Galen

Wow that sounds like you have found yourself a good deal. Cool.

I will pass that on to him. :-)

Second James: "Hey thank you for posting the lyrics...the song is as awsome as the lyrics, as I think everyone can identify with this song...thanks SOOOOO much!! have two of his CD's...both WELL worth the price of admission!" I read those lyrics, and I am telling you I have never heard of the man nor those lyrics. But you guys sound like he was popular, so I will see if I can get a CD.

Allan: "The two of them walked through the door,started yelling, threatening,thumping me on the chest,I fell over backwards.I believe they wanted me to retaliate so Karate Kid could finish me off(must be that word of wisdom thingy again !) One of My kids had actually phoned the police and they turned up very quickly and slapped a two year trespass notice on them." You are to be complemented for your cool handling of the situation. Many others would have been tricked into reacting offensively [which was obviously their intent]. Good for you. :-)

Our third floor renter's youngest son [Eric is 20] is in the National Guard, and was notified today that he is shipping out next week to join another unit in Iraq. His unit just returned from Iraq a few months ago, but he had not been with his unit as he was n school when they were shipped. He had borrowed my body armor, while doing some active duty stuff as a gate guard here at a local NG base. But now today I was assisting him to order his own tailor made body armor. His body-type and mine are different. Wearing body armor long term, he will be far more comfortable wearing a set that is tailored to his body. His mother is in our kitchen this evening drinking Malibu and Dr. Pepper with Bonnie. Ya got to love it. :-) Maybe this will convince him that he really should leave the part-timers and go active-duty.

LOL You guys are too much. :-) Soon after I married my wonderful bride, I took her out to California to meet my family. [My mother had sent us a stack of photos of her favored relatives with names and notes on the back of each one. So Bonnie could use them as flash-cards.] Anyway when we got there, my family was having a big potluck dinner for the occasion, at my middle brother's house. I parked out front on the street and as we walked up the path, my brother came out of his house, stopped, blocking the path, pulled out his pistol, and while holding us there in place with his pistol; he questioned me to insure that I had fully briefed Bonnie about our family. [Years earlier when he had brought his bride home to meet the family, she did not speak. We had thought that she was mute. He had forbidden her to speak during her first six months around our family.] Only after repeated assurances that Bonnie was fully prepared to meet our family, did he lower his pistol and step out of the path, allowing us into his home. :-)

Sounds like the better question would be: How many of us come from 'functional' families verses 'non-functional' families? and to what degree was TWI involved with that family's dis-function? Mine was perfectly dis-functional long before I got involved with TWI, and no WC or any other believer ever had any contact with them.

Belle- I am so sorry, that sounds like it would have been terribly painful to have gone through. :-) My parents divorced when I was 15. My mother had been meeting with the family lawyer for months, and my parents lived together right up to the day that my father was served the summons to appear at court. The judge was a family friend and an accountant had a list of all holdings and properties, the judge already had it all laid out how the division of property was going to be. It only needed my father's signature. My siblings were all very close to our mother and they immediately sided with her. I was the only child still living at home, and I assume that my mother and siblings had all discussed the divorce and were prepared for it. It was a surprise to my father and to myself. The divorce decreed that as a child I stay with my mother, and that my father pay child-support until I was an adult. I was the only sibling that really liked my father's parents and enjoyed visiting my grandparents. Our farm was sold, the money divided and my mother remarried immediately. So by the time that I was in the Navy and got involved with The Way, I really did not have very good relations with my siblings. Then as today, I do make an effort to visit the family once every year or two. But my mother maintains a very high level of control over what they each are allowed to do in life. One year she decreed that all sons and son-in-laws should have vasectomies, and within a month; three of my brothers and my brother-in-law all had it done [not I]. My father was very hard hit by his divorce; he had thought that after 20 years of marriage everything was fine. Since then he has gone through wives, every year or two. Sometimes we only meet a given wife once, and the next time I meet him, he has a new wife. My eldest sister [Judy] married a grape-farmer who soon became a deacon in our hometown Baptist church. We have enjoyed a few nice discussions with them, over the years about Biblical inerrancy. Once Bonnie and I did speak with my father about our involvement with TWI. He was not receptive to it, As an adult, I have never been able to sit in his presence accept that within 5 or 10 minutes he becomes agitated and prone to physical violence. Over the past 20 years, he has written us numerous times threatening us, that if we did not straighten out our lives and become respectable, he would beat us, or kill us. I still call him for Father's day, and for his birthday each year. He openly cusses at me, and tells me that I am worthless, etc. In 1985 when our first son was born, my father came to the hospital and became very threatening. We got a restraining order put against him at that time. Bonnie and I used to enjoy visiting my Paternal Grandparents. Once she wanted to talk to them about The Way, and our home fellowship. But my Grandfather cut her off, and explained that my father had already filled them in on our involvement with a "mind-altering satanic-cult" and that he had no intention of giving us any money to support it. We never had any intention of asking anyone for money, but I suppose such was a common tale among the churches and 'anti-way' propaganda. Otherwise we did have a fairly close relationship with my Paternal Grandparents. All the way up until both of their deaths in their late 90's. My Maternal Grandparents openly were always polite with me as a child. As an adult I tried to visit them each year, they openly criticized me for not having a respectable career. [in their culture, anyone who wears a necktie or a suit is a crook. They lost their first farm in Oklahoma during the dust-bowl / Great Depression and they lost their second farm in California to Eminent Domain during the construction of Don Pedro Hydro-Electric Dam.] Last summer we met with my father and his current wife. She is trying to 'make peace' in between us. During our discussion, it came out that my father strongly believes that Bonnie and I have been drug-abusers, apparently for many years he has 'confirmed' his belief that we were using heroin each time that we did something that he did not understand. He is still upset that I have never held a job, and how I could have gone so far through life and yet never become a 'responsible citizen'. My father and his new wife are members of their local Baptist church in Missouri and he teaches children’s Sunday school classes. Bonnie has no surviving parents, both of her parents died of cancers within a year of each other, when she was 13. Her teen years were spent living with various cousins and she finally moved in with a girlfriend from school and lived there while attending high school. Bonnie does have an elder sister, who did take PFAL and had gone WOW. She left the WOW field and has never attended a twig since. This was all before I met Bonnie, in 1979. When Bonnie was already an Advanced Class grad. I do try with my family. I see them now, at least every couple years and we still are willing to pray with them, or share the Bible with them. :-)

LOL I only recall one guy who we signed up and then did not complete PFAL. I agree with you entirely about the "I have a jack, but I wont help you" part. That has been exactly our attitude with it. We never really paid much attention to how many 'stuck' with the ministry. That was not the purpose of witnessing to folks and getting them through PFAL. As we moved around, we kept in touch with many of the guys that we got through PFAL, and we were interested in whether or nto they were 'in' only in the context of seeing if we were going to bump into them some ministry function somewhere. I commonly did try to warn folks as they transfered away so that they would not walk blindly into what they had thought would be a loving fellowship, and suddenly find a group of Hitlers. A couple times we did hear that some were still 'in' and we prayed with them, in some cases it went on for years. In other case, we would get a call that they had tried such and such a fellowship, but got spat on [figuratively], and we prayed with them. One man we got through PFAL {Dan] called me a week ago. He is a Methodist minister in South Carolina now. It did not really phase us at all that he was not able to successfully meld in with the nazis. We were and still are thankful that he was able to come into his own ministry and help others. :-)

Steve!: "... Lucas was talking about 3 trilogies, yes - Parts IV, V, VI, then I, II, III, then last, VII, VIII, IX." "The third trilogy was supposed to be the rebuilding of the Empire, or something like that, and after the time period of ROTJ." It has been a while since I last read the books of the children, I dont recall their names. But yes that could certainly be a big opening for numerous more story lines.

Aye aye, sir ;-)

After seeing 'Sith' this morning, I called and spoke with an old friend in California. He is a camera-man and theater-projection-dolby sound guy. He was telling me that Lucas has been talking for years about an additional trilogy. This was supposed to be three sets of trilogys, adter all. The next trilogy to be the life and times of Darth Vader. That 20-year period between when he dedicates himself to serving the Sith, until the time of Luke Skywalkers coming of age. :-) The books onthe other hand seem to focus on the later life and times of Luke, Lieia and Han: as they raise the next future generation of Jedi.

A lot of wookys too. Man I do like their beards. :-)

satori001: "Annakin's ... a... big baby." True. "When Windu and Palpatine have their tiff, it looks like Windu is smiling inappropriately, at one "point." The DVD will show more, if it isn't edited out." Was that a smile, or a grimace of determiation? "Dooku was surprisingly cooperative at his exit, knowing what he knew." Movies. I compete foil-fencing, I coach foil-fencing. Fight until the judge calls 'halt' and declares that the point was made against you. To stop and gloat, or let down your guard, while your opponent has an opportunity to attack you is dumb. But every movie does it. For 'effect'? "Yoda was impressive ... Stoic resignation would have worked better than "Woo hoo, I rule, dude!" Ahh, give the poor dude a chance. It had been pointed out to me, in a fight scene from the last movie that when he fought [think running up walls across the ceiling nd doing lots of mid-air twirling] the freeze-frames made it clear that he was on one foot, and through out he limped on his cane. This movie made a point of showing both Yoda's feet, his toes, and even focused on his cane laying on the floor clearly away from him. ??? "Lucas couldn't resist a little political comment in a couple of places. "If only we could go back to diplomacy, and give it a chance to work." - Padme "Whoever isn't with me is my enemy." - Darth V. I don't care when he wrote it, scripts get things called "re-writes." True, however this comment could have easily been made in any of the past four decades, and could have been interpreted as focused on current political events. :-) Edited upon request, though truly anyone having read the books [or having seen the rest of the movies] would know this part. :-)

Yes. I only stood in line for one hour, so yes it was worth it. I find it a shame that it takes so long for him to make each movie, but such is life. :-)

Herbiejuan- What promotional stuff were you given? I remember attending a public Exhibition of PFAL in 1979, when I signed up and paid for the class; though I do not recall what it was that they were showing. In the late 1980's I was given a copy of 'changed'. I dont think it ever occured to us to show 'changed' as a public Exhibition for PFAL. I do recall hearing of people who ran the first session of PFAL, as a public exhibition for putting together a class. I think that doing such would have been terribly difficult to do, since Limb offices routinely wanted to see proof that you already had 7 students signed-up and paid for, and a quart of blood before they would give you the first session of PFAL. I do seem to think that the Twig Leader's handbook did list showing stuff for a public-ex, but I would rather have spent the day jabbing my face with a fork rather than going to limb and bleeding before them begging to get anything form of support for our twig. Mind you I am only speaking from our terribly short and limited exposure to TWI over 18 years: in California, Washington, Connecticut, and Scotland. :-)

Belle: "How many people did you witness to, bring to fellowship and sign up for the class? How many stuck around?" Over the years, I have no idea of how many I got into TWI. We ran some classes though. We generaly had a bordering house type of setup. Most people who lived in our house or in one of our apartments usually attended fellowhsip with us, usually. Most of them took PFAL, most finished PFAL. Of those some we are still in contact with, some 'locate' us and give us a call every few years. Last week I got a call from a guy [Dan] who rented an apartment from us 1987-1990 in Scotland [actually he rented an old abandoned single-wide mobilehome or travel-trailer from us. When we bought the apartment building it was parked behind the building hidden in a huge bush. I found it when we were cleaning out the fresh-water spring that fed the building, soon afterward we rented it out to Dan. By 'sticking around' do you mean they stayed 'in' TWI? None. In about every case we hear of, as soon as we left an area, or the people were stationed at a new area most of them 'left' TWI very soon afterwards. Pretty much as soon as they had their first experience with WC, they were gone. I can think of one couple Dave and Gail who did stay 'in' for another 5 - 6 years afterwards, and they did successfully deal with WC for a while, but even they finally left. "How many people did you see the wc bringing in and signing up?" Never saw any such thing. It was always the WC who chased folks away. No I take that back, we did know one WC couple John and Margi in Mystic who flourished with a fellowship of their own. We still are in contact with them, he preaches in chruches now days, alternates between two different churches, I have even attended with him. "I brought close to 30 people to fellowship and signed up 2 people for the class." Well at last you gave it a shot. "None of the people I brought stuck around and many never came back after the first fellowship and exposure to TWI." Maybe they just were not called at that time. "WC in my area? I *think* one was supposed to have a co-worker come one night but I can't remember if they ever showed up. If they did show up they never came back." Sounds about right. But I really would not know. We seldom were ever close enough to an actual WC's home or Twig, to have attended one. So I really could not say what happened in their own fellowships. I would have to assume that somehow they got a few new bodys into their fellowships. Otherwise when they moved around, they would never have any ... Our exposure to the concept was more from them wanting to come and do an annual visit, to get out and 'meet the beleivers'. Get directions and find each fellowship in their branch before they went back to the ROCK and were relocated. I think that there may have been some kind of written reports or something that made WC branch Coordinators to go out and actualy find their twigs right before they went back to the ROCK and were relocated. Otherwise we would not have lost nearly as many beleivers as we did over the years. It was bad enough during those annual 'limb-meeting / WC recruitment meetings', I hated those things. Always knew I was going to be 'confronted' by some jerk who did not know my name. But looking back I really dont think that we 'lost' people due to Limb Meetings per say, it was just that I hated them. :-)

It is good to hear that some schools still allow the kids to run around a bit. We were really amazed when dealing with the elementary schools here in Ct, with the foster children, and their lack of 'run around and blow-off the stink' time. Also the amount of shear waste of money, is mind-boogling. Assuming that they did buy competley new textbooks every year [which I can not imagine happens anywhere], stills leaves the school board with an average of $8300 per child per school year. If you had 25 kids in one room, the average expendature for that one classroom would be $207,500!!! After the teacher's salary which averages $50k-65k, that still leaves $140,000 for the administration, building maintenance, bus company, janitor and utilities. If you have 12 classrooms in one elementary school that cruddy building that was built in the 1950's is flushing $1.6 - $1.7 Million per year, not including teacher salarys !!! If we scrapped the whole system. Encouraged one parent per block to take in and teach 'grammar' school; with parents of children either spliting the cost, or assisting. We would save Billions, test scores would soar back to where they were one generation ago [up until the 1930s], and we would not be in this situation. If you dont want 'same-sex safe-sex' techniques taught at the 2nd grade, then dont do it. Grammar School graduates could either: enter trade schools, or union halls, or start a career, or go on to Highschool. Highschools could go back to focusing on being college-prep. Colleges could go back to focusing on handling young adults who are already literate, and dont need remedial coursework. :-)

One of our local High-schools is very small and they only take 'problem' kids. Either low scoring [but not low enough to actually trigger 'Special needs' funding], or behavioral issues. The school is NOT college-prep, but focuses on the bare minimums needed to function as a contributing citizen. Their CT MASTERS scores have been so low that when included among the scores state-wide they are the lowest scoring school. After various 'specialists' have toured the school, and all recommendations have failed for getting the test scores up. The state has announced that the highschool will be closed, many of the kids have already been expelled from the other local high-school. So the kids who were attneding this one will either be on the streets, or they will be placed into classes which will assure their failure [since the other high-school does not have any programs for kids in this category]. The younger kids? Without recesses through out each day, I dont see how anyone can expect these kids to funciton sitting quitely in their chairs. When I was little we had recesses, now our elementary school has ONE recess each day, IF it is nice out. The kids sit and 'try to behave', or else they are prescribed drugs. TV, movies, and video games do not help at all. Public schooling costs just so much, it is crazy. Here we are paying a budgeted $8500 per year per child, K - 12. While a good Homeschool curriculum [where truly the textbooks do most of the teaching] can be had brand new for $150 per grade-level. And yet our own local Community college told me, that they would "... seriously prefer children to avoid high-school entirely. If a child can actually master the 8th grade curriculum, the college would rather not waste any further years and possibly 'lose' the child. ... The college would prefer to enroll that child at that point, and start them on a degree program. ... The over-whelming majority of kids enrolling in colleges need to start with remedial courses anyway, ... so what was the purpose of high-school?" :-)

We had the opportunity of knowing both a Steve Strict and a Steve Strezpek. I was not aware that either of them had performed any music. Steve Strezpek was our Limb Leader in Ct in 1980-ish. I only met him once, he was counciling friend of mine about marriage. He had told them that he would marry them, but that he did not feel it was the right time for it. They continued the 'counseling' for 6 months, until it became a 'crisis' as the man was a military servicemember and getting ready to transfer. So I prerformed their wedding for them. That was when Strezpec showed up, and informed us all that he had been lying to the couple. He had no intention of ever marrying them, as he beleived that marriage was only appropriate for corps-grads. He was jsut going through the motions in the hope that they would eventually give up and go to a J.P. I exposed Strezpec's deciet and he threw me out of the fellowship, telling everyone that I was born of a 'different' seed. Steve Strict was our Branch Coordinator in Fresno California in 1983-ish. I think that he was already divorced and re-married at that time. :-) Other than that, and knowing that I coordinated fellowships and ran classes under both men, I doubt whether either man would recognize me on the street if I bumped into them. In fact, I did bump into Strezpec at a Word-in-business conference about 10 years after our first meeting, my beard was at about the same length both times, and he did not recognize me. I had to remind him of the details of our first meeting. and he said "well I do remember that there was a minister in one of our fellowships, and I threw him out, because he was ministering to our people, but he had a beard". To which I had to laugh as I was wearing a beard as I stood before him at the Word in business conference. LOL, What a jerk, what a lying sack of ****. :-)

johniam: "I'm putting forth this question because when VP and others died, we weren't told the cause of death and were made to feel that it is somehow not proper to be curious about how someone died." Good question. "1) Federal law requires a death certificate for any recorded death and every death certificate contains the cause of death. As far as I know, anyone can access any death certificate if they know the date, city, state, and name of the deceased." The CDC [a federal branch says: "State laws require that only death certificates are filed for all deaths and that violent deaths (including homicides, suicides and deaths of undetermined intent) are reviewed by a coroner or medical examiner. States that are funded for NVDRS operate under a cooperative agreement with CDC to which all violent deaths will be voluntarily reported." They say that this information only becomes public "... after it has been stripped of all potentially identifying details including names, addresses, dates of birth" etc. I did a search of Firstgov and could not find a law that federally mandates a death certificate. :-) "2) A casual glance at an obituaries section on any given day will show that some people don't even give the age of the deceased, much less the cause of death. Death is usually dealt with by living family members at whose discretion any info can be revealed or withheld and rightly so." True. When my sister died 1 year and a half ago, we learned at the funeral that she had suffered numerous heart attacks and had the time to write her own funeral service. She had over a year [between her first hospitalization and her final demise] to plan it and arrange for everything she wanted. But after all that nooe of her syblings knew anything was wrong. She had three brothers within an hour's drive, the family got together four times a year for a big supper, and they were usually very gossipy. But when it came to her failing health and her planned death, nobody knew anything about it. Some people do keep these things held close to their chest. "Given all that, I think there's a difference between the death of a private citizen and a public figure, but even for a private citizen, the family sure knows how the person died, so if the person is a public figure with any size following, so should his or her followers be informed about such things." Only if the members of that organization 'vote' on policy and have over-sight. :-)

TheSongRemainsTheSame- LOL "Have ya ever ridden a Bultaco?" No I haven't. Soething to look forward to doing sometime. :-)

LOL Anyone with a beard past their nipples will tell you that you got to do something with it, to keep it out of your eyes on the freeway. :-)

TheSongRemainsTheSame: "What about asexual teenagers???" Please dont take any offense at this, I am asking out of curiosity. Isn't 'asexuality' the same as we used to describe as low or zero libido? I have a male freind from high-school, that even to this day [we are in our mid-40s] has never dated, never had a girlfriend, never had a boyfriend. He is very close to us. He has been exposed to homosexuals and he has been exposed to 'hot-babes', he has simply never felt drawn to either. I also know a lady, whom I have known since 1979, very closely and I love her. She is not attracted to other females, nor does she participate in the usual social girly stuff. [often ladies will dress-up, or use makeup, or jewelry, etc; not to impress men, but rather to gain higher status among other females]. In her case, it goes even to the point that she does not really like the usual 'chick-flicks' or women's romance movies. It is not that she does not like 'men', she likes me. But it is not really a sexual like, she likes me as a close friend, and deals with me more on the basis of a business-partner. I was told long ago, that some poeple simply just dont have much sexual drive, and as such are just are not really interested in either gender. :-)

igotout: "Why? Chances of getting audited under normal circumstances are very slim. Did it have somethng to do with your very creative accounting and tax reporting? Careful!" No no no. They also do audits upon request, Anyone who is not really sure about what they are doing and who wants to know from the real experts if they are doing it the right way, can ask. In that case, we had to 'make-up' some numbers, not due to any fault of our own, but because a property manager had 'lost' all records. So we requested aduits for all years tha twe really were not totally sure about. Audits are a good thing. :-) I dont understand why you would feel that you and I should be afraid of an audit. A person would only need to fear an audit if you had somethig to hide. Hmm? :-)