Teens were unsupervised......because a large portion of the parents, corps and non-corps, were working behind the scenes and/or off to another meeting. Sheeeesh. Couldn't be at two places at one time.
The roa was NOT a family event...........it was a meeting after meeting, teaching after teaching event. The kids didn't attend this thing to just sit on their butt. Nor did young teens want to be with their mom, in tow, all day long....day after day. In all my years with twi.........they NEVER figured out how to better approach this growing concern.
Well, Skyrider, didn't they put together the Teen Stage at one point? (what years did they have that?)
I never went over there, but heard from several kids that they liked it, a lot.
But then, all of a sudden, lcm goes on a rant about the guys who were pushing the teen activities:
Joe G and Kevin G, to be specific. They were great with the kids, and the kids loved them for it.
More than once I heard lcm rant during a meal time to/about these two gentlemen. He said they had their priorities messed up. He said they were catering to the teens' worldly natures instead of bringing them to the Word. He said he didn't give a rip if the teens liked it or not, there would be no more teen stage. No more teen summer school. (if memory serves, this was BEFORE the whole ROA orgy rant happened... Radar, do you remember the timeline on this?)
I never understood it, even at the time. I had worked a teen summer school with these guys and seen how they got the kids to enjoy the Bible and bond with each other and step up a bit to teach, etc... it was great. Next thing I know, lcm says "no more of that". It always seemed to me that lcm was jealous of the attention and appreciation these men were getting from the next generation of believers.
I only went to ROA through the '70's so I did not personally observe alot of what has been posted. Of course I'm not saying I doubt these recollections at all. I think for some of us who were no longer teenagers at this time and had seen secular festivals that were out of control parties, the ROA was like a breath of fresh air, an opportunity to go to a festival with the greatest music on the planet, great friends wall to wall, and no pressure to comform to the sex and drug culture we were trying to put in our past. How it came apart at the seams I'm not really sure but I'm pretty certain if GOD's hand had been on it as much as we were told we probably would be "headed for Ohio" right now. Slight derail: remember "ROA72" and how we used it to branch witness and then do a hard sell sign up when the lights came on? It was touted as the Christian version of "Woodstock, The Movie". HA and again I say HA!
I never understood it, even at the time. I had worked a teen summer school with these guys and seen how they got the kids to enjoy the Bible and bond with each other and step up a bit to teach, etc... it was great. Next thing I know, lcm says "no more of that". It always seemed to me that lcm was jealous of the attention and appreciation these men were getting from the next generation of believers.
Highway.......that's exactly how I took it, too.
Martindale was envious of the growing teen success........he canned it, and fabricated lies to cover it. Just more character assassinations for the sake of mogville supremacy.
Score week. Funny. One of the odd things about being a single woman at Corps Week was marriage proposals. Some guys begin them by listing their qualifications in a nervous kind of monologue. If a girl recognizes it in time, she can steer him away from the conclusion of the monologue, and the popping of the question, to save him embarrasment, if she's less than enthusiastic.
One guy was talking to me while I was thinking about something else. Oops. I let him down as gently as possible. Funny thing was, the next day, I was sitting outside the Corps tent, reading a book on a break from work. It was the only place to be temporarily alone, to rest my feet.
There were voices coming from inside the tent, but it was darn nigh impossible to be "really alone" at Corps Week.
I finally got up and moved when I recognized one of the voices.
I recognized it because I'd heard that same monologue the day before.
He was a sweetheart of a guy. I hope that she said "yes."
For the record, alot of the teens thought the teen stage was lame. Especially junior corps. Most kids didn't love the cheesy music or spending their summer vacation doing what we did 24 hours a day: studying the bible, in the heat, outside. Since it was for all teens the teachings were super simple and almost condescending. Did I really need to sit thru more teachings about The Law of Believing and abundant sharing? To Junior Corps that was like being taught the alphabet again and again. We hated it.
We did notice that non corps teens seemed to like it more than we did.
Teen Summer School was a different story (except there was tons of sex and booze there too). We understood it was to study the word, we were supervised (most of the time) and our time was structured. I enjoyed Teen Summer School for a whole different set of reasons that I enjoyed ROA.
Tom, you have far too many good qualities to fit into a monologue . . .
Back to the subject, I remember knocking on my St. Marys upstairs neighbor's door at 11:30 at night, or maybe midnight, to ask them to please turn down their loud music, as we had a festival going on, and I had to be back at work by 5:30 am. They were very nice about it. Whatever 5:30 am gig I had, it was in addition to my office job, which started at 8:am.
I think that I was doing some kind of drink tent that year. My assignments varied so much that the only thing consistent was long, long hours.
I do remember that Clark Ratliff (6th Corps?) ran one of the Coffee tents that I worked on, and he did a great job. Very, very nice guy.
I have wondered whether exhaustion from working so much might have contributed to Harry Cox's death in that auto accident, on the way to breakfast one Corps Week morning, but I don't know whether Harry had been working late the night before, or just visiting. I'd only seen him briefly, when he'd first arrived that week, just long enough for a quick hug.
One year I drove back to TN, cleaned windows, then drove back exhausted through the night. An eighth corps coulda bit the dust with me as we sleepily drifted back at 70 mph to fulfill our corpse obligations.
straying from just ROA exhaustion, I remember falling asleep on the road a few times after marathon meetings and setup ... then having to get back to school or work. Once I did a 180 under an overpass ... some guy almost immediately stopped and pulled my stuck car our with his pick up ... then right ater that a semi with "GRACE" written on the side went by. :blink: A future 11th corpse was riding with me ... we could easily have departed this world early. Other times I remember sticking my head out the window, screaming and slapping myself to stay awake on the road ...
And there was Kirsteen McD... not sure of the circumstances there ... but didn't she collide in a median on her way to Corps? She survived, but can't remember what finally happened with her ...she made it in residence at least for a little while.
Our caring elders in the Word tended toward condemnation for lack of commitment if you didn't put in those long hours ... and we sorta took it as a challenge ... while fatigue made our brains more pliable.
Let's look on the bright side for a moment... with my experience and training I'm confident that I can plan and stage every aspect of a meeting whether it be for 10 or 10,000...
AND
I can always get a job working a food booth with a carnival...
Rhino...That is scarey...and I can So relate.....sigh
We thought that we were invincible...our *believing* would cover every stupid decision that we made...shoot, I think that deserves a thread of it`s own.
The water was bad in 81/82 ish? I got so sick in '82 I was in the corps tent hearing things around me an unable to speak I was so ill --- It was the dang water? I forced myself up and almost feel over.... The water?
Dott, It was at roa 81 for sure. I was told later by a friend that worked third aid that the water was the source of the contamination, that there had been many many sick people.
I have never been that ill before or since. I was in the camping over flow area on the other side of the osc building and was way too weak to crawl all the way to the food tents. I just lay in the stifeling heat for three days.
There was very little foot traffic to even try to call for help....even had I thought to.
My TC bless her soul sent a yogurt and drink by once a day ... if she hadn`t i don`t think that I would have survived.. It really bothered me that I had no loved ones or family within 700 miles to care whether I lived or died....It was the first time that I realised how really all alone I was ...that my *spiritual* family really didn`t feel like I was their responsibilty any more after their corpes assignement had ended :(
You do know that the Grand Lake of St. Mary is less than 12 miles from TWI HQ and in summer with heat and humidity will naturally cause thunderstorms in the afternoon and evening. Oh, the first ROA was held at HQ in 71, sidney in72, 73, 75, 76, Lima in 74, HQ in 77 on. How many remeber ROA"72 that CBS filmed a 30 minute documentary and later was used by TWI as promotion for PFAL? IN 1979 I was both on Bless patrol for 6 hours, but felt more like 12 and sang in The Way Chorale Internationale. VP and Dotsie thought we were superior to the Mormon Tabernacle Choir.
TLB ------If VP and Dottsie were basing that choir opinion on how much heart you put into it, I just might have to agree with them. As for ROA72, the movie: I remember it well . It was produced ( and maybe directed,though I'm not sure on exactly on these two points)by Bud Morgan who if I am correct in my rememberance, did alot of sports related work for CBS. We ran it with free admission to the public and filled the audience with shills from the local branch. When the movie was over we ran a witnessing extravaganza, and everyone had plenty of green cards and pens for signing up new students. My displeasure was not with the movie itself or for Bud Morgan but rather with the way we decended on the audience like a pack of hungry wolves' I also found it rather humorous that when I saw the movie I thought to myself that being there didn't seem nearly as cool as the movie made it seem. That's Hollywood for ya!
Nope .. ROA 1975 was in LIMA ... rained the whole week of WOW/College WOW training and of course, Rock of Ages also ... muddiest, muckiest experience I ever went through ... 1972, 73, 74, 76 were at the Sidney Fairgrounds....
Rock of Ages 1974, Shelby County Fairgrounds. I had returned from my first year as a WOW ambassador and suffered 4 nights in a tiny pup tent with two other girls, and the rain had washed us out. I was totally exhausted, was coming down with major head cold, and to top it all off, the ROA ended at night, with everyone having to leave the fairgrounds immediately after the evening teaching-- No overnight stay.
I had dutifully packed our gear that afternoon, and my car had only enough room in it for myself and my sister who had met me there to help me drive back home from Ohio. When we tried to leave after the evening teaching, the parking lot was a muddy mess, with gobs of people stuck in the mud up to their bumpers. I was one of them. I had been directed to park in a low soft spot, and my car had slowly sunk into the mud over the rainly period, and when I tried to get out, I just got further in. We had to wait several hours for the one tow truck to finally get to my car. By that time I guess it was at least after midnight, and we faced an 8 hour drive home.
We were both exhausted from spending 4 days in the weather, and me from a grueling year on the WOW field, but soldiered on. We stopped for coffee several times, meeting other believers along the way who were also trying to stoke up on the caffeine to stay awake. I drove as long as I could, but finally we needed to just stop and sleep. We pulled into a highway rest stop and a sign in front of us said "2 hour parking only." Not wanting to collect a ticket, I dutifully set my travel alarm clock for two hours and we went to sleep. It seemed like just a minute later, our time was up and we had to get back out on the road. It was around 4:30 am.
I was getting sicker by the minute and my sister volunteered to take the wheel to let me rest a little more. So I let her drive and went back to sleep. I soon awoke to a huge crashing jolt as I was thrown to the floor. We had struck a guard rail. My exhausted sister had fallen asleep at the wheel and the car was careening across the road, spinning and ricocheting off guard rails across an overpass. I grabbed the wheel and guided the car to the roadside, as my sister was in shock. The car was totalled. We were very lucky to be alive. The State Trooper said we were lucky to have been on the overpass, otherwise we would have crossed the median. --And we were lucky to have the car as loaded down as it was, or we might have gone over the side of the overpass. Fortunately we only had some major bumps and bruises, but we had to wait four hours on a blanket in the hot sun at a gas station for my parents to drive up to pick us up.
We were young and innocent, and did as we were told, obeying people whom we were taught had our best interests at heart. We were given no other option but to leave when we did, and in the condition we were. We were told we could not spend the night at the fairgrounds and leave the next day, we had to leave immediately after the EVENING teaching. So we left in the rain, ill and exhausted, after being stuck in the mud.
The Way International put many thousands of people at risk by subjecting them to the extremes of weather, bringing them to the brink of exhaustion, and then forcing them out on the road simply because they didn't want to pay rent on the fairgrounds for an extra night. The value of your life to them always came down to money in one form or another.
And third aid and bless patrol. What a buncha crap. Third Aid could never do everything they knew they could and should do, because they were limited by TWI rules and regulations. Would love to hear from some of you docs and nurses who gave of your time there...
One year some kind of really bad stomach virus was going around. I think this was probably 1992 or 1993. I got it and ended up at Third Aid feeling like I was gonna puke, but couldn't. They gave me a can of 7-up to sip on, and I came to the brink of up-chucking several times but never did. They told me that I would begin to feel better when I could throw up, but it was getting late and I had already been there several hours, so they told me I should just go back to my tent and rest, that I would eventually be ok, just stay hydrated. Good advice. So I left.
Just befrore I got to the road behind all those meal tents, something about the heat, the humidity, and the smell of that food hitting my face brought me to finally vomit. Then I felt better. The relief was almost instantaneous. I was exhausted, though and suddenly very weak. I estimated that I had just enough energy to make it back to my tent and lay down.
Unfortunately a BP lackey had seen me throw up and rushed to take me to Third Aid. When I told him I had just left there with specific instructions to lay down after having been there for several hours, he didn't believe me. He INSISTED I go with him to Third Aid so HE could be satisfied that I had actually been there, and that I was following their instructions. After exhausting my energies walking back to Third Aid, and standing around until he could verify I was telling the truth, he told me I could go back to my tent. Unfortunately I didn't have the energy to walk anymore.
Give me a ride back to my tent on the cushman? Hell, no, he couldn't do that. He satisfied his own curiosity, then left me to struggle back to my tent while exhausted and barely able to walk.
Another stow-ry for your edification: 1995, the last Millstone of the Millennium. I was walking down the road near the shower tents to go fill up a tea jar at the outdoor sinks. A people mover was making its way down my side of the road, so to make sure I wasn't in the way, I got off the pavement into the grass near a bunch of electrical boxes, and stepped into an unmarked, uncovered trench and snapped my ankle. Very quickly Bob Ed Wierwille was there with his radio. I told him I found a hole for him and immediately several buckets of sand were brought to fill the trench while I was still sitting there on the side of the road.
I got a ride to the Third Aid trailer where they iced my ankle. I knew that nothing could be determined without an x-ray. So did the two consecutive nurses who examined me. Because it was my left ankle, I knew if I could just get a ride to my car, I could drive myself to the hosptial in St. Marys. But TWI had several layers of policies. They had to have their doctor look at my ankle to determine if it was necessary for me to go to the hospital (Why the hell can't I determine that myself?), and they had to page him from wherever he was to come look at it. I had to wait at least an hour and a half for him to show up.
Then when it was determined that I needed an x-ray, they had to find someone from my branch to drive me there. I was supposed to be able to tell them where anyone from my branch of about 50 people were at any given moment on their grounds so they could go find them. Luckily for me, I could see the water spray from where I was sitting in the trailer, and recognized one of the Moms from my branch who just happened to be there with her kids. They collared her and she found someone who could drive me. This whole process took another couple hours-- to locate someone who could drive me, get their boss to clear them to take off work, get out to Third Aid, and then drive us to my car on a cushman. This delayed my treatment many more hours than was necessary. Had I been able to go when I was first injured, there would have been an orthopaedic specialist there to look at the x-rays and he would have seen my ankle was broken in three places.
Instead, by the time I actually got to the hospital, that doc was gone and they only had a radiologist who could not read the x-rays properly and said it was a really bad sprain. I was sent out on crutches in an ace bandage, with an ankle broken in three places. I couldn't walk on the crutches and we ended up having to rent a wheelchair and push it around in the mud at ROA. What a fiasco. And it took about 5 or 6 more months to get the ankle properly diagnosed. What happened in the mean time is posted elsewhere. Won't bore you with the details, but leadership intervened again and made the problem physically infinitely worse.
That's terrible Catcup :( I'm so sorry that happened to you.
TWI's policies were really screwed up when it came to needed any medical attention
The short time I was at HQ I remember getting sick with a real bad throat infection. I was so sick. The uvala ( the thing that hangs in the back of the throat) was as big as a large marble. They didn't let me go to the Dr. until they saw that. I was sick for nearly a week with high fevers before being seen by a physician.
The Dr. in town couldn't believe how bad my throat looked. He gave me a high dose of antibiotics via shot in my butt, then 2 weeks of meds.
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skyrider
When some post about those warm, fuzzy feelings from the rock of ages.........I've got to admit, I had some of those experiences too. But after about my 4th roa....and being corps....those 6 hr - 12
rascal
Skyrider...first off though too little too late.... THANKYOU! :) I always volunteered to work at each roa...but it was only one shift a day so had no idea what the rest of you guys endured to put o
skyrider
(((rascal))) Awww......another worker bee in our midst. Wowsers....you bring to mind the DANGEROUS SITUATIONS that we endured time and time again. Wasn't it 1985, at corps week, when that major
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skyrider
Teens were unsupervised......because a large portion of the parents, corps and non-corps, were working behind the scenes and/or off to another meeting. Sheeeesh. Couldn't be at two places at one time.
The roa was NOT a family event...........it was a meeting after meeting, teaching after teaching event. The kids didn't attend this thing to just sit on their butt. Nor did young teens want to be with their mom, in tow, all day long....day after day. In all my years with twi.........they NEVER figured out how to better approach this growing concern.
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TheHighWay
Well, Skyrider, didn't they put together the Teen Stage at one point? (what years did they have that?)
I never went over there, but heard from several kids that they liked it, a lot.
But then, all of a sudden, lcm goes on a rant about the guys who were pushing the teen activities:
Joe G and Kevin G, to be specific. They were great with the kids, and the kids loved them for it.
More than once I heard lcm rant during a meal time to/about these two gentlemen. He said they had their priorities messed up. He said they were catering to the teens' worldly natures instead of bringing them to the Word. He said he didn't give a rip if the teens liked it or not, there would be no more teen stage. No more teen summer school. (if memory serves, this was BEFORE the whole ROA orgy rant happened... Radar, do you remember the timeline on this?)
I never understood it, even at the time. I had worked a teen summer school with these guys and seen how they got the kids to enjoy the Bible and bond with each other and step up a bit to teach, etc... it was great. Next thing I know, lcm says "no more of that". It always seemed to me that lcm was jealous of the attention and appreciation these men were getting from the next generation of believers.
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WordWolf
By 1988, the Teen Stage had been renamed the Afternoon Stage,
since it had proven to be so successful that believers in their 20s (and older)
would also hang out there, aka "Teen Vets."
The same stage was also used for a "Coffee House" (a talent show, really)
one night each ROA.
Both the afternoon activities and the talent show were Bible/twi-based.
In other words, it was a rousing success.
As with all rousing successes, lcm would either slap his name on it,
or destroy it. He chose to destroy it.
And as a younger person,
I never got the memo that we were supposed to be attempting
the horizontal mambo during the ROA. Looking back, I'm glad I didn't.
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waysider
I only went to ROA through the '70's so I did not personally observe alot of what has been posted. Of course I'm not saying I doubt these recollections at all. I think for some of us who were no longer teenagers at this time and had seen secular festivals that were out of control parties, the ROA was like a breath of fresh air, an opportunity to go to a festival with the greatest music on the planet, great friends wall to wall, and no pressure to comform to the sex and drug culture we were trying to put in our past. How it came apart at the seams I'm not really sure but I'm pretty certain if GOD's hand had been on it as much as we were told we probably would be "headed for Ohio" right now. Slight derail: remember "ROA72" and how we used it to branch witness and then do a hard sell sign up when the lights came on? It was touted as the Christian version of "Woodstock, The Movie". HA and again I say HA!
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skyrider
Highway.......that's exactly how I took it, too.
Martindale was envious of the growing teen success........he canned it, and fabricated lies to cover it. Just more character assassinations for the sake of mogville supremacy.
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A la prochaine
my god... his egotism will never cease to amaze me :o
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notinKansasanymore
Score week. Funny. One of the odd things about being a single woman at Corps Week was marriage proposals. Some guys begin them by listing their qualifications in a nervous kind of monologue. If a girl recognizes it in time, she can steer him away from the conclusion of the monologue, and the popping of the question, to save him embarrasment, if she's less than enthusiastic.
One guy was talking to me while I was thinking about something else. Oops. I let him down as gently as possible. Funny thing was, the next day, I was sitting outside the Corps tent, reading a book on a break from work. It was the only place to be temporarily alone, to rest my feet.
There were voices coming from inside the tent, but it was darn nigh impossible to be "really alone" at Corps Week.
I finally got up and moved when I recognized one of the voices.
I recognized it because I'd heard that same monologue the day before.
He was a sweetheart of a guy. I hope that she said "yes."
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notinKansasanymore
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A la prochaine
:o Oh my!
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Tom Strange
niKa, you're still a sweetie! would you like to hear the monologue again?
(just don't tell mr.niKa) ::)
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Georgio Jessio
For the record, alot of the teens thought the teen stage was lame. Especially junior corps. Most kids didn't love the cheesy music or spending their summer vacation doing what we did 24 hours a day: studying the bible, in the heat, outside. Since it was for all teens the teachings were super simple and almost condescending. Did I really need to sit thru more teachings about The Law of Believing and abundant sharing? To Junior Corps that was like being taught the alphabet again and again. We hated it.
We did notice that non corps teens seemed to like it more than we did.
Teen Summer School was a different story (except there was tons of sex and booze there too). We understood it was to study the word, we were supervised (most of the time) and our time was structured. I enjoyed Teen Summer School for a whole different set of reasons that I enjoyed ROA.
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notinKansasanymore
Tom, you have far too many good qualities to fit into a monologue . . .
Back to the subject, I remember knocking on my St. Marys upstairs neighbor's door at 11:30 at night, or maybe midnight, to ask them to please turn down their loud music, as we had a festival going on, and I had to be back at work by 5:30 am. They were very nice about it. Whatever 5:30 am gig I had, it was in addition to my office job, which started at 8:am.
I think that I was doing some kind of drink tent that year. My assignments varied so much that the only thing consistent was long, long hours.
I do remember that Clark Ratliff (6th Corps?) ran one of the Coffee tents that I worked on, and he did a great job. Very, very nice guy.
I have wondered whether exhaustion from working so much might have contributed to Harry Cox's death in that auto accident, on the way to breakfast one Corps Week morning, but I don't know whether Harry had been working late the night before, or just visiting. I'd only seen him briefly, when he'd first arrived that week, just long enough for a quick hug.
Does anybody know?
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rhino
One year I drove back to TN, cleaned windows, then drove back exhausted through the night. An eighth corps coulda bit the dust with me as we sleepily drifted back at 70 mph to fulfill our corpse obligations.
straying from just ROA exhaustion, I remember falling asleep on the road a few times after marathon meetings and setup ... then having to get back to school or work. Once I did a 180 under an overpass ... some guy almost immediately stopped and pulled my stuck car our with his pick up ... then right ater that a semi with "GRACE" written on the side went by. :blink: A future 11th corpse was riding with me ... we could easily have departed this world early. Other times I remember sticking my head out the window, screaming and slapping myself to stay awake on the road ...
And there was Kirsteen McD... not sure of the circumstances there ... but didn't she collide in a median on her way to Corps? She survived, but can't remember what finally happened with her ...she made it in residence at least for a little while.
Our caring elders in the Word tended toward condemnation for lack of commitment if you didn't put in those long hours ... and we sorta took it as a challenge ... while fatigue made our brains more pliable.
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Tom Strange
Let's look on the bright side for a moment... with my experience and training I'm confident that I can plan and stage every aspect of a meeting whether it be for 10 or 10,000...
AND
I can always get a job working a food booth with a carnival...
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rascal
Rhino...That is scarey...and I can So relate.....sigh
We thought that we were invincible...our *believing* would cover every stupid decision that we made...shoot, I think that deserves a thread of it`s own.
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Dot Matrix
Rascal
The water was bad in 81/82 ish? I got so sick in '82 I was in the corps tent hearing things around me an unable to speak I was so ill --- It was the dang water? I forced myself up and almost feel over.... The water?
I never knew that.
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rascal
Dott, It was at roa 81 for sure. I was told later by a friend that worked third aid that the water was the source of the contamination, that there had been many many sick people.
I have never been that ill before or since. I was in the camping over flow area on the other side of the osc building and was way too weak to crawl all the way to the food tents. I just lay in the stifeling heat for three days.
There was very little foot traffic to even try to call for help....even had I thought to.
My TC bless her soul sent a yogurt and drink by once a day ... if she hadn`t i don`t think that I would have survived.. It really bothered me that I had no loved ones or family within 700 miles to care whether I lived or died....It was the first time that I realised how really all alone I was ...that my *spiritual* family really didn`t feel like I was their responsibilty any more after their corpes assignement had ended :(
It was just a scarey time.
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skyrider
I wonder if twi's mogs STILL confront their innies on *believing* to stop the August heat and thundering downpours at hq....??
Could it have possibly just been that time of year.....and not the devil..?
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Thomas Loy Bumgarner
You do know that the Grand Lake of St. Mary is less than 12 miles from TWI HQ and in summer with heat and humidity will naturally cause thunderstorms in the afternoon and evening. Oh, the first ROA was held at HQ in 71, sidney in72, 73, 75, 76, Lima in 74, HQ in 77 on. How many remeber ROA"72 that CBS filmed a 30 minute documentary and later was used by TWI as promotion for PFAL? IN 1979 I was both on Bless patrol for 6 hours, but felt more like 12 and sang in The Way Chorale Internationale. VP and Dotsie thought we were superior to the Mormon Tabernacle Choir.
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waysider
TLB ------If VP and Dottsie were basing that choir opinion on how much heart you put into it, I just might have to agree with them. As for ROA72, the movie: I remember it well . It was produced ( and maybe directed,though I'm not sure on exactly on these two points)by Bud Morgan who if I am correct in my rememberance, did alot of sports related work for CBS. We ran it with free admission to the public and filled the audience with shills from the local branch. When the movie was over we ran a witnessing extravaganza, and everyone had plenty of green cards and pens for signing up new students. My displeasure was not with the movie itself or for Bud Morgan but rather with the way we decended on the audience like a pack of hungry wolves' I also found it rather humorous that when I saw the movie I thought to myself that being there didn't seem nearly as cool as the movie made it seem. That's Hollywood for ya!
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DogLover
Nope .. ROA 1975 was in LIMA ... rained the whole week of WOW/College WOW training and of course, Rock of Ages also ... muddiest, muckiest experience I ever went through ... 1972, 73, 74, 76 were at the Sidney Fairgrounds....
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Catcup
Rock of Ages 1974, Shelby County Fairgrounds. I had returned from my first year as a WOW ambassador and suffered 4 nights in a tiny pup tent with two other girls, and the rain had washed us out. I was totally exhausted, was coming down with major head cold, and to top it all off, the ROA ended at night, with everyone having to leave the fairgrounds immediately after the evening teaching-- No overnight stay.
I had dutifully packed our gear that afternoon, and my car had only enough room in it for myself and my sister who had met me there to help me drive back home from Ohio. When we tried to leave after the evening teaching, the parking lot was a muddy mess, with gobs of people stuck in the mud up to their bumpers. I was one of them. I had been directed to park in a low soft spot, and my car had slowly sunk into the mud over the rainly period, and when I tried to get out, I just got further in. We had to wait several hours for the one tow truck to finally get to my car. By that time I guess it was at least after midnight, and we faced an 8 hour drive home.
We were both exhausted from spending 4 days in the weather, and me from a grueling year on the WOW field, but soldiered on. We stopped for coffee several times, meeting other believers along the way who were also trying to stoke up on the caffeine to stay awake. I drove as long as I could, but finally we needed to just stop and sleep. We pulled into a highway rest stop and a sign in front of us said "2 hour parking only." Not wanting to collect a ticket, I dutifully set my travel alarm clock for two hours and we went to sleep. It seemed like just a minute later, our time was up and we had to get back out on the road. It was around 4:30 am.
I was getting sicker by the minute and my sister volunteered to take the wheel to let me rest a little more. So I let her drive and went back to sleep. I soon awoke to a huge crashing jolt as I was thrown to the floor. We had struck a guard rail. My exhausted sister had fallen asleep at the wheel and the car was careening across the road, spinning and ricocheting off guard rails across an overpass. I grabbed the wheel and guided the car to the roadside, as my sister was in shock. The car was totalled. We were very lucky to be alive. The State Trooper said we were lucky to have been on the overpass, otherwise we would have crossed the median. --And we were lucky to have the car as loaded down as it was, or we might have gone over the side of the overpass. Fortunately we only had some major bumps and bruises, but we had to wait four hours on a blanket in the hot sun at a gas station for my parents to drive up to pick us up.
We were young and innocent, and did as we were told, obeying people whom we were taught had our best interests at heart. We were given no other option but to leave when we did, and in the condition we were. We were told we could not spend the night at the fairgrounds and leave the next day, we had to leave immediately after the EVENING teaching. So we left in the rain, ill and exhausted, after being stuck in the mud.
The Way International put many thousands of people at risk by subjecting them to the extremes of weather, bringing them to the brink of exhaustion, and then forcing them out on the road simply because they didn't want to pay rent on the fairgrounds for an extra night. The value of your life to them always came down to money in one form or another.
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Catcup
And third aid and bless patrol. What a buncha crap. Third Aid could never do everything they knew they could and should do, because they were limited by TWI rules and regulations. Would love to hear from some of you docs and nurses who gave of your time there...
One year some kind of really bad stomach virus was going around. I think this was probably 1992 or 1993. I got it and ended up at Third Aid feeling like I was gonna puke, but couldn't. They gave me a can of 7-up to sip on, and I came to the brink of up-chucking several times but never did. They told me that I would begin to feel better when I could throw up, but it was getting late and I had already been there several hours, so they told me I should just go back to my tent and rest, that I would eventually be ok, just stay hydrated. Good advice. So I left.
Just befrore I got to the road behind all those meal tents, something about the heat, the humidity, and the smell of that food hitting my face brought me to finally vomit. Then I felt better. The relief was almost instantaneous. I was exhausted, though and suddenly very weak. I estimated that I had just enough energy to make it back to my tent and lay down.
Unfortunately a BP lackey had seen me throw up and rushed to take me to Third Aid. When I told him I had just left there with specific instructions to lay down after having been there for several hours, he didn't believe me. He INSISTED I go with him to Third Aid so HE could be satisfied that I had actually been there, and that I was following their instructions. After exhausting my energies walking back to Third Aid, and standing around until he could verify I was telling the truth, he told me I could go back to my tent. Unfortunately I didn't have the energy to walk anymore.
Give me a ride back to my tent on the cushman? Hell, no, he couldn't do that. He satisfied his own curiosity, then left me to struggle back to my tent while exhausted and barely able to walk.
Another stow-ry for your edification: 1995, the last Millstone of the Millennium. I was walking down the road near the shower tents to go fill up a tea jar at the outdoor sinks. A people mover was making its way down my side of the road, so to make sure I wasn't in the way, I got off the pavement into the grass near a bunch of electrical boxes, and stepped into an unmarked, uncovered trench and snapped my ankle. Very quickly Bob Ed Wierwille was there with his radio. I told him I found a hole for him and immediately several buckets of sand were brought to fill the trench while I was still sitting there on the side of the road.
I got a ride to the Third Aid trailer where they iced my ankle. I knew that nothing could be determined without an x-ray. So did the two consecutive nurses who examined me. Because it was my left ankle, I knew if I could just get a ride to my car, I could drive myself to the hosptial in St. Marys. But TWI had several layers of policies. They had to have their doctor look at my ankle to determine if it was necessary for me to go to the hospital (Why the hell can't I determine that myself?), and they had to page him from wherever he was to come look at it. I had to wait at least an hour and a half for him to show up.
Then when it was determined that I needed an x-ray, they had to find someone from my branch to drive me there. I was supposed to be able to tell them where anyone from my branch of about 50 people were at any given moment on their grounds so they could go find them. Luckily for me, I could see the water spray from where I was sitting in the trailer, and recognized one of the Moms from my branch who just happened to be there with her kids. They collared her and she found someone who could drive me. This whole process took another couple hours-- to locate someone who could drive me, get their boss to clear them to take off work, get out to Third Aid, and then drive us to my car on a cushman. This delayed my treatment many more hours than was necessary. Had I been able to go when I was first injured, there would have been an orthopaedic specialist there to look at the x-rays and he would have seen my ankle was broken in three places.
Instead, by the time I actually got to the hospital, that doc was gone and they only had a radiologist who could not read the x-rays properly and said it was a really bad sprain. I was sent out on crutches in an ace bandage, with an ankle broken in three places. I couldn't walk on the crutches and we ended up having to rent a wheelchair and push it around in the mud at ROA. What a fiasco. And it took about 5 or 6 more months to get the ankle properly diagnosed. What happened in the mean time is posted elsewhere. Won't bore you with the details, but leadership intervened again and made the problem physically infinitely worse.
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Sunnyfla
That's terrible Catcup :( I'm so sorry that happened to you.
TWI's policies were really screwed up when it came to needed any medical attention
The short time I was at HQ I remember getting sick with a real bad throat infection. I was so sick. The uvala ( the thing that hangs in the back of the throat) was as big as a large marble. They didn't let me go to the Dr. until they saw that. I was sick for nearly a week with high fevers before being seen by a physician.
The Dr. in town couldn't believe how bad my throat looked. He gave me a high dose of antibiotics via shot in my butt, then 2 weeks of meds.
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