My mother had a wild hair one day and decided to study with the JW'S. So after being a Catholic for my first 12 years we were now apostates............ though neither she nor I realized it at the time.
I think what appealed to my mother was that the two sisters she studied with were very 'refined' they were also nicely dressed and very 'clean' . I had no idea what the hell she was talking about. She would continue to use those yardsticks through out her life. That was what really appealed to her............but 'never dying' was a close second.
Being Catholic or Jewish was pretty much it in my Queens New York neighborhood. Being a Witness was definitely not.
Mom was enthused seeing Bethel and the factory for the first time, I thought the big presses were rather neat but I wasn't too interested in Bethel. This dislike would grow to despising Bethel in a few more years.
All of this was in the 'I love Lucy' era early to mid 1950's......Mom's favorite show. My childhood was safe and secure and then it all changed.
My Dad was a welder for the Navy during WW2. It was common to wear asbestos vests to protect against the sparks and of course one would have breathed in the smoke. He died in 1955 of Mesothelioma.
A year later she married a man who turned out to be a violent drunk. Safe and secure flew out the window.
At 16 I took up boxing one of my most happy memories and.....I got Baptized.
Did I believe it was the truth? Thinking back......... probably not...... I think it was mostly my Catholic up bringing and I was used to praying to a god I thought existed. The local congregation had watched me grow up and I had any number of friend ships. Also life at home was uncertain.
A mean drunk is an upsetting person to be around, one that was 6'4" and 230 Pounds was a terrible combination. His son, my step brother, asked me the day we finally met......"has the old man started drinking yet?" I remember that till this day.
About when I turned 17 my step dad took drunken umbrage at my step brother and a small war broke out in our bathroom while I was across the hall getting dressed for a meeting. I raced into the bathroom and tried to pry his fingers off of my step brother's throat. My limited boxing skills were ill used in the tight quarters and while throwing punches madly they usually landed on my step dad's hard head. My step brother struggled free of the strangle hold and began raining blows of his own. One of us got a shot through and when step-dad got a glimpse of his bloody face in the shattered mirror the fight went out of him. It turned out he couldn't handle the sight of his own blood...ours on the other hand hadn't bothered him at all.
I remember my mother sponged off the blood drops and stains on my dark suite jacket while I changed out of my dress shirt. My ride arrived and by the time we got to the Kingdom Hall my hands had swollen up and bruises on parts of my face was showing up as well. A brother gestured at me to follow him to the bathroom and asked what happened. He was a really big guy so I told him he was the second big guy I met in the bathroom in the last hour and the first meeting didn't go so good.
He was the assistant presiding minister, an ex-bethelite and a friend. He talked to me like a friend and like an older brother and helped settle me down.
So in part my Baptism was also because I wanted to remain in my extended family where I was liked and my efforts appreciated.
I finished high school and started pioneering, Bethel was not even a consideration....I wasn't into slave labor. But working the same old territories was really proving to be boring.
A special pioneer I went out on a date with (yes times were a bit more liberal at least in the New York City area) had just returned from a congregation in Western PA and she told me about another PA congregation that was really in dire need. It was a wild and woolly part of the State a huge territory surrounded by national forests and known for some great trout streams. It was late August and I decided to visit the congregation and meet the Presiding Minister. That trip would change my entire life.
Part 2 "Are those really bullet holes in our out house door?" if anyone is interested..... will arrive soon.