer a direct question, the meeting would be over. The elders
would have to decide the case on the "evidence" they have or "wait on Jehovah" if they do not
have enough evidence.

The suggestions that I find most intriguing and workable in the jc setting are those with respect
to witnesses. Insisting on the testimony of eyewitnesses, not to the elders, but in front of the
defendant in the hearing is an obvious, but often ignored right. The normal ploy is for elders
to listen to charges against you by two or more witnesses, talk with the rest of the committee about what they've
been told and then collectively use that information to try to trap the defendant into a misstatement
or confession. The elders, of course, play the role of hostile witness, prosecutor and judge.

Your suggestion to be allowed to take copious notes should be allowed by reasonable elders, however
exasperating and tedious it would be. It will not only slow the proceedings down to a crawl, but it
should curtail needless pontificating and scripture-reading by the "shepherds".

The mention of notifying your attorney and the police may not strike fear in the elders, but it would
prompt a "How to proceed" call to Brooklyn.

I will take your word for it that this approach might give one legal recourse, but regardless, your
suggestions reinforce how unjust the whole setup is. It would take a very strong-minded, confident,
fearless JW to follow your program. Someone like that would probably already be gone.

tms

20

LSU @ ARKANSAS

by purplesofa in

jw
friends

.

wooooooooooo pig sooooooooouuuuuuieeeeeeeeeee.

razorbacks.

TMS

Purple,

Starfield Rd. on Park Hill? Very familar w/ that area. Longtime elder Vernon B. lived on Starfield. We had a home on Scenic Hill. also overlooking I-40.

tms

20

LSU @ ARKANSAS

by purplesofa in

jw
friends

.

wooooooooooo pig sooooooooouuuuuuieeeeeeeeeee.

razorbacks.

TMS

Purple,

I will try.

Pic.#1: From NLR back across the Arkansas River. I think that's the old railroad bridge, the Camelot Hotel, the Excelsior, etc.

Pic.#2: ???? I don't recognize those churches.

Pic.#3: I-630 & Rodney Parham??

Pic.#4: Park along the southern edge of the river, just east of I-630. I don't recall the name. It has walking trails. I lost a kite their years ago.

tms

ps: I certainly do remember Ron Calcagni. Just before the 1978 Orange Bowl, Holtz suspended his 3 best players for violating his "Do right" rule. Calcagni and reserve running back Roland Sales had great games against heavily-favored Oklahoma.

20

LSU @ ARKANSAS

by purplesofa in

jw
friends

.

wooooooooooo pig sooooooooouuuuuuieeeeeeeeeee.

razorbacks.

TMS

Purple,

I'm watching the game on tv here in extreme south Texas. Just watching Houston Nutt lead the hogs out of the tunnel with the fans calling the hogs brought tears I know Houston won't recall, but I spoke with him briefly in field service in the early 70's. His parents weren't home and he accepted a tract. He was then a prolific high school quarterback at Little Rock Parkview. He was the last person personally recruited by the legendary "Bear" Bryant. To match that Arkansas sent Frank Broyles into the Nutt home to speak with Nutt and his parents. Houston Nutt, Sr. coached the Arkansas Deaf School basketball team for about 40 years.

Houston went to Arkansas because they agreed to let him play two sports. He was a quarterback of Lou Holtz's football team and a guard for Eddie Sutton's basketball team. Houston was a dropback quarterback and didn't fit in with Holtz's veer offense so he transferred to Oklahoma State.

War Memorial Stadium is an old, dilapidated WPA era concrete stadium. The atmosphere is great, though, with 50,000 calling the hogs. We got to go to quite a few games in the 70's when a rich elder didn't use his tickets.

tms

28

got a camera......pics i just took

by purplesofa in

jw
friends

dont know what i am doing fully.

my backyard and my cat.

i don't have very good subjects right now .....sorry.

TMS

Purple,

Ah yes: The leaves. The extra moss on the north side of trees. The start of a holly hedge in a newer neighborhood. Kick under the leaves and see how green the grass is.

October/November is so beautiful in Arkansas.

Woooooooooooooooooo!!!! Piiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiig!!!!! Souieeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!!!!!!!!!!!!!

tms

20

Nathan KNORR announced the big A was coming in 1975 to best friends....

by restrangled in

jw
friends

i have posted this under various topics but it just keeps getting skipped over.

i don't care how many times the wtbs denies the 1975 predictions, if a member of the gb told his good friends, and they in turn told their friends doesn't that amount to over riding anything written prior to and after 1975?.

the po in our hall was in his 50's and a very good friend of knorr's.

TMS

Knorr was more pragmatic. I doubt that he truly "believed" in the 1975 projections. I've heard a few Knorr quotes repeated by insiders that sounded as if he viewed a lot of the prophetic material of the WTBS as "speculative". Nathan knew how to run a company, but the abstract stuff didn't do much for him.

tms

47

I have been invited to a judicial meeting.......

by AK - Jeff in

jw
friends

on october 8, at our local kh.. i knew this day was in the offing - i have been playing hide and seek with the bastards for a few months now.

they tried to corner me before the co's visit, unsuccessfully.

i suspect he told 'em to 'get 'er done.

TMS

Jeff,

My heart is with you. Of course, no brilliant defense or counter-attack will register with three tunnel-visioned men with one question on their collective minds: "Are you one of us accepting the FDS or are you not?"

The more important and immediate concerns are the well-being of your wife and offspring. If they know that their husband/father is not the epitomy of evil being painted by the congregation what else matters?

Down the line as you explain to those you know in the community how JW's treat those who choose to leave the religion, those in your former congregation will have be in an indefensible position. Shunning family and friends who leave a religion is universally viewed as cultlike.

I wish you and your family well.

tms