No offense intended for the anointed ones on this board, but I’ve always compared such professed ones to Martin Jensen, who professed nothing for himself except that he wasn’t good for much.
This Iowa corn farmer became a JW in the 40’s, was promptly divorced by his wife, and moved to the southern tip of Texas, “the end of the world”. By default he became the presiding overseer of the English Unit, although he never gave a public talk. There were many unsuccessful attempts over the years to replace him with a more suitable shepherd. (Hey, I’ve read the entire file of every congregation I’ve ever been associated with. How else do you get a complete picture of where the group has been and how it got there? LOL) Finally, in the early 60’s he was replaced by a 30 year old graduate of the University of Minnesota with a degree in engineering who landed a job at Union Carbide. Yes, that was you, Vic.
Lacking the necessary contribution for a SS pension, Martin worked several years at the Hotel El Jardin, a tall and proud facility overlooking the Rio Grande and the Mexican city of H.Matamoros, Tamaulipas. Bellboy at night. Pioneer during the day. I met Martin just after his pension finally kicked in.
Usually by 8am Martin was at the corner of Elizabeth St. and International Blvd., standing like a 6’3” scarecrow with the Watchtower and Awake! in one outstretched hand and La Atalaya and Despertad! in the other. With a business-shaped straw hat, a large proboscis jutting out from under sunglasses and a grin from ear to ear, Martin was the first non-immigration figure confronting thousands of Mexicans who walked across the Brownsville bridge. He was known by an expression in Spanish which means “the man with the big nose”.
One of many annoying traits of my friend Martin was his propensity for calling your name on the third try. I was Nick, Vic, TMS. Nick was Vic, TMS, Nick, etc. You would think if you worked with a man everyday. . . . But, I suspect this was his way of de-emphasizing your importance, much as he de-emphasized his own.
The last four years of his life, I was his sidekick, his spokesperson. Sort of Batman-Robin, Moses-Aaron, if you will. His tenacity and perseverance opened the doors and I delivered the punch lines. Martin was utterly deficient in fluent speech. What would now be called a #4 talk was his worst nightmare. Clutching the speaker’s stand like a lifeline, his notes on a clipboard so the papers wouldn’t rattle in his nervous fingers, he glared out at the audience with that big grin and it was all downhill from there. Sometimes he forgot the next line. Sometimes he forgot everything and had to just apologize and sit down.
But he was fearless. His magazine route included all the movers and shakers of the area and time as well as multitudes of the humble. Once I joined the team, he felt free to introduce the most controversial of subjects, step back and say: “Isn’t that right, TMS?” He used this ploy in the office of Fausto Yturria, owner of the King Ranch, the largest ranch in the U.S., stretching at one point 100 miles across. “Fausto, this whole system is going down. Soon, they’ll be throwin’ their money in the streets.” “Oh, I know, Martin. That’s why everything I have is converted to land.” “Well, that will be worthless, too! Isn’t that right, TMS?” And so I was put instantly on the spot about the future of land holdings, the 70 weeks of years prophecy or explaining Onanism to Bishop Madeiros at the Catholic Diocese. That was my role with Martin.
We worked in tandem or alone each morning in street work, business or residential house to house. It was a disappointing morning if we both hadn’t “rolled ‘em”. That was Martin’s expression for placing at least 40 magazines which then came in rolls of 40. Putting up those kind of numbers made Martin sort of a legend organizationally. Even Ed Kretzinger, the perennial city overseer in Corpus Christi came down for a few days in the early 60’s to see what this brother’s secret was. But he left without any field service tips, because what Martin had can’t be taught or cloned.
At noon, we would revert back to Martin’s masonite 40’s vintage 22 foot trailer parked behind the Kingdom Hall for a shared can of Campbell’s Chicken Dumpling soup. The table was set just as “Mary” would have set it if she hadn’t ditched him when he got religion. A can of Hoffman House or Blatz beer was equally divided in two glasses, with the non-pourer getting first pick. After lunch, Martin took a siesta and I went to the hall to snooze on the carpeted platform.
Engineer Vic had designed a perfect little hall for a subtropical climate, with wonderful cross-ventilation and a huge Freidrich window a/c unit in the brick wall at the back of the stage. During evening meetings we simply opened the windows on each side, pulled the drapes back a little and let the Gulf breeze flow through the building.
In the evening we went our separate ways to our Bible studies. I drove the long drive out Southmost, the southern most street in the continental United States. Sorry, Florida Keys, you’re extra-continental. The Slovaks lived out there and Mr. Slovak had his Hispanic wife and all eight kids in attendance, even Frank, his wife and their baby who lived next door. Mr. Slovak went by standard time. He didn’t eat his lunch on “Johnson time” and neither did we study the “Good News of the Kingdom” booklet on LBJ time. These were/are wonderful people and many of that clan are Witnesses today. And I usually had 7-10 other studies as did Martin.
Taking a break from regular door to door and street work we head to the port. We board English, Liberian and even Yugoslavian ships. The captain from Yugoslavia has a large picture of General Tito above his desk and we listen to his comments on the world scene and he accepts our English magazines. The little British sailor asks us about someone named Cliff Richards. It doesn’t ring a bell. He says he used to be a “Jehovah” but has given it all up. OK. For some strange reason a Norwegian sailor brags about the Volvo, a Swedish car. He says that if you take ten Volvos at the tip or Norway and ten American cars, only one American car will make it to the other side of Norway, but ten Volvos will. OK.
If the inactive ones on this forum were somehow in Cameron County, Texas during the 40’s thru the 60’s they would all have received regular calls. Ernie did. We drove across town to the little house with the junk cars in front. Tejano was pulsating through the walls with the incessant accordion . Martin rapped his bony knuckles on the door jam. Again. The door opens and a middle-aged plump Hispanic women gives Martin that “oh you again” look, mumbles “un momentito” and leaves. Minutes later Ernie appears, shielding his eyes from the sun and tucking his shirt in. He reaches for a cigarette and steps outside. The lanky Anglo, obviously hung over, tries to straighten his red hair with his fingers. Martin gives him an energetic greeting: “Ernie, so GOOD to see you! You know TMS!” Ernie extends his hand to me. Martin continues: “Ernie, I brought this Sunday’s Watchtower lesson. It is SO much needed. (He mentions a couple of the main points. ) Do you think you could make it?” Ernie mumbles something about being so busy and that he will try. “Ernie, you’re such a good man! I’ve always known that. You do the best you can!” Ernie, looking at me, replies: “I’m not that good.” And so it goes with Ernie and dozens of others. Just as Martin never crosses off people from his return visit book, he never crosses off people.
Frugality fits in nicely with Martin’s opinion of himself. Now relegated to the magazine counter, since younger more loquacious servants are available, Martin makes up any “magazine deficits’ from his own pocket. Nearly a third of his pension goes straight into the contribution box. Under his sink was a "Nick" bottle, named after a presiding overseer of one of the Spanish congregation. Since he knew Nick would drink all of whatever he had, he had a bottle of "El Presedente Brandy with about 3 inches of product. When Nick left, he refilled it to the "Nick" level.
In 1969 Martin develops a cancer which the doctors say has spread too far. Desperate to live and trusting in the opinions of others, he tries the grape diet. His tongue, lips and teeth are blue. A circuit overseer, whom I usually respected, pronounces him as “losing his balance”.
Douglas Cornelius from Harlingen, Texas is perfect as the funeral speaker. Doug says more with fewer words than anyone I have ever known. He is a Texan’s Texan with more presence than LBJ and the white flowing locks of John Connally. Forty years in the Texas Highway Department and 65 years of South Texas sunburns redden and crease his face. Every sentence is punctuated with several pregnant pauses. He surveys the audience. Lifts his glasses. His eyes meet your eyes. He laughs and continues. His laugh is not a condescending laugh or a laugh laugh. It is a shared laugh, as if we all know how this is or how good this will be.
Brother Cornelius starts the funeral talk. He is not laughing. Or smiling. “Martin Jensen .. . . .” He takes off his glasses and pulls the handkerchief from his pocket and wipes his eyes and starts again: “Brother Jensen . . . .” This time his voice cracks with emotion. He wipes his whole face and the tears start to stream down both cheeks. “Martin was born on November 15, 1901.” All the whipper-snapper elders who give the infomercial funeral talks about what Brother So-and-So believed should sit at the feet of someone like Doug Cornelius and go to school. Trash these doctrine-crammed-down-ur-throat diatribes devoid of feeling and recognition of the individual just lost, so afraid of eulogizing an individual and taking away from the worship of the universe’s creator that they are sterile, inane apologies for a belief system instead of a grieving process.
TMS