Linda Z

Wow, Flow7, you're good! Your turn! Doojable: I'm a newbie to this thread myself, so I don't know the answer to your question. But welcome!

Okay, here you go: "Love is oxygen. Love is a many splendored thing. All you need is love."

No prob, Rhino. Ancestry.com also has some court records, but they seem very sparse compared to the other records. I did find a copy of a lawsuit filed against my gggg-grandfather in Maine for not paying for a horse or a wagon or something. And I got about 200 pages of court depositions and such from the Nat'l Archives re: a dispute over my gg-grandfather's Civil War pension. Seems he married a second woman after ditching my gg-grandmother--without getitng a divorce. Oops. Who says history isn't interesting??

Ex10, I should clarify. It wouldn't surprise me if there was an article about VP getting defrocked. It would surprise me if an article back then would go into the sordid details of why he was defrocked.

That actually occurred to me last night, but I forgot about it by the time I posted today. Mind like a sieve. It's only logical. Swinging a bat at a ball and running around the bases is a lot less hazardous than running head-on into a 300-lb brick wall with legs.

Rhino, the oldest article I found on VP was 1930. I don't know if they indexed court notices, though. The entire newspapers are scanned and online, but someone with more patience, more interest, better eyes than mine, and an Ancestry.com account would have to read them in their entirety to see if anything's missing from the searchable index. It's very possible that the Van Wert library has the newspapers on microfilm, or maybe even the Lima library. Here in Cleveland we've got papers on film that date at least back to the mid-19th century, and probably earlier (I just never had occasion to search earlier ones).

1. What time is it: 7:30 p.m. 2. Name: Linda 3. Nickname: on GS, linzee 4. Piercings: one hole in each ear 5. Recent Movie: Cluny Brown 6. Eye color: blue 7. Place of birth: Salem, Oregon 8. Favorite food: breakfast, any time of day 9. Ever been toilet papering? no 10. Love someone so much it made you cry? Yes Ever hate someone so much it made you cry? not that I can recall 11. Been in a car accident: yep 12. Favorite day of the week: Saturday 13. Favorite restaurants: TGI Friday's (love their Jack Daniels chicken!) 14. Favorite Flowers: magnolias, poppies 15. Favorite sports to watch: baseball, football 16. Favorite Drink: nonalcoholic: Diet Coke; alcoholic: Bailey's on the rocks 17. Favorite ice cream: Breyer's vanilla with homemade hot fudge 18. Disney or Warner Brothers: WB 19. Favorite fast food restaurant: Mr. Hero 20. What color is your bedroom carpet: deep blue-grey 21. How many times you failed your driver's test? 0 22. Winter, summer, spring or fall: fall 23. Which store would you choose to Max out your credit card: none--I don't like shopping 4. What do you like to do when you are most bored: play computer games 25. Bedtime: 11:30 to midnightish 26. Favorite TV shows: Lost, Amazing Race, Survivor, My Name is Earl 27. Last person you went to dinner with: my son 28. Ford or Chevy: Fords for years, now a Toyota 29. What are you listening to right now? My EmmaDog's nails clicking on the hardwood floor in my office 30. How many tattoos do you have: none (I've seen how they look on old ladies...ewwww) 31. How many pets do you own: 1 fat cat, one hyper dog, plus my son's dog and snake are on an extended visit 32. Which came first the chicken or the chicken egg? No clue

MStar said: Depends on whether the driver of the car was aiming for you.

I subscribe to Ancestry.com, which has extensive newspaper archives online. I did a search and found many mentions of VPW, from 1930 throuigh 1985--from the Lima paper, Sheboygan paper, a couple Van Wert papers and a few others around the country. I scanned through all the articles last night. The only controversies I found were the backlash about his nailing the theses (or whatever they were called) to the church door in NK and the cult stuff. I certainly don't dispute the possibility that VP had an affair pre-twi, given his later history. It seems unlikely to me, though, that such a scandal would be written up in the newspaper back then. Think about it. Small-town, local papers weren't the National Enquirer or the Star. They reported a little on national news and a lot on local accidents, who was giving whom a bridal shower, who was preaching the Sunday sermon, who was in town on Christmas break from college, etc. The reporting of VP's alleged affair in the newspapers sounds to me like one of the twi urban legends.

Just look at it proportionally. Last year Cleveland Browns played 16 games, vs. 162 for the Indians. The football season is roughly 4 months long, while baseball is 6 or 7 months. In other words, i have no idea, but apparently "less is more" when it comes to football.

Oops, I guess it's Bettis, Jerome Bettis. I'm such a football fan.

CW, with no disrespect intended, the way you've stated this sounds like every CF in twi was a front for a pedophile ring. As horrid as your experience was, I don't think it's fair to dump the many, many dedicated children's fellowship leaders into the pedophile category. Maybe that's not how you meant it, but that's how it sounds to me. As for picking up kids on buses, I can see where that would give some parents pause, but I agree with laleo and ex10. If my kids wanted to go, I'd go with them the first few times and scope things out.

Krys, you're right, of course, about needing some cold days to kill off the bugs, and I don't mind that my natural gas bill hasn't skyrocketed. But I've just missed scenes like this one (taken from my folks' picture window a few years ago):

Hmmm, I don't have much time to make up my mind, do I? Do I root for the longtime arch rivals of my own beloved Browns? After all, they do represent our division or whatever it's called. Or do I root for Seattle? I was born in the next state south and have lived near Seattle and am a great fan of that part of the country. What to do, what to do? I only watch for the commercials, since our team has never made it all the way to the Super Bowl in my lifetime. (Is that like reading Playboy for the cartoons?) I think I'll have to go with the Steelers (aka "Stillers"). I feel a certain kinship with the fans, even though the rivalry will resume next season. And I hear Bennes (sp?) is a really good guy and this is his last shot at it. Go, Pittsburgh! Don't choke!

Less Than Zero?

As much as I dislike driving to work on slippery roads, I have to say that this winter, with its absense of snow, has been just plain dullsville! It's as if I fell asleep in Cleveland, Ohio, at the end of November and woke up the next day in Tacoma, Washington. It's been weird. The third warmest winter on record here. It's been nice in a way, but I was getting tired of it. Rain, rain, rain, and more rain. Grey skies. Mud...oh the mud! My back yard looks like a swamp, and I've mopped my laundry room and kitchen floors more this winter than I normally do in a year, from the dogs tracking in the brown gooey stuff. Did you ever try to dry the feet of a 107-lb dog who just wants to get inside for a doggie cookie? And he's half Chessie, so he has these doggone webbed feet that hold the mud between his toes until he can release it at the most strategic moment, like after he hops onto the couch. So I'm loving this snow. It's the fluffy kind, as yet unmarred by road crud. Pristine white and sparkling on the lawn and the cars. I think this is just the morning for hot cocoa and cinammon toast. Makes me feel all warm and snuggly! How 'bout the rest of you Midwesterners and Easterners...how have you liked this winter so far?

Garthness, methinks you've never lived in the Plains states or out West. Trivia: There actually was a state law still on the books back in the 1960s in Wyoming or Montana or someplace out there (don't know if it's still so) that said ranchers couldn't wear boots that were above a certain height, cuz (allegedly) guys would prop the ewe's back feet in said booties. Baa- baa-baa- baaaaaaaaaaaaad ranchers! How desperate is THAT??

Better Off Dead?

Happy, happy birthday, Shell. Give yourself a gift and sneak up early to see that little grandbaby!! Whatever you do, enjoy!

Hills, I'd like you to meet my friend snopes.com ...snopes, meet your new pal Hillsie.

Mark, that's what I was afraid of. Well, hopefully they'll get better at mine safety then, eh?

It's funny you mention strip mining, Mark, because I've been thinking about that for a couple days. IF the mining companies could restore the land after strip mining, rather than leaving those big, ugly gashes in it, maybe that wouldn't be such a bad idea. Problem is, coal mining is the only good-paying job in a lot of these rural areas, so lots of people would lose their jobs if companies were permitted to switch to strip mining.

I did hear a couple of miners from the Sago mine interviewed who said that since the new compnay took over, great strides had been made in improving the conditions and safety. Miners know they're in a dangerous occupation. Several family members have said their father/husband, etc., said he always knew he'd die in a mine. That doesn't make it any less heartbreaking when it happens, though. I have a cousin who was a coal miner. She had to leave the mines when her breathing became so bad that she couldn't continue. There are so many health risks, in addition to the safety risks of cave-ins and explosions and such. My great-grandfather was a coal miner, first in Pennsylvania and later in Illinois. He was almost blind when he died, which was a common consequence of mining in the 19th and early 20th century. I have a hunch that no matter what measures the mining companies take to make it safer, it's never going to be as safe as sitting at a computer all day or selling ties at Macy's. But I heard that 50% of our energy in this country depends on burning coal. Seems to me we ought to be putting more effort into finding alternative energy sources that don't require coal, for this and several other obvious reasons.

It's interesting to read people's reasons for their names and avatars. Thanks for the thread, Digi. I went with my real first name and my last initial because I figured it might help me reconnect with old friends and because I had no reason to hide my identity. My current avatar came about when the new site for GS went up and it became easier for me to put scanned photos in the avatar spot. I just happened to have a 1940s package of Kool-Aid that I had scanned so I could sell it on ebay. It seemed like a perfect visual for the "tagline" I wanted to put under the avatar, "Only sipped." I used that because although I was involved in twi for 17 years, I didn't buy everything twi was selling during all those years, which made it a lot easier for me to leave than it might have been if I'd been a more obedient little Wayfer. I was a little worried that my tagline would sound sorta smug, but I don't mean it that way. I've been an independent cuss since childhood, which has sometimes been a good thing and has sometimes gotten me into trouble. But in the case of twi, thank God, it gave me the ooomph to put twi in my rearview mirror. So I'm glad for the chance to explain what I meant. Thanks, Digi! (I'm getting a little bored with the photo and the tagline, though. I think I'll change them soon.)

Oldies said: To which I must respond: BS! I don't recall your being on HQ staff in the mid-80s, Oldies. I was. Craig was already screaming and accusing and demanding and screwing around at that point in history. In fact, he was doing so before POP was even read to Corps and Staff in '86. He was already advocating things that were contrary to the Word of God and treating people like crap. He had lost any sort of loyalty I might have felt toward him as a twi leader before CG ever accused him of a thing, because of his behavior. And this is one thing about VPW that really puzzled me at the time and later pi$$ed me off when I was seeing the situation more clearly--his uncanny ability to put a$$ kissers in positions of authority over God's precious people who had no business being there. What was wrong with LCM I woudln't necessarily characterize as "evil'; rather, he was just one more example of someone pushed upward through the ranks of twi because of personality or money or influence too fast for his own (and everyone else's) good. I don't usually argue with you out of respect for your sisters, whom I love, and because it's like arguing with a granite boulder--waste of time and effort. But this time you struck a nerve by speaking so "authoritatively" about something you weren't there to see with your own eyes.