In one of Newboy's Bethel threads Nathan Natas posted a picture of Bethel taken by Gary Botting in the year 1984. He has sent me in an email comments about the picture that he says goes along with it. Rather than embedding Gary's comments in Newboy's threads and stealing some of his well diserved thunder of applause, I thought that Gary's comments deserve its own space, sound and fury so I have posted them here in The Bible category because:
It is priceless!
Note: The two books Gary mentions are two copies of the "Orwellian World of Jehovah's Witnesses"
Here are Gary's comments:
THE BOTTING-FRANZ TETE-A-TETE
by Gary Botting
I had not been in the Brooklyn Bethel – the headquarters of the Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society – for 26 years, and was amazed at how little things had changed in the spiritual paradise. Here was "home." This was the place which Jehovah God had chosen to beam his inspiration down to earth, enlightening the self-¬styled apostles of the governing body. I approached the place with due reverence and awe befitting a Jehovah's Witness of thirty-six years' standing.
From Adams Street I took a photograph of the Watchtower factory elevator tower, framed appropriately by barbed wire. A greasy tramp slopped by in holey shoes looking rather like John the Baptizer. He eyed my camera and I sucked in my breath to make a chest. He kept walking towards the factory complex. Then a jogger slapped by in an equally holey T-shirt – by contrast a clean-cut kid some six feet tall with regulation shorts and Adidas. He made a beeline for the Watchtower factory door.
The jogger hardly slowed down as he approached the entrance, merely rapping abruptly on the darkened window, waving, marking time. The door buzzed briefly and he seized the door knob, yanked open the door, and jogged on into the darkness inside.
Following his cue, I slung my tweed jacket over my shoulder, jogged up to the window, rapped, waved, and yanked on the door knob. But the door did not open. Nor did the buzzer sound. Rather, the window of the guardroom slid open with the slither and screech of glass on steel, and a voice asked through the crack, politely enough,
"May I help you?"
I smiled broadly.
"Hello, Brother!" I called.
"I'm trying to track down Brother Franz. Frederick Franz?"
"Brother Franz? He's hardly ever here,"
said the guard. Partly because of the glare of the bright sun on the tinted window, I couldn't make out his face.
"You may find him up on Columbia Heights,"
he added doubtfully.
The window closed.
Columbia Heights. Columbia Heights.
I started walking to the heart of the factory complex, noting the elevated passageways crossing the streets from block to block. On Prospect Street, four Bethelites were tinkering with a recalcitrant car in one of the garage bays under the building. I approached them casually, noticing deep frowns on each face. One of them glanced up.
"Hello, Brother,"
I said cheerily to the nearest. He pasted on a tacky smile.
"Where's Columbia Heights from here? I'm looking for Frederick Franz."
"On the other side of the bridge approach,"
one of the young men volunteered quickly.
"You'll see the sign."
He pointed vaguely to the west.
"Under the clock," he said.
As I reached the Brooklyn Bridge approach I heard the familiar slap of Adidas on concrete: my white rabbit friend who had disappeared into the factory had resumed his jog. Nursing my camera in one hand, I fell in beside him, step for step.
"It's not often," I huffed, "that you see a Witness out jogging."
He glanced sideways.
"I used to be a runner," I puffed. "I'm from Canada. Alberta."
He didn't seem impressed.
We had approached a ramshackle garage, and took a short cut through it.
"I'm here to see Freddy Franz," I added.
He almost ran into one of the pumps.
"Where, pray tell," I panted, "is Columbia Heights?"
"Right there," he said. "Up ahead."
Sure enough, there was the headquarters, apparently undergoing a facelift. To our left was a triangle of cropped lawn populated by sunbathers. Two rather attractive girls seemed to be sharing a beach towel. One of them had untied the strap on her bikini top: a wrought iron fence did little to obscure the view. I jerked my thumb in the direction of the lawn.
"Bethelites?" I wheezed.
"No, no!"
he said with a chuckle, and he peeled off at an angle across the road, his Adidas slapping the pavement audibly. The girls looked up. The one with the untied strap smiled and waved. The runner waved back with easy familiarity, then glanced back at me sheepishly, his face for the first time flushed. I waved him on his way.
Having slowed to a walk, I continued to the headquarters office, used the washroom, and stood in line to purchase some books and magazines hot off the press. I asked where I could find Brother Franz. President Franz.
"Oh, he's up at 124,"
said the literature vendor.
“Room 124?”
“No. 124 Columbia Heights.”
"Then what's this?"
"This? This is 30. You want 124. It's the building with the tower."
I thanked him and fell in beside two more Bethelites who said they were going that way. We made small-talk and I jerked my thumb across the road at the sunbathers.
"Bethelites?" I asked.
"Yes," said one.
"No," said the other.
“It's frowned on," the first guy explained.
They crossed the road into 119, and I entered the Bethel home complex (124) alone, to encounter the caterwauling of children and a bulky protective guard who stood in the doorway. The foyer to the residence complex looked nothing like its representations in the brochure I'd taken at headquarters.
"May I help you?" asked the guard.
"I've come to see Brother Franz."
"Do you have an appointment?" asked a receptionist with a sneer.
"No."
“Because he won't see you without an appointment."
“He'll see me," I assured him.
"I’ve come all the way from Canada."
"Is he expecting you?" asked the guard.
"Yes. I sent him two books and a letter. Marked personal. Just tell him I'm here, will you? And tell him I’m the guy whom he asked to smuggle literature into Spain during the Franco years."
"Have a chair." said the guard.
I sat down and suddenly realized that I was the object of the intense attention of the receptionist-cum- switchboard operator, who seemed to be able to look at the security guard and myself at the same time without much difficulty. I smiled at her. She shifted her focus, fixing one eye on the guard, the other on the ceiling.
After a five minute wait another more senior security guard emerged from the shadows to ask my name and rank
"You a pioneer?” he asked.
“For years.”
“Where’d you say you was from again?”
“Alberta. Boonies of Western Canada. Pioneer country. But the need is not that great, any more.”
“Got a pioneer card?"
“It’s expired.”
I didn’t tell him that it had expired twenty years earlier. Instead, I handed him my Alberta driver’s licence.
.
He looked at the licence.
"I'll see what he says."
He handed the licence to the receptionist, who ruffled through boxes of file cards two at a time, checking for my name. She shook her head with obvious disappointment. Meanwhile, armed with my passport, the first security guard quickly rifled through a separate filing system on the foyer desk. Satisfied that I was neither blacklisted nor disfellowshipped, the senior security man disappeared through the archway. Three minutes later, he reappeared.
"Brother Franz will be right out,"
he said to everyone's surprise, not least my own.
"Oh, good!"
said a sister who looked like a fat version of Michael Jackson's mother.
"I'll get a picture!"
When she tried to line me up in her viewfinder, I gave her a silly grin and she focused on the security guard instead.
And then – there He was, drifting through the crowded archway, the redoubtable Freddy, complete with 20-year-old pastel print tie, loose-fitting collar and the erect posture of a little German-American man with big ideas.
At 91, however, hardly presidential!
"Where's Gary Botting?"
he squawked at the senior security guard. I rose to my feet and announced myself, moving forward to shake his hand and steer him towards the row of chairs. He peered at me.
"We met," he said, "let's see – "
"London, 1961," I said.
"Wembly Stadium. I was working with Glen How in Public Relations. You invited us out to Chinese dinner, and you asked me to smuggle anti-Franco literature into Spain."
"Ah!" he said.
"We had Peking duck and garlic crab and chicken balls."
I did not remind him of his lame duck joke about chickens by definition not having balls, delivered at the dinner table with aplomb.
"Ah-hah!" he quacked.
I gazed into his grey eyes. There were white rings around the irises: chronic glaucoma. But he seemed to focus on my face – with both eyes.
"I live in Alberta now," I continued.
"Alberta. Way out west?" he squawked.
"Yes. The great white Northwest. I thought I'd pay you a visit to see if you had received your complimentary copies of our book. My wife Heather and I have written a book, you see, about the Witnesses. The publisher sent you two copies marked ‘personal.’ Compliments of University of Toronto Press.”
"No. No. I can't say that I received them. You wrote a book you say?"
"Yes. A book about the Witnesses. It has a blue cover. It was marked 'personal.' I'm surprised you haven't received it yet – it was mailed two weeks ago. From Toronto."
Freddy sighed.
"My secretary," he said. "He must have filed it. He's always filing things. I'll have him dig it out. It’s a book, you say?"
"Two books. Both the same."
"Written by your wife and you?"
"Yes. My wife Heather. You’ve never met her.”
"And it's on the Witnesses?"
"Yes. We mention you in it several times. I even refer to the Chinese dinner, the Peking duck – "
"All right, I’11 get my secretary to give it to me before I leave for Phoenix. I have to give four talks in three days at Phoenix. Or is it three talks in four days? I forget. I’m in the middle of preparing my talks."
"You must be kept very busy."
"The trouble is, I can't see very well. I can't see to read."
His voice seemed a little shrieky and harsh; eavesdroppers were beginning to pay attention and a mother hushed her kid.
"So-o-o," he continued, "my secretary has to read everything to me, and I have to dictate everything to him. It's a good system, I guess – "
"I'm sure you're good at it."
"So-o-o, Brother Botting, I'll get my secretary to read it to me. Or maybe I'll have someone read it to me on the plane to Phoenix."
"That would be nice. I would like to know what you think of it. I hope we haven't done anything wrong!”
"So-o-o, I'll let you know after I have a chance to read it. You put your address on the package?"
"Oh, yes."
“So-o-o – do you have any family, or is it just you and your wife?"
"We have four children."
"Four children! My, my. You must be kept busy."
"In a manner of speaking."
"And they're all in the Truth?"
"The oldest is 13 and the youngest is one – still young enough to do as we tell them.”
"Nice family,” he clucked. “All boys?"
"Two of each."
"Ah."
"Well, I'd better let you get back to your talks," I said. "Thanks for taking the time to see me."
"Oh, my pleasure!" We shook hands.
"Where do you go from Phoenix?" I asked.
"I – let me see – I don't remember. There are four assemblies. Or is it three?"
“No matter. You're going to be busy."
"Yes. Very busy. Very busy. I have to memorize it all, you see. Fortunately, I have a very good memory – ”
"Brother Franz!" intruded the Katharine Jackson lookalike. "Brother Franz? Can you stand right there?
I wanna take your picture, Brother, that okay?"
"My picture? Well – sure, I guess so – "
He sauntered off towards the archway.
“Thanks, Brother Franz!" I called as I waved goodbye, but he had already struck a preoccupied Napoleonic pose. The guards stood on each side of him, as if ready to steer him back into his closet.
I glanced across at the receptionist, who still glowered at me distrustfully. I smiled. "And thank you!" I said, giving her a huge conspiratorial wink. Flustered, she looked in all directions at once as I walked out the door.
Note: If you want to throw rocks at Gary or buy him a beer, post your replies here and I will direct his attention to them.
belbab
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