Dear all,
I have posted Hester ("Shoot the Pipes") stories here before - see these postings for the background story of this Elderette in my congregation back in the seventies
http://www.jehovahs-witness.com/6/57269/844359/post.ashx#844359
and
http://www.jehovahs-witness.com/6/79880/1.ashx
Now read on:
The day Hester decided that Perry Como was a Witness.
At the time we’re talking about, the early seventies, Perry Como had been famous for decades. And he was exactly the kind of nice, non-threatening, middle-aged, middle-of-the-road crooner that elders and their wives, like Len and Hester K, approved of.
He was famous, but he wasn’t a “pop star” - being a “fifties-style” entertainer, he wasn’t associated with all the excess of the rock-and-roll generation, and he hadn’t had a hit record in years.
But, in 1973, he actually did score a massive hit record in the UK with a song written by Don McLean - “And I love You So.”
I must admit, I really liked the song, still do. It has a mellow, wistful, nostalgic kind of feel to it, and its mood was perfect for a singer of Perry Como’s advanced years. The lyrics were melancholy and reflective with references to loneliness and the singer’s “evening” of his life.
As part of this general feel, one of the verses says:
The Book of Life is brief
And, once a page is read,
All but love is dead.
That is my belief .
And this is what set Hester off.
She went round telling everyone that Perry Como must be a Witness -
“Have you heard his song? [singing] : the book of life is free, that is my belief! the book of life is free, that is my belief!”
“Only a Witness would ever say something like that! Isn’t it wonderful how Jehovah gets the message out, even through pop music!”
It was inconceivable to her that anyone should have just happened upon that phrase – “the Book of Life” - by chance. The only possible explanation was that he was a Witness.
Just as an aside here, I think I can understand what was going on inside her head by reference to something that happened to me when I was 6 or 7 years old. I was watching TV with my family one evening, some American cop show, it was. I don’t remember who was in it, or much about the plot, but what is burned into my memory is one line of dialogue that occurred in an exchange between the hero-cop and his boss.
Some bad guy is out there with a bomb that is going to blow-up New York City, and as this is being explained to the hero, he asks “What happens if we don’t get to him in time, Lieutenant?”
Lieutenant says “Armageddon!”
Well, this simply electrified me. “Mum, Mum! Did you hear that? Are they Witnesses, mum? He just said Armageddon, mum! Is this about us, mum?” - and so on.
Thing is, with my seven-year-old sized worldview, I just couldn’t conceive that anyone would ever use the word Armageddon who wasn’t a Witness. It was our word, it had no usage or currency outside a Kingdom Hall. If he said Armageddon, it must be about the Witnesses.
Same thing was going on with Hester. The boundaries of her worldview were so limited that she was incapable of understanding that anyone could use a phrase like “Book of Life” who wasn’t making a Watchtower-approved reference to the Bible.
And of course, she had mis-heard the lyrics anyway. She only ever sung those two lines, over and over again, ignoring the stuff about “once a page is read, all but love is dead” - there was nothing wrong with her information-filter mechanisms.
Just as a post-script to this story - co-incidentally, at the time there was a persistent rumour going round that the singer Glen Campbell had become a Witness. There would be these brothers who would tell you that they had met someone who had been to meetings or assemblies in the States, where they had seen him baptised, or in some versions of the rumour, giving a public talk.
I always thought it sounded a bit like an urban-myth (of course, I didn’t have the word for it – it’s one of those phrases you wish had been invented at the time) - but in my scepticism I found myself, surprisingly enough, in agreement with Hester.
Whenever she heard the story about Glen Campbell she would always say.
“Oh no, that’s not true. You must be thinking of Perry Como”
“[singing] : the book of life is free, that is my belief! the book of life is free, that is my belief!”
Duncan