Posts by TMS
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15What is the JW's take on pets?
by Dragonlady76 ini have always loved animals and have had pets through out the years, so that got me thinking about my jw childhood, not to many dubs had pets, i remember only a small handful of dubs that had a dog.
i wondered if there is a jw realted reason for this, so far the only thing that i can think of is that a pet "would take up valuable time that could be better spent on field service" .
any one have some information on this?.
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14
Culture, Class, and Congregations
by saywhat29 ini know this is nothing new- the thought of the bible being just a story and a blend of culture and of how people interpreted the world around them and recorded it as such.
it's very athiest..y, even if don't consider myself an athiest.
because culture and class also affects how people look at the bible whether they believe it or not.
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TMS
The first Bible Students with pocket watches, pillbox hats and Puritanical values created the ambience for Jehovah's Witnesses. Rutherford hardened the focus, bringing a more militant, less genteel blend. Knorr turned the whole thing into a gigantic, well-oiled business. It's an Anglo-Saxon group really that has recruited other ethnicities.
The way different cultures respond to Watchtower guidelines is one hilarious subject. I don't pretend to have enough life experience and travel opportunities to have witnessed various cultures interpetation of serving Jehovah, but I know it varies greatly. Ten years in a black congregation in the U.S. taught me that talks given there were not given anywhere else. I smile now when I pass a Spanish circuit assembly at a community recreation area and see the little girls in dresses and boys in suits and ties riding the bumper cars between sessions. I love it!
tms
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297
BETHELITES - Whatever Became of?
by Black Man ini often times wonder what happened to certain bethelites that i ran around with during my 1990s tenure there.
while there are still a few left there, the greater majority of them aren't there for various reasons (marriage, disillusionment, left the borg, etc).
a couple of cats i wonder about - there was one brother who i believe was from kansas, who got his fingers cut off in a printing press.
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TMS
Horrible Life,
You mentioned Leroy Langan. Not sure if he had a Bethel background. He became a Circuit Overseer in August 1970. I was a young Congregation Servant(Overseer) in his first congregation visit. He was from Tulsa, OK. He married a very attractive sister from Mena, AR. He had some training in geology and had worked for one of the oil companies.
We became semi-friends until one evening he invited my wife and I to his trailer for a turkey dinner. He had bragged about his wife's oyster nut dressing. The dinner pleasantries ended abruptly when Leroy learned we didn't know how to play a certain card game. He became annoyed and opened up a newspaper to partition us from his face. We left quietly not knowing what we had done wrong.
I ran into Leroy years later at an assembly. He was in news service and wanted to stage some phony action shots of the characters in our assembly drama. I let him know that it wasn't a war drama. Lol!
One former Bethelite I am curious about is Roger Ramsey from Arkansas. I think he was on what JT used to call the "fast track". . . .perhaps involved in circuit overseer scheduling. Last I heard he had left the borg and his younger brother Keith was in circuit work.
I'm sure no one remembers my close friends George Pringle and Charles Maxwell. They left Bethel in the 50's. George is in Kent, WA and Charles is in Port Townsend, WA.
tms
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8
Famous Presiding Overseers
by mtsgrad ini think dr perry cox from scrubs would be a brilliant presiding overseer.. dr. cox is sarcastic, unpleasant and narcissistic.
however, he is a very skilled doctor.
he would not care what the co said, would ignore the watchtower or governing body at will.
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TMS
Sheriff Taylor played by Andy Griffith would have been a great PO with commonsense replacing strict rule interpretation.
Unfortunately, there are more Barney Fifes among elders than Sheriff Taylors.
tms
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82
Have You Ever Met A "Celebrity" or Actually See One Face To Face?
by minimus inwhile 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".
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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
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93
YOU "THINK" YOU KNOW.....BUT...YOU DON'T KNOW!!
by Terry inthe 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.
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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
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41
'63 Convention - Rose Bowl fiasco
by Gregor in) day ordeals.
the pasadena rose bowl is in a canyon and this was dead summer, temps.
over 100,000 in attendance.
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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
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157
Judicial Committee Preparation
by Marvin Shilmer injudicial 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:.
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TMS
Mr. Shilmer,
Obviously, your recommendations have nothing to do with fighting disfellowshipping, but with
establishing precedents or evidence for future court actionSince 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
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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
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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.