Linda Z

Yeppers, 'twas my regular brand, Citgo. I don't buy those cheapie brands...my car seems to go through them as if they were water.

Close, Raf. I think the movie name was Taps, though. I think you are the winner!

Woo woo, I just paid 2.14. I remember when I was horrified at how high that was, and now it's like a gift!

Time out! Is any one else struck by how much Donna Martindale looks like Peter Noon???? I swear, I did a double-take. Okay, back to your regularly scheduled game.

Hills, every time I wrote the date on a piece of paper today, I thought of you. I thought of your family. I thought of how the world was robbed of this magnificent young man and so many other wonderful people. I haven't forgotten, and I never will. You're in my prayers.

If you stuck to the interstates, you'd never see anything as cool as this: Forgive the smudges. This photo's 36+ years old, and brings back memories of traveling from Los Angeles to Cleveland in an old VW bug: 3 adults, one baby (mine), and a huge German shepherd! When we stopped for food and gas, we looked like we were crawling out of one of those clown cars.

Waysider, yep, it was Center Ridge Rd., and it's Ohio Rte. 20. It's a pretty cool road through the farmlands. Yes, there sure was a lot of enthusiasm and a huge sense of family back at those branch meetings. I looked forward to them, too. Remember how long we all stuck around afterwards? No one ever wanted to leave. That was long before teaching topics became mandatory and the iron grip of legalism had choked the life out of everything. I do remember those days fondly. Do you remember taking any classes in that little church down the street from there? I took TIP there, but that was the only time I was ever in that place that I can recall. Back to the topic of roads: MStar, Waysider has mentioned one road you want to put on your "never ever ever go there" list: Brookpark Road. It is the ugliest road I know, cluttered with fast-food restaurants, ugly signage, light industry, car dealerships, an automotive plant, gas stations, strip joints, porn stores, cheesy hotels--you name it. I've never seen a worse looking street in all my travels around the USA and Canada! Likeaneagle, I've heard about that place with the wild horses. That must be something to see.

Great thread, mstar! Years ago there was a book out about traveling the US without going on the freeways. I can't remember the name of it though. Maybe it's because my first cross-country trips with my mom and dad happened in the early 50s, before there were interstates, but I have a real fondness for taking what I call the "regular roads". There's so much to see and hear and smell that way. In fact, I add about 10 minutes each way to my daily commute because, to me, the 10 minutes I might save on the interstate (barring wrecks and tie-ups) isn't worth the aggravation. I enjoy my drive to work. And even though the route is through the city, and therefore not filled with views of rivers and mountains and trees, I see things you'd never see on the highway. People doing funny things (a guy losing his pants in the middle of a crosswalk), people doing kind things, dogs watching traffic lights to see when to cross, people walking their dogs before work--just everyday stuff, but much more engaging than hanging onto the steering wheel for dear life and watching the concrete fly by. And I'm in love with the architecture in the old neighborhoods I travel through. I never tire of looking at some of these houses. I also share Kit's love for California's coastal route. I remember so fondly stopping in the redwood forest at Big Sur and just sitting there, smelling LIFE all around us. I can almost still smell it. It was amazing. And watching the ocean perched on some cliffs just above the beach. Beautiful part of the state, for sure. I don't know how it is now, but there were surely no billboards or any signs of commercialism back then. I don't know if you want to hear about Ohio routes, but when I lived at twi's HQ, I often came to Cleveland to visit my folks on weekends, I took I-75 only a little past Lima and then took state routes (Ohio Rte 12, Rte 20, etc.) the rest of the way. There were some excellent thrift/antique stores along the way, lots of fun garage sales, and plenty of those roadside food stands. When I go up to the Lake Erie Islands (across from Port Clinton and Sandusky, Ohio), I take the highway going there because I'm so eager to get out in the middle of the lake and feel the breeze and decompress. But coming back I take the less traveled roads and sometimes just sorta "follow my nose" through the small towns. I almost always drive out to the Marblehead lighthouse and sit on the rocks and watch the waves crash to shore, then I like to drive through Milan, Thomas Edison's birthplace, which has a neat little town square, a great antique shop, and cozy little home-cookin' type restaurants. My dream vacation, someday when I have the time, is to just get in the car and start driving wherever my whim takes me, without ever getting onto an interstate. So mstaar, you've started a thread after my own heart!

Someone is selling his handwritten journal on ebay for a "Buy it now" price of about $15,000. He claims Jesus appeared to him and revealed the precise location of heaven, the cure for cancer (and its cause--biting your cuticles--who knew??), and other nifty stuff. Of course it's all recorded in the journal. Anyone bidding on this would be even loopier than the seller. Here's the link: http://cgi.ebay.com/MY-HANDWRITTEN-JOURNAL...1QQcmdZViewItem

I miss you, Trefor! Hope you're having a fabulous b'day!

Jim, you didn't get me possessed, but you gave me one H E L L of a flashback!! I used to sell Escher prints for a poster wholesaler back in the late 60s. I think he was brilliant, but some of his stuff gives me a headache! For example:

You betcha, David! It's delicious. Especially on the freshly cut, right-outa-the-fryer "shoestring" type fries.

Michael Caine The Cider House Rules Tobey Maguire

Chas said: Au contraire, mon Chas. We sure do eat fries with vinegar here in Northern Ohio. Yum yum! Certainly at all our fairs, and even at one fast-food place in town. I wish Maine weren't so far away. The fairs and food up there sound like great fun, not to mention the wonderful GSers who live in that neck of the woods.

If any "ministry" had made my own children unwelcome--no, barred from--my own home, I'd have been packing my bags. Why stay under those circumstances? To keep the house? What good is a house when the ones you love can't step foot in it? And if my 4 living children were granted only very limited access to their own brother's funeral? I can't fathom that, either. I can understand a woman of her generation staying in a difficult marriage. I can understand sticking around after her husband died if she really believed twi was worth fighting for--lots of people did that. But I don't get siding with the likes of LCM, DM, and RFR over her own kids and, if what I've heard is true, having to sneak off and meet them at relatives' homes to be able to see them at all. On the other hand, regarding the accusations that she didn't speak up, we don't know that she didn't speak, up, do we? Granted, she didn't grab a mike on the ROA main stage and make an announcement, but who's to say she didn't confront VP, LCM, and others privately? I get what you're saying about the perks she enjoyed, exsie. She was definitely the queen bee at HQ and on all the other campuses when she visited them. It seemed to me that she liked her status as "first lady of the way" just fine. Maybe I would have too, if I'd been in her shoes during the lean early years of twi, so I try not to judge. But she did live an extremely privileged life. Housekeepers, escorts, drivers, the whole bit, basically the whole staff and all the believers wherever she went were at her beck and call.

Woo hoo, $2.46 here (counting that pesky .9 as a penny). Lowest it's been a long time. Oh, and David, you have my permission to fill up. :)

Overtime? Benefits? Retirement funds? Last I knew there was no such thing as overtime at HQ. There were no benefits in the traditional sense of the word (aside from the 80% reimbursement of medical expenses). And they sure as h-e-double-hockey-sticks didn't have any kind of retirement fund. When I was there, we didn't even pay into Social Security, and neither did twi as the employer, because it had tax-exempt church status. That might have changed since then. They convince people of the joy and privilege it would be to "serve God" at HQ, and then, after going on staff, those people find out (if they still have half a brain left) that they're really serving a bunch of honchos who are accustomed to being waited on hand and foot. Of all the Wayfers, I feel sorriest for the staffers. People can be sheltered from the BS if they're in a fellowship with loving, caring people, but life is much different at the rootie-kazootie!

Hope asked: I don't attend a church for the same reason I don't attend a splinter group fellowship , really: I dislike predictability and ritual. I know, some say their fellowships are anything but routine, and I'm sure they're telling the truth. And I hear that church services have changed a lot in the past 20 or 30 years, too. That's great. I'm just not interested right now. Maybe I will be at some point in the future. Occasionally I miss the fellowship, but between work and family, it's not like I'm isolated or anything. I spent the first couple decades of my life attending Sunday School and church and it became boring after a while. Same hymns, stand up, sit down, read a canned group response to a canned reading by the minister. (Sorta like twi became to me toward the end.) I also checked out several churches in my mid-20s, and they were either too "hellfire and brimstone" for my taste or, again, boring. I'm happy for those who feel at home in whatever setting they choose, whether it's a church or a CES (or whatever it is now) or CFF fellowship--whatever. I think people can learn and be encouraged and comforted and enjoy the fellowship wherever they decide to go, because God looks on our hearts and can see to it that those things happen if we have the desire and the humility. In fact, although I would never, ever, ever in a million years consider going back to a twi fellowship, I'm sure there are people enjoying themselves there, for the same reason. God is not limited by the limitations of the people who speak in His name.

Brad Pitt The Mexican James Gandolfini

CONNERRON said: I was in for 17 years and never heard anything remotely like that. Who said it? If it was during the 90s or later, that would explain why I never heard it.

I'm glad you finally got the little truck you wanted. Velry cool.

Paw, I'm jealous! But I'm glad you enjoyed the concert. Rick, I saw CS&N (without Y) about 10 years ago, and they were great. Enjoy! (They're my favorite sing-along band.)

Warren Beatty Love Affair Annette Bening

Nick Nolte Down and Out in Beverly Hills (prophetic?) Bette Midlar

Surely our Lord and Savior would have a better dye job. Seriously, there are so many things wrong with everything he says that I won't even start. The longer I live, the more I think many people believe what they want to hear, and many, many people want someone to tell them what to do, how to live, and what to think. This guy's "success" sure seems to be evidence of that.