Watered Garden

Amen!

I think I would've shot the damn pits myself before the cops got there. I have a coworker friend who is very proanimal and even she doesn't like pit bulls, says they have been through the years specifically bred to fight and kill and thinks the breed should be stopped from reproducing. I expect the young men who are breeding these dogs will probably own some eventually who do kill a child. My grandson weighs 50 lb. Two pit bulls could shred him with no trouble a'tall. Sometimes this world just sucks like an open chest wound. I think I'm going to go cry for a while. Kids and pets murdered for pleasure byvicious perverts. I can't handle any more of this right now. WG

Keith, you allude to an interesting point. I believe that my "new body" will have a pancreas that works perfectly. I also believe that sometimes the healing comes after this life is over, in heaven. I still do condemn myself for being diabetic. sometimes for a few minutes I will try to believe myself to healing. It's been a rough eight years working full time in a big city in a big medical center hospital. I haven't always taken care of myself as I should. But in 11 more days I'm retired, and on the road to whatever recovery I can make. I knew a guy once who had type I diabetes and tried to get healed by throwing away his insulin for a while and claiming perfect health. Some years later, he died while undergoing dialysis. I've prayed for people who were delivered of diseases, including one woman who walked inside a hospital in Charleston, and "coded" right outside my office door. While others were scurrying frantically about I stood quietly and prayed, and she took a breath, opened her eyes, and looked right at me. Finally the ER folks arrived to scoop her up and carry her off, but I suspect she got better quickly. Our women's group has started studying a book titled "Becoming a Woman of Faith." I hope to learn a lot from it. At least I don't have a bunch of people screaming at me and shaming me anymore. That's a huge blessing. WG

OH MY! I forgot about the "branch leader" checks in FLO. Of course they did that in the FWC also, but by then I was much more brainwashed. I definitely told the BL my first year in FLO to stay out of my unmentionables drawer. He smoked a pipe, and used this vanilla scented pipe tobacco, and one day I came home from work and the upstairs of our apartment smelled like it, and was I ever irritated. My first thought was to buy some mousetraps and stick at the bottom of the drawers. But I did buy some stuff I hope embarrassed the he** out of anyone who looked. (Boy was I naive!) I never actually thought of someone stealing from me under the guise of leadership inspections, though it probably happened in other situations. I did have to retrieve some nice jewelry from someone who "borrowed" it and kept it locked in her car, even though her room was right next door though. Maybe I will start a thread on stuff like that... WG

Waysider forgot to add there were too snakes in Fellowlaborers! They just weren't the slithery kind!!!! <_<

Our wonderful son hadADHD and had to be on medication when he was younger. When we left FWC and moved to WA, we didn't put him back on medication for a while, and naturally, he had all kinds of problems, from acting out at school to being a twitchy kid in twig. At first we were told, there was no such thing as ADHD and he needed to be severely punished for every infraction. Finally we were told to "get rid of him." The things I am learning from him about his early childhood, before we adopted him at age 8, make my skin crawl. It's a miracle of God he's still alive. It's all about appearance with TWI. I now have a very active, adorable, aggravating, mischievous grandson, with a very strong personality. And outside his immediate family, where is he loved the most? AT CHURCH! He has over 100 friends there, who think he is too cute for words, and no one has ever suggested he should be slapped, slugged, beaten, thrashed, smacked or anything of the sort. His litlte class got up and did a song and he just stood there and grinned. I kept thinking about how performance-based TWI was and how much trouble we all would have been in. But the church we belong to got it right; he is just loved and adored, with all the other kids big and small. INCIDENTALLY - "Trophy Mentality" is one of the best phrases I've heard on this forum! Hats off to Waysider!

The first incident I saw of this was in 1973-74. A woman in our limb had cancer, bad, and was yelled at, condemned and criticized by the Powers That Be in that state and from HQ. She was accused of not believing God, not believing God's Word, and of course the worst thing that she could not possibly do, not believing VPW. She died, of course. My own experience I have recounted many times here. In 1994, I was diagnosed with insulin dependent diabetes less than a year after we were kicked out of the FWC 20. I was criticized and talked about roundly. A sister of the wife of the MOGFODAT asked me "Do you understand what it is that YOU DID that caused this to happen to you?" After that we were under suspicion. When we went to the ROA in 1995, people shied away from us that we had known and loved for years and years. No one from our old fellowships in SC wanted to be seen talking to us. This wasn't the only reason, of course, but I think looking back it had a lot to do with it. WG

I remember LCM talking about how he didn't counsel a wife without the husband present because it wouldn't be proper! WG

I think there were a few people who were genuine. During my latter years as a twibot, though, I saw hypocrisy in leaders great and small. Example: The woman who loved to feed her four small children pie for breakfast on Sundays, loading them with a sugar buzz which manifested itself during the Sunday morning fellowship she and her husband ran. The little darlings would be bopping all over the place. My son, however, carefully fed a sugar-free breakfast and prepped with Ritalin by his fearful mother, was REQUIRED to sit silently and squirm-free on the floor, legs crossed in front of him, hands folded in his lap, his eyes glued to a Bible or the magnificant visage of our glorious twig leader who was holding forth the present truth. One twitch, one moan, and he was to be removed to the bathroom and beaten. However, her kids were twice as disruptive and never corrected. This same woman, when I was first diagnosed with diabetes and half blinded, grudgingly took me to the doctor one time, being sure I understood how busy she was and what a huge favor she was doing me. It was only a couple miles from where I lived, so after that I just walked until I got my sight back totally and could drive. Then, a year or so later, she had surgery. Well, guess who was ordered to come over every day and clean and clean and clean. This woman wanted her bathrooms cleaned every day, starting with washing down the walls. Then the whole house had to be vacuumed. Then finally, she mentioned she would like the furniture dusted. Her 10-year-old eldest son took it on himself to REPROVE me for dusting AFTER I had vacuumed. I had stuff of my own to do and had been there about an hour, scrubbing and polishing and all, so I told him I was performing tasks in the order in which his mother had requested them and maybe he needed to go correct HER. The third or so time I came over to do all this, the little branch leader's wife had called me the night before, and told me I shouldn't spend more than 15 minutes doing housework for this woman. The next morning she was there herself with the invalid, sipping tea and chatting. I spent my usuall 45-60 minutes cleaning away and do you think this great little woman of God branch leader's wife stood up and said, "Garden, you don't need to be here cleaning all this time. Mrs. Hotsi-Totsie, I told her last night on the phone not to be here more than 15 minutes. your house doesn't need to be immaculate all the time and you are taking advantage of her." OH HECK NO! She just sat there and sipped her tea and smiled. Two hypocrites for the price of one! WG

Here at work I get "ACCESS DENIED! Your whatever has designated this as "mature content." Of course I put in "The Way International" one time and got a message that the powers that be had designated it as pornography. No surprise there.

I graduated from PFAL in 1973 and went to teh ROA the next weekend with my friend's borrowed sleeping bag, a Bible, a change or two or clothes and a few dollars. Everyone was wonderful and kind and helpful; one guy from Minnesota even proposed to me! There was a subtle change that happened over time, with more emphasis on teachings, attending twigs at 11 am without fail. Regimentation and legalism crept in and by the late 80's it wasn't as much fun. In 1993 we went into the FWC and were dismissed after three months. In 1994 I spent the ROA in the hospital in St. Mary's being diagnosed with insulin dependent diabetes. Several people came to see me; no one offered to pray. This pains me, remembering the healing nights the early Rocks would have. In 1995, we flew back but stayed with relatives in Van Wert. We didn't attend but about on session of the socalled class LCM was ranting about every night. The old friends from South Carolina I had so looked forward to seeing were always looking around me, to see if anyone saw them speaking to an almost pariah. Between the dismissal from FWC and being diabetic, I was pretty much an outcast I guess, but too dumb to know it. Also I think they had decided by then my son was possessed and needed to be stoned. I would arrange to meet someone for lunch, someone I loved and trusted and respected, and she would never show up, and her friends would laugh at me about it. I thought 1995 was pretty sad anyway. No spontaneity. I really don't remember much except the fear and sadness.

An illustration would be for example spiders and me. Intellectually I know most spiders are relatively harmless to humans. They can be extremely beneficial in a garden. While only a very few of them have venom sufficient to sicken or kill a human, those that do are extremely nasty. They will only bite if they are hungry or threatened. All of them, even South American bird-eating tarantulas, are smaller than me. In the garden, I can generally leave them alone, unless they are camped out in the vicinity of a ripe, red, juicy, tomato. BUT..... If I am not being logical and observant about them, I can walk into or almost into a spider web and go nuts! I will scream, run around frantically looking for the web's former denizen (whose happy home I have probably destroyed) and once I find it, hopefully not on my person, stomp it to death with great abandon. During this time I am breathing hard, sweating, and having cold chills and nausea. All this in spite of the fact that I know that even if it bites me, it won't kill me. Paragraph 2 is a phobia. On the other hand, a pretty normal fear for most people would involve the aforementioned fight or flight situation, i.e. oncoming tornado, snarling dog, etc. WG (shivering at the thought of those big black and yellow garden spiders!) :unsure:

Dot, In his book Chief Greenburg tells how to take back the streets. We moved to Charleston about the same time he did. In the "projects" and poorer neighborhoods, there was quite a bit of purse snatching. The perp would knock down a little old lady, sometimes breaking bones, grab her purse and run. The citizens were outraged; where were the police? They got there too late to do anything except paperwork. Chief Greenburg's reply was "Hey! YOU were there? What did you do?" A couple weeks after that, in the same neighborhood, a lowlife scumbag attempted to rape a woman. The citizens of that neighborhood chased the jerk down, cornered him in an abandoned building, and then called the police to come get him. Rocky and a couple others have made the point that properly organized, neighborhood watches do work. The neighborhood watches in Columbus, Ohio have cleaned up several neighborhoods. Keep records. Write down the license numbers of automobiles cruising the neighborhoods looking to buy drugs, hire a prostitute, start a fight. You can learn to do this subtly. Buy a big, loud dog and take it for a walk after supper, before it gets really dark, but so people can see you have a big loud dog. And Chief Greenburg made some points about what the police CAN do. Once in Charleston the police shut down a house of ill repute by looking up their utility records, finding their water bill overdue, and getting the water shut off. Next, they starting writing down license plates and issuing parking tickets when they could. They made the point that this was business in a residential district and they were violating the zoning laws. Charleston was very creative; that helped move out the bad guys. WG

When we were living in a very nice suburb of Seattle, my son, in middle school (6, 7, 8) became very enamoured of joining one or the other of these gangs, I forget which. He had a 6th grade friend whose older brother was a Crip, so I think that was the one. He went around for a while with one pantsleg pushed up. My husband came home and found him shooting baskets with a stocking cap pulled on his head in 80 degree weather and hit the roof. I just made him as miserable as possible. I called them "the creeps and the cruds". Back then none of it seemed very real. I think you have to be a real LOUD squeaking wheel in this situation. I would write e-mail and call my congressman. I would e-mail, write and call the chief of police, the mayor, the city council, and I would hold a neighborhood meeting and consider hiring a private organization of bodyguards or something to defend against these little buttholes. There is NO excuse for their behavior, no social issues merit thuggery. The police are most likely waiting for the little darlings to murder a few of your neighbors, Dot. Just maybe, they will then have to do something about them. A book I recommend: "Let's Take Back Our Streets" by Reuben Greenburg, who was chief of police of the City of Charleston, South Carolina for many years. One of my personal heroes. He's got the right attitude in that book. Crime is wrong. Period. Law abiding citizens should NOT have to tolerate this kind of crap.

One of my very favorite restaurants has spinach dip that includes the spinach, sour cream, mayo, onion, garlic and chopped artichoke hearts. Served with thick, multicolored tortilla chips. The dip is warm and also has cheese on top. It is totally awesome and sometimes I just make a meal of it. WG

Wow! My husband gives our dogs potato peel all the time! And I have given them both grapes. they never got sick, we never gave them much at all, but I had NO idea. thanks so much for posting this. I am so sorry to hear about the dog who died. WG

Thanks for the good wishes. Cleophus should definitely learn a lesson from this one! It's still way too cold for my taste here in the center of the state of Ohio. We took son home last night about 9:00 and I got to drive back, over about 20 miles of lovely black ice, with another driver on my rear way too close all the way. Such fun! I really will go back to work tomorrow. I wonder how many fellow spotters have had to brave the ice and cold and work through all this junk? Anyone with tales to tell out there? WG

Well, I think we got about 6-7 inches, but it's blown about so much it's hard to tell. My old crippled Labrador got stuck in a snowdrift this morning and husband had to tote her back to safey. We got the car stuck. Got it out a couple hours later, with a neighbor's help. I miss my CR-V. I've been home two days with a nasty awful cold that produces a brain-rattling cough, but I have to go back to work tomorrow. I'm glad I was off. THE Ohio State University Medical Center considers ALL its employees essential in time of severe weather. Never mind I'm almost 40 miles away, out in the country, etc. You are supposed to get there ON TIME and stay until dismissed. You may not do your regular job. (unfortunately, this doesn't mean I get to perform open heart surgery because the regular surgeon didn't show up and I get paid $500,000). I would most like be required to push a gurney, about 400 pounds, upon which was a patient, about 360 pounds, who would say, "Honey, I need a bedpan! RIGHT NOW!" So this is one cold I don't too much regret. Husband, son and grandson went sledding. It's almost dark out, so hopefully they have come to their senses and are heading home. There is a kiddies' program at our church on Wednesday evenings, but probably it has been canceled too. The whole middle part and northern part of the state seems a frozen parking lot. I can hardly wait until 6:30 AM tomorrow morning, when I head out to become a slave of the big block O once again. Oh, yeah, I remember teh blizzard of 1978. What a nasty situation. Waysider, fellow fellowlaborer of Ohio, may also remember the winter before that, when there was not so much snow, but it got down around 0 degrees and stayed there. Our then limb leader got the brilliant idea of making troughs down a hillside at limb, which was out on Home Road somewhere, and we could all get out in the icy and refreshing, stimulating and energizing night cold, well below zero, and slide down the hill. One frolicking soul broke off a fruit tree which had been planted the previous summer, by my husband, who had graduated fellow laborers of Ohio, but was just as irritated as if he'd been there himself. And I got in trouble, because as usual, I wasn't out enjoying freezing my butt, but hanging around inside where it was warm. WG

I remember from ROA: Beautiful Ohio where dreams come true God has shed His grace upon all of you Rivers here are crossable With God all things are possible that's all I remember before rolling over and jamming a pillow over my head!

Wow, Jonny, I don't know what to say. I have certainly valued your e-friendship, and I will miss you a lot. May God bless you and your family in every way. Hope you drop in and see us once in a while. Love ya's WG

We knew a little hippie couple who wer TC and ran classes in a southeastern Ohio college town. In about 1989 we visited Ohio and saw them. They told us about what a great class they had just run; the students all went out on break and disappeared for 20 minutes. They knew these kids were smoking pot and the only thing they said, was "Well! At least you could have invited us to join you!" WG

We lived in Jax for a year or so, and 40 degrees in Jax is like 10 degrees everywhere else. I think it's the dampness or humidity or something, but I've been colder in Jax and the Seattle area than anywhere in the Midwest when it's real winter here! Thankful you guys are okay. WG

presa canario = Canary Island Mastiff.

Are you guys trying to write cirrhosis of the liver? Psoriasis is a skin condition and psychosis is a mental illness. WG, medical transcriptionist extraordinare!

Were they called the Maccabees? And Masada was the place. The Roman general built a long ramp up to the walls so the soldiers could climb over? It took like a year at least, and when he finally entered the city, they had all killed their families and then themselves? Something like that. I think there was a TV special years ago. WG