Watered Garden

Re: Hendrix: OHYECKYEAH! Actually, one year I took our teenage foster kids and one of their friends to the Rock and we all camped out. I "forgot" to tell them about the 6 am blessing. They all sat straight up in holy terror! "What the hell is THAT?" yelled one of them, to his embarrassment. I laughed so hard I couldn't answer for quite some time. WG

One of the last times I remember WC going "with us" was a gray and very rainy day on the Left Coast when the wonderful BL and his pregnant wife took a bunch of us to this apartment complex and told us in no uncertain terms to go win one for TWI. Of course, this being at that time the least religious city in the country, we got lots of door slammed in our faces. However, the BL and wifey found some sweet little old lady who invited the mommy-to-be in for tea, out of pity for her standing in the rain, and they cozily ensconced themselves around this woman's dining room table, the BL only reappearing from time to time to yell at those of us who were still out stumbling around in the downpour. Such love! Because they were comfortable, we got to witness to everybody in the whole complex, then stand around for an hour waiting to be given permission to go home. When I was on my WOW year our WC BL never went witnessing with us, not even when she told us each twig was to get a class together in one week or leave the field. WG

That stuff reminds me of the giant slugs I used to see in my wannabe garden in Washington State. WG

Personally, I always thought waking anyone up with anything at 6 am when they were on a so-called vacation was sin. I was so happy to stay with Mr. Garden's mom at her house rather than sleep in a tent where I didn't sleep at all, dozing fitfully until 2 AM when someone would shriek at the top of their voice right outside: "BUBBA! I HAVEN'T SEEN YOU FOR A MILLION YEARS! GOD BLESS YOU! HOW HAVE YOU BEEN?" I was undoubtedly the biggest grouch on the planet for that week, until we got married and started staying with family. The few times after that we camped outside were made better because Mr. Garden was in the house, er, tent. One year we shared an RV with some folks and were parked far away from the speakers and that was nice too. I am not a camper, unless you consider Day's Inn camping. I'm more a bed & breakfast kinda person. WG

Our tomatoes are coming on strong. I'm waiting for a faxed patient list so I can get to work and probably when I get done I'll have to go pick something. Green beans are done. We have loads of them frozen. Grew a new variety of green bean this year, called "Tenderette." The absolute best! Slender, straight beans, not too interesting to the insect world, and absolutely delicious! We will grow more of these next year. Made bread & butter pickles using my mom's recipe. They tasted good and crisp going into the jars; my first so we'll see. There's an 8 quart stock pot full of tomato sauce gently simmering to cook down on the stove. Life is busy, but good. I thank God every day for the harvest. WG Kimberly, when we lived in North Carolina we had that soil and dumped lime in the hole we dug when we planted the tomatoes. That was my best tomato year ever; canned over 100 quarts of sauce, juice and tomatoes. It was kind of a pain in the butt; however, well worth it. We gardened in the garden of our neighbor, who owned a house in the country where he had composted and amended and worked the soil for years. He saw me trying to grow stuff on a small city lot dominated by a huge maple tree, and took pity on me and offered a patch of his garden for our use. Great guy; his wife taught me to can. I was a lot younger then..... WG

MiniSprout was like that after his trip to the dentist, but whiny and not too happy. They gave him Propofol (an anesthesiologist was there to monitor) and he was equally stoned. Propofol is a wonderful thing in the right hands, i.e. those of a professional anesthesiologist who knows what he/she is doing.) WG

You got it, Kimberly! Next year our bodacious tomato patch will be a bodacious something else patch. Anyone ever found smut on their corn? It is that weird fungus that makes the kernels about the size of golf balls and attracts bugs. We got it pretty good when we lived in NC and now I notice a couple of deer-damaged ears are getting it. In NC we had smut on a few ears of corn that attracted bugs which in turn attracted some of the most humongous spiders and their webs I think I've ever seen - well, except for the mama wolf spiders with their babies on their backs. WG

Waysider, I think I remember that other lifetime of squash myself. Remember the first year when some hapless soul unplugged one of the freezers in the basement of limb, forgot to plug it back in, and some of the households got sick on squash that went bad during that unplugged time? I was one of the upchucking, cursing, moaning individuals who wondered what the heck went wrong with the squashini casserole. WG

That's kind of who I was thinking of too, along with Ted F., Claudettee Royal, and the Joyful Noise group that toured the WOW cities in 1974. WG

As far as the original Way Productions, I think (and I'm certainly no professional musician) that they were about as talented as anyone I've seen. However, I think they were stifled by the requirements of the ministry in general; music was written specifically for TWI and had to line up with their beliefs, thus did not appeal to the mainstream Christian audience. In later years, it just got worse with all the micromanagement. Just my opinion. WG

George, one time we came back for a visit (when we lived in Everett) and when we got on the plane for the return trip, there were a couple dozen native Washingtonians with Ohio ties on board, each and everyone one carrying a large brown paper bag full of tomatoes. The water around here is pretty good, thanks to Kinetico and a Brita filter pitcher. I gotta admit the aquifer was pretty darn decent in Everett. By the way, Charleston, SC can have 100% humidity, 100 degrees Fahrenheit, and NO RAIN. So you might want to add it to your list of "Where I don't want to be." When we came up from Charleston in August, we thought the weather mild and dry. Really. WG

Gee whiz, I missed ROA 1994 because I was being saved from death in a nearby hospital. Missed most of 1995, the last one, including the mandatory morning teachings and twigs, and some of the evening ones, because we went to hang out with our families instead. When the axe fell, all I could think was "THANK YOU GOD!!!!!" wg

Waysider is right about the water in those parts; it did stink. I remember one time when my Mother-in-law lived in Celina about a block from Grand Lake St. Mary's. We would go stay with her and I swear every time I took a shower, I came out smelling worse than when I went in! :blush: We never could drink it. But then at the ROA, any excuse to make a run into a town for beer was a good one! But I love Ohio, even on stinky, sweaty days like today! WG

Thanks, JT. We don't have mountains or oceans, but our tomatoes are terrific! (that's not the state motto, by the way, but it could be)

George? Do us a favor, okay? STAY THE HE11 AWAY FROM OUR STATE! I've been to Snohomish, lived in Everett for three years. I hated living in Washington State, but you don't see me posting hateful things about it, now do you? If you like it, fine, stay there. But I've lived in Ohio off and on most of my life. My mother was from Ohio, and I don't appreciate your rude remarks. WG

Driscoll criticized McLaren for language??? As Garth would say, "Pot, meet Kettle!" <_<

Dooj, as I recall it was not literally about childbirth, it was about seeing results from your labors. I certainly don't remember anything about bovines. WG

Well, this isn't very dramatic but I enjoyed it just the same. I was a WOW in 1974-75 in a Texas city. I lived with the WOW branch leader, Miss Uppity, on her interim year in the 4th WC. She required all of us to address her as "Miss Last-Name." Now since we lived in the same apartment, in private only I was allowed to address her by her first name; if someone else was there, she was Miss Last-Name. Of course this made me feel pretty lowly, but then she was WC and I wasn't, so apparently in her mind that was okay. In the early summer, however, she came very quietly to me and the guys in our WOW family and told us that hereafter we were allowed to address her by her first name at all times. Okay, good, you're growing up. This also held true for the rest of us WOWs. Fast forward to 1975-76 when I'm in Fellow Laborers of Ohio, and getting to know a wonderful young man, the future Mr. Garden. When we were discussing our respective WOW years, he asked me if I had known Miss Last-Name. I explained. He roared with laughter. Seems he had gone to a summer camp that year, and VPW had a meeting with the WOW vets. He asked them what they thought of the current WOW program. One fellow stood up and explained he didn't think much of it at all. "Why not?" asked VPW. "Well," replied the WOW vet, "I visited someone in F* W**th and they are required to address the WOW branch leader, who is 4th WC, as 'Miss Last-Name'." VPW went off, totally ballistic. "Howard! Why wasn't I told about this?" he roared. Next thing ya know, Miss Last-Name is on the phone with VP hissownself and quickly becomes First Name. So the future Mr. Garden told me this, the rest of the story as it were, and I was absolutely delighted. Made a lot of the BS I lived through with that woman worth it. (Of course, she never would have told that to any of us, would've ruined her image as the WOG for that day and time.) WG

I didn't know Mrs. Wierwille well at all, had a few brushes with her at HQ, but... I did know a woman whose daughter was our foster child for a while and then lived with us for a while. We had the daughter because her father raped her several times and she was taken out of the home. He was ordered to pay for her support, but since she did not live under his roof he refused to do so, and the State where we lived would do nothing. So she lived with us at our expense that was fine with us. Anyways, this woman's husband beat the crap out of her one day. She had huge bumps and bruises all over her face. She came to our home to her daughter for help. The daughter promptly called me at work to come home and I did so. I took the mom to the hospital, to the police station, where she was met by a worker who took her to a shelter, and the cops went and got her younger children. This man was the most reprehensible human being I ever met. He felt it his parental responsibility to sexually initiate his daughters. He didn't work, he drank, he beat the crap out of his wife whenever he felt like it. And all the time I was driving her around, she was explaining to me how he was really a good man, he had encouraged her to finish her master's degree and get a better paying job, he had made her who she was today. It was always really her fault he beat her, she should not provoke him when he was intoxicated. She wasn't good enough for him and it was her fault he drank, and he was handicapped and frustrated, and she really deserved the beatings, yada yada. So the cops go and get the kids. The son idolizes his dad, thinks it is hilarious when dad beats mom to the ground, and insists they go back to daddy. So back she goes. Or at least that's her excuse. I listened to this woman for half a day with horrified disbelief as she rationalized and justified to herself the reasons for her husband's behavior, which she convinced herself were HER fault, not his. Then she lets this 12 year old sociopath-in-training talk her into running back home to receive MORE abuse. While I was disgusted, I also gleaned a little insight into the twisted workings of the mind that thinks there is no other way, no other option. This woman apparently thought she would be nobody if she wasn't his wife. Maybe that example and explanation helps a little, maybe not. I don't mean it as an excuse. WG

My sister in law makes a sort of hamburger or chicken stew with zucchini, includes tomatoes, corn, green peppers, anything she happens to have handy. Looked really good; she shows us as we were leaving. We are getting powdery mildew on some of the squash leaves. You can spray them with an oil preparation to kill it, but the plants will be past bearing by the time they croak anyway. Got some fine sweet corn growing. Twinky, the stuff up at the top is called the tassel in these here parts. The little bitty things on them are the pollen, and the stuff at the top end of the ear of corn to-be is corn silk. The silk is a little bit sticky. How it works is each string of silk grabs one of those pollen things and conducts it down to where the corn is growing. One pollen + one silk string = 1 corn kernel. Neat, huh? wg

AWWWW! You Guys!!! I just now saw this, and thank you so much. Went to a little B&B in southwestern Ohio, feasted twice, once there once at a winery we really like. It was so sweet and relaxing and so much fun. We always make memories on our anniversary. Love ya's WG

Sometimes I think they allowed themselves to be "set off" by trivial stuff just to have an excuse to scream their lungs out, give the false appearance of being "spiritual" (Yeah but what kind of spirit, bucko?") and intimidate everyone else. One thing I'm very thankful for is that after living a few years in LCM-ville, I can smell a load of BS 50 miles this side of New Knoxville. WG

Didn't some news report say it is the same thing that caused the Irish potato famine back in the last century? YEECCCHHHHH! WG

HB from WG