Sunesis previously posted the following concerning cg,
vpw's bus driver and the writer of Passing of the Patriarch:
"I believe CG has a very sadistic mean streak. I saw him verbally devastate a young woman from Europe during corps week at HQ one year. She had had a bit too much to drink one evening, as they had been celebrating another European believer's wedding. The party, after the wedding went to a local St. Mary's watering hole that evening. She was pretty plastered and didn't want to leave the place so they just left her at this bar.
I was out that night at the same bar, and waited until closing to bring her home to H.Q. I was not going to leave her with the townies leering at her. I don't know who told on her - probably some of the wedding party people who left her, but PL and I were told the next day to be in the courtyard of VP's house the next morning.
I went there clueless, and there she was with CG, her leader, and PL, the corps coordinator at that time. Well, first CG yelled, then lowered his voice and hissed saying awful, sick, destructive stuff about this woman. The thing was though, usually, people calm down after a few minutes, but he ended up going on and on and on, and literally hissing at her for almost 45 minutes. I started wondering, what the heck is going on here? All of a sudden it dawned on me,
'he is enjoying this!!'
I watched in horrified fascination. I have never, in all my years in TWI, seen someone as verbally torn down as this woman was - it was evil, just plain evil. Even PL was mortified - and she's hard to do that to.
After it was over, the woman went away in tears and PL took me aside and said, go talk to her. I looked at her incredulously and said, what could anyone possibly say to her. She told me to go talk, then send her over to PL at noon.
I spent the morning with her, got her back to some semblance of normalcy, then PL took over. They became great friends.
Anyway, I was glad I never had to serve under him, and was glad God let me see the sick side of him about a year before POP.
I got in TWI in Rye when he did, and he was my limb leader in college. He was always cold, unfriendly and aloof. Why did he get worse? Well, it was always in him, it just took a mentor to bring it out.
I always think of a hissing snake when I think of him."
=========
As for me,
once someone in the corps tried a non-yelling version on me, when I visited hq grounds.
When it was obvious he was going to keep talking and not listen, I let him run till he finished,
then matter-of-factly asked him
"Been saving that speech up all month?"
after which I effectively pretended he hadn't said most of it.
He unclenched and actually acted human after that.
I just rejected the mask he was forced to assume as a corps person,
and that freed him to be more like he WANTED to be,
as I see it, looking back.
At the time, I just thought he was trying far too hard.
I saw plenty of face melting through the years, from different leaders. Some were 'group reproof' and what good results those brought I don't know.
Others were in the church/fellowship meltings for certain believers. Any Fellowship coord could use the face melt isfso inclined--spiritual anger etc, and keeping the household clean.
In the ninties, if you were subjected to a melting, then the news was sent up the Way tree, thereby ruining your reputation with upper leadership who might not even know you. Even if you improved whatever the category was that required the face melt, you were always under suspicion.
I no longer respect any type of adult tantrum and refuse to be motivated by such. And I have no respect for the 'super spirituality' of the face melter--the fact they need to use such an abusive technique puts them outside the 'wise elder' category, IMO.
vpw publicly screaming at lcm? No kidding. Feel free to elaborate.
Those who were in the 10th corps will remember this...It was some time after Veepee had required the corps to write and hand in a paper entitled "from birth to the corps"...(later on it was revealed that twi leaders used this info for sinister purposes)...it was supposed to be a detailed account of your life and what God delivered you from.
We (10th corps at Emporia), were all sitting there with Martindale and Wierwille on stage in chairs...suddenly Wierwille explodes about how nobody has turned the paper in yet (even though it was not yet due)...he screams at everyone and then turns to Martindale (who had not turned one in yet either)...really melted his face... He went on for about 10 minutes...screaming about how he expected more from him, etc etc etc.
When I was but a young'n in TWI I usually melted face right back. However, there really wasn't much of that going on in my early years, at least in my first year in TWI.
By the time we reached the FWC however, I had lost a lot of my feistiness, unfortunately. I got melted for talking back to staff who were my senior corps and therefore always right. The reason doesn't bear explanation, it was stupid and a difference in training is all. I had been trained in woodsmanship by my dad one way, and Mi****l Jo****n another, and I simply mentioned it in passing. Well, what could my own father possibly know in comparison to a graduate of the WC? A great and mighty man of God in comparison to a relative of mine! How dare I? blah blah blah and yada yada yada. My dad had died less than a year before and I was devastated that some smart butt who never met him should deride him in such a contemptuous manner. So I sobbed and sobbed. Later, I realized it didn't matter a whit whether you followed the leader ten feet back so the branches didn't slap you in the face (The Way Corps way) or considerately held them aside for the person behind you (dad's way). The point of the matter was to break me, and to assist in the process of snuffing the light out of any individuality I might cling to.
Come to think of it, I think a lot of face meltings were not to correct someone in the error of their way, but to break their spirit, humiliate them rather than humble them, and above all, squelch any shred of gumption they might have, any semblance of individuality. Kinda like communist Russia, you know?
Sorry pals, I'm takin' my ownself back! I yam what I yam, and just try and stop me!
Thank you all for your replies. I guess I just wonder what would make grown men want to behave in such a childish manner. Alot of times during the "yelling" it reminded me of a 4 year old that doesn't get to play with the toy he wants or has to take a bath.
These are grown men. I never respect that. A grown man knows how to hold his own and is mature. Doesn't pitch fits. Doesn't act spoiled.
But I love how it was always turned around that "we were spoiled, didn't know how to work, we were lazy....."
And then told to "renew our minds." Why didn't they renew their minds?
You know, Outfield, that's an excellent point. I have a wonderful 4 year old grandson, who is just learning to get along with peers. I've noticed that toddlers, when confronted with a social situation with other kids their age that they don't know how to deal with, often over-react.
Example: Bobby is playing with blocks. He builds a tower. Johnny comes along and knocks the tower down. Bobby doesn't know how to handle his unhappiness at this intrusion, and kicks the crap out of Johnny.
Example 2: Johnny is at the store with Mommy. Johnny wants a toy. Mommy says no. Johnny throws himself on the floor and kicks and screams.
I guess what I'm getting at, in a round about way, is that children often don't know how to handle a situation where they have been thwarted in some manner or other, whether by a teacher, a peer, or a parent. So they kick, scream, bite and throw things. I wonder if some of these screaming TWI misfits never learned how to handle social situations and just went right back to Day Care in their minds?
there i was, in-residence corps coordinator at hq during my last year in residence. it was late in the block, and i was really starting to feel like part of the place. one sunday morning, lcm taught something he was working on to the in-residence corps (at the 10:30 fellowship, or an after-meeting, or something), saying he was intending to teach it at the sns that evening.
afterwards, i went back to my room, and starting looking at some of the verses (i remember what they were, but that's not important here). after a bit, i realized what he'd taught was wrong. so i talked to a corps brother about it. he said "you should go to the corps coordinator." so i did. HE said, "you should go to craig." i was a bit freaked, but i picked up the phone--which was not in my room, but in a common area--and called. i very nervously explained to him what i'd found, AND HE LOST HIS FREAKING MIND. i thought the phone would melt in my hand. woozy and nauseous, i foolishly tried to say things in my defense, which only made things worse. MUCH worse. eventually, he hung up, after cursing me out, telling me i had no right, reminding me over and over who he was, and telling me to pack my bags.
i don't remember what happened between then and the sns. all i remember is that i was boiling mad and ready to leave. but we went to the service, sat in about the 5th row, just to one side of the lectern. when craiggy came out, he looked right at me and could see that i wasn't a happy camper. after his introduction, he went backstage, and a few minutes later, his lackey came out and handed me a folded 3x5 card that said "let's have a great night! love ya, craig," which i crushed and crammed into my pocket. the kicker came when he came out to teach--AND DID AN ENTIRELY DIFFERENT TEACHING THAN THE ONE FROM THE MORNING. then i was really p!ssed.
i remember walking into the corps after-meeting, pulling the note out of my pocket and throwing it at the corps coordinator, saying "what the f-ck is this?" afterwards, he and his wife took me back to their trailer, gave me ice cream, and calmed me down. don't ask me how.
that would pretty much be the end of the story, except that when we received our assignments at the end of the year, old craig managed to be standing right next to me when i opened the envelope. i was expecting (and had been led to believe i'd get) new york. i got washington state. and craig gleefully said, "do you know where that is? ALL THE WAY ACROSS THE COUNTRY!!" to me, it seemed he'd bided his time all that time, to personally stick it to me months later. the pr!ck.
of course, we went to washington, like good little corps. (ANOTHER time i should've left, but didn't!) i'll save those great northwest face-meltings for another time!
Those who were in the 10th corps will remember this...It was some time after Veepee had required the corps to write and hand in a paper entitled "from birth to the corps"...(later on it was revealed that twi leaders used this info for sinister purposes)...it was supposed to be a detailed account of your life and what God delivered you from.
We (10th corps at Emporia), were all sitting there with Martindale and Wierwille on stage in chairs...suddenly Wierwille explodes about how nobody has turned the paper in yet (even though it was not yet due)...he screams at everyone and then turns to Martindale (who had not turned one in yet either)...really melted his face... He went on for about 10 minutes...screaming about how he expected more from him, etc etc etc.
In general, I think loy's screamfests from the pulpit were perhaps among the worst..
Sorry, Hammie, but those 'twarnt nothing compared to his personal, in one person's face, face-meltings.
Corps training under his reign gave me a few opportunities to watch several that happened spontaniously and receive one myself... I'm afraid I cannot give you many details here because it would make me immediately identifiable to the wrong people, but I'll just say it was an experience that stuck in my craw where I KNEW that Craig was WRONG. Flat out wrong. I had warped my brain around other situations to convince myself I had just "missed it" or "wasn't spiritual enough to see" or whatever, but on this one, unh-uh. He was dead wrong. Period. And that knowledge never did leave me. I stuck it way back in the dark recesses of my thinking for many, many years and tried hard to forget it but it never went away. I guess I shoulda thanked him for that. It was one of the things that helped me leave when I was finally ready.
In the ninties, if you were subjected to a melting, then the news was sent up the Way tree, thereby ruining your reputation with upper leadership who might not even know you. Even if you improved whatever the category was that required the face melt, you were always under suspicion.
I no longer respect any type of adult tantrum and refuse to be motivated by such. And I have no respect for the 'super spirituality' of the face melter--the fact they need to use such an abusive technique puts them outside the 'wise elder' category, IMO.
Agreed. I never saw anything so funny in my life as the expression on my local BC's face when he tried to face-melt me the very last time. He was a much bigger person than me so he came up into my personal space and leaned over into my face expecting me to look down or step back. But I had already made up my mind I was done with twi, so I just looked up at him calmly with a "are you done yet?" look on my face and said nothing. He was SO SHOCKED. His bullying tactics had always worked on me before!! But twi had lost its authority in my life, and therefore, he lost his control. It was glorious!!
Agreed. I never saw anything so funny in my life as the expression on my local BC's face when he tried to face-melt me the very last time. He was a much bigger person than me so he came up into my personal space and leaned over into my face expecting me to look down or step back. But I had already made up my mind I was done with twi, so I just looked up at him calmly with a "are you done yet?" look on my face and said nothing. He was SO SHOCKED. His bullying tactics had always worked on me before!! But twi had lost its authority in my life, and therefore, he lost his control. It was glorious!!
And now that I think about it... hats off to Ed H0rn*y and H@yw@rd Ch@pp*ll... I cannot remember ever seeing them melt someone's face... I saw them get steamed about things, but never just go completely bizerk about it. That is an amazing thing to say (if my memory isn't faulty on this)... that they were leadership, corps coordinators, at HQ, under Craig, in the late 80's, (I left HQ in 1990) and didn't routinely act like big bully jerks. Can anyone verify this?
I had a few by my WC coordinators occassionally, but the one that really "woke me up" so to speak was one DM gave me when I was a WC grad on staff at a Way property when she and LCM were visiting this campus.
Out of the blue she cornered me one day and started going off on me. I had never seen her this way before. She started repeating things the wife of the corps coordinator had told her about me. Now the wife and I had never gotten along - we just did not like each other from day 1 when she arrived there. I guess what stunned me was how wrong - absolutely wrong - it was. I was stunned - this woman had made up stuff about me and worse, DM believed every word. When I would try to defend myself, DM got even more adamant.
I finally realized, just shut up and I let her go on and on. I was incredibly disapointed and amazed DM had believed this neurotic nutcase's lies. Even worse, DM did not believe me.
After that, what could I do? I was devastated. But, it was also a huge wake up call - it really woke me up and I realized, what I thought were my "spiritual" leaders were not too spiritual at all. In fact they were downright a****oles and the "top hotdogs" were not to be trusted. It was the beginning of the end for me with TWI. After that, sure, I could be friendly with leadership, but I never trusted them again. I kept my distance. My life was none of their business.
I never forgot that and it was an incident that when added to others gave me an impetus to leave when I finally did.
Face meltings - more like satanic attacks in my book.
My first melting was when my tc`s wife declared me possessed....it destroyed me
God picked up the shattered pieces and put me back together...I was so carefull to never give anyone a reason to ever doubt my spirituality again....I never ever disagreed....I witnessed, I had people in every class I took every adv class....etc
My second face melting occured when my lc came to visit me when I was app corpes. The classes I needed to go into the way corpes had never been offered in any area that I had ever lived before...thus I had failed in my preperations...I also was short on money ... I WOULDN`T have been if they hadn`t required me to move out of my parents rent free home and live with huge expenses in a way home in town....He was enraged that I still had pets...
Anyway I got screamed litterally screamed at by r0tch w0tkins...frothing at the mouth with rage...I was terrified, having never seen anything like this enormous jock bent over bellowing at me in my teeny tiny bed room....I would have promised anything.....
I was so terrified that I would have promised anything to redeem myself....I asked him meekly if going out wow again might enable God to teach me what I needed to know to become corpes material....he calmed down immediately and said that would be acceptable...
I never had the "pleasure" of being Corps, so I had to take my "reproof" on the field. Honestly, though, I only had one coordinator who could be hot-tempered, but I think that was more because of his upbringing that any TWI indoctrination. In fact, most of my coordinators were rather uncomfortable with reproof. It was just annoying that they always thought that they were right, and, therefore, I was wrong. (I was occasionally wrong, of course; but it's not the default condition!)
Anyway I got screamed litterally screamed at by r0tch w0tkins...frothing at the mouth with rage...I was terrified, having never seen anything like this enormous jock bent over bellowing at me in my teeny tiny bed room....I would have promised anything.....
I was so terrified that I would have promised anything to redeem myself....I asked him meekly if going out wow again
might enable God to teach me what I needed to know to become corpes material....he calmed down immediately and said that would be acceptable...
The third time..
I remember r0tch w. from Fellowlaborers. He and his wife P@!$y were FL3/staff.
He was in charge of prison outreach and she was in charge of children's fellowship for Ohio and worked on the food co-op(Manna)
He was also a twig leader in FLO.(night twig)
I can understand how he could physically intimidate someone. Yep---shore do.
Most of us had to go straight from morning fellowship (5:30 am) to our mile run, on to breakfast with the house, and then to our day jobs. From our day jobs we went straight to limb hq for dinner and then to evening work detail before going on to night twig (approx. start time 10:00 pm)-----Lights out! at midnight.
But not r0tch.-----no,no,no.
When HE got off work, he was allowed to go home and lift weights or spend time with his wife until dinner. A lot of us were envious of the free time he was afforded.
It would have been nice just to have an hour or two to do something selfish like read The Word, (let alone lift weights or spend time with your spouse.)
FL1, 2 and 3 may have good memories of FLO night(Wed.), but for FL4, 5 and 6 it was a night to dread.
It was pretty much a 3 hour group *face melt* every week.
We used to file in to take our seats and say to each other, "I wonder what we'll find out we screwed up THIS week?"
And then there was the time we were confined to the BRC in a weekend lockdown that was designed to break our spirits.
That was a 2&1/2 day*face melt*!
Of course, the term * face melt* was not actually in usage yet at that time.
The lockdown must've been your third year, Waysider. I am quite sure I would have gone completely nuts had I been there.
I never knew that about RW getting to go home to spend time with his wife. I stayed in their house for a block and hated it. But it was better than KS's house, where my personal belongings were sifted like wheat and sometimed thrown out if she didn't know what to do with them (like LEAVE THEM ALONE!).
The only time I remember Ho*** Y. getting upset and melting face was after we let our beloved coordinator, RA, sleep through morning fellowship, and how unloving it was, and so on and on and on. What he apparently didn't know was that a couple weeks prior to that, RA himself had melted all of us for being too loud and waking him up as he overslept.
Lessee. Heads, this guy oversleeps and we wake him up and get bytched out. Tails, this guy oversleeps, and we don't wake him and get bytched out. Of course, I was hot to go bang on his door, yell 'FIRE!!!' and run, but the person next to me wouldn't hear of it, him being The Man of God for Fellowlaborers of Ohio, you know.
Of course the next year, our second, was rife with face meltings a la J** M**ne. I think it was a defense mechanism for his personal inadequacy. What a street bum! Can't believe he did our marriage ceremony.
That particular limb leader was soooo inappropriate with women.
By the way, I never heard our FL coordinator the second year get ugly with anyone. A rare bird. Hope he's happy wherever he is and whatever he's doing..
Worse face melting I ever got was my interim year at HQ in 1983-84 from J*m F*r*a*o ... he probably went on for over 30 minutes and might be yelling at me still, had Charlie Q**ill*n not returned to his office and excused me ... you could tell he thought J*m had gone WAY over the edge.
Runner up in the face-melting category was TJ at Gunnison....also L*s* Th*m*s (12th Corps working in the kitchen at Gunnison in 1984-85) ... and I STILL don't know what she was talking about ... folks thought it made them more spiritual, I suppose ... they picked on who they thought they could.
I daresay none of the above would get in my face today ... and if they would choose to, God be with them.
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Ham
In general, I think loy's screamfests from the pulpit were perhaps among the worst..
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GrouchoMarxJr
I had the pleasure once of seeing Veepee give Martindale a public face melting...
...It was a bit surreal...almost like the Coen brothers meet Quintin Tarentino...it was quite entertaining.
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WordWolf
I don't think Outfield's specifically asking about lcm or anyone's GENERAL rants from the microphone,
nor lcm's lunchtime announcements about how a recent escapee was possessed/sold out to the world, etc,
but rather specific incidents screaming in someone's face.
vpw publicly screaming at lcm? No kidding. Feel free to elaborate.
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WordWolf
============
Sunesis previously posted the following concerning cg,
vpw's bus driver and the writer of Passing of the Patriarch:
"I believe CG has a very sadistic mean streak. I saw him verbally devastate a young woman from Europe during corps week at HQ one year. She had had a bit too much to drink one evening, as they had been celebrating another European believer's wedding. The party, after the wedding went to a local St. Mary's watering hole that evening. She was pretty plastered and didn't want to leave the place so they just left her at this bar.
I was out that night at the same bar, and waited until closing to bring her home to H.Q. I was not going to leave her with the townies leering at her. I don't know who told on her - probably some of the wedding party people who left her, but PL and I were told the next day to be in the courtyard of VP's house the next morning.
I went there clueless, and there she was with CG, her leader, and PL, the corps coordinator at that time. Well, first CG yelled, then lowered his voice and hissed saying awful, sick, destructive stuff about this woman. The thing was though, usually, people calm down after a few minutes, but he ended up going on and on and on, and literally hissing at her for almost 45 minutes. I started wondering, what the heck is going on here? All of a sudden it dawned on me,
'he is enjoying this!!'
I watched in horrified fascination. I have never, in all my years in TWI, seen someone as verbally torn down as this woman was - it was evil, just plain evil. Even PL was mortified - and she's hard to do that to.
After it was over, the woman went away in tears and PL took me aside and said, go talk to her. I looked at her incredulously and said, what could anyone possibly say to her. She told me to go talk, then send her over to PL at noon.
I spent the morning with her, got her back to some semblance of normalcy, then PL took over. They became great friends.
Anyway, I was glad I never had to serve under him, and was glad God let me see the sick side of him about a year before POP.
I got in TWI in Rye when he did, and he was my limb leader in college. He was always cold, unfriendly and aloof. Why did he get worse? Well, it was always in him, it just took a mentor to bring it out.
I always think of a hissing snake when I think of him."
=========
As for me,
once someone in the corps tried a non-yelling version on me, when I visited hq grounds.
When it was obvious he was going to keep talking and not listen, I let him run till he finished,
then matter-of-factly asked him
"Been saving that speech up all month?"
after which I effectively pretended he hadn't said most of it.
He unclenched and actually acted human after that.
I just rejected the mask he was forced to assume as a corps person,
and that freed him to be more like he WANTED to be,
as I see it, looking back.
At the time, I just thought he was trying far too hard.
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Bramble
I saw plenty of face melting through the years, from different leaders. Some were 'group reproof' and what good results those brought I don't know.
Others were in the church/fellowship meltings for certain believers. Any Fellowship coord could use the face melt isfso inclined--spiritual anger etc, and keeping the household clean.
In the ninties, if you were subjected to a melting, then the news was sent up the Way tree, thereby ruining your reputation with upper leadership who might not even know you. Even if you improved whatever the category was that required the face melt, you were always under suspicion.
I no longer respect any type of adult tantrum and refuse to be motivated by such. And I have no respect for the 'super spirituality' of the face melter--the fact they need to use such an abusive technique puts them outside the 'wise elder' category, IMO.
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GrouchoMarxJr
Those who were in the 10th corps will remember this...It was some time after Veepee had required the corps to write and hand in a paper entitled "from birth to the corps"...(later on it was revealed that twi leaders used this info for sinister purposes)...it was supposed to be a detailed account of your life and what God delivered you from.
We (10th corps at Emporia), were all sitting there with Martindale and Wierwille on stage in chairs...suddenly Wierwille explodes about how nobody has turned the paper in yet (even though it was not yet due)...he screams at everyone and then turns to Martindale (who had not turned one in yet either)...really melted his face...
He went on for about 10 minutes...screaming about how he expected more from him, etc etc etc.
...this was about 1979
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Watered Garden
When I was but a young'n in TWI I usually melted face right back. However, there really wasn't much of that going on in my early years, at least in my first year in TWI.
By the time we reached the FWC however, I had lost a lot of my feistiness, unfortunately. I got melted for talking back to staff who were my senior corps and therefore always right. The reason doesn't bear explanation, it was stupid and a difference in training is all. I had been trained in woodsmanship by my dad one way, and Mi****l Jo****n another, and I simply mentioned it in passing. Well, what could my own father possibly know in comparison to a graduate of the WC? A great and mighty man of God in comparison to a relative of mine! How dare I? blah blah blah and yada yada yada. My dad had died less than a year before and I was devastated that some smart butt who never met him should deride him in such a contemptuous manner. So I sobbed and sobbed. Later, I realized it didn't matter a whit whether you followed the leader ten feet back so the branches didn't slap you in the face (The Way Corps way) or considerately held them aside for the person behind you (dad's way). The point of the matter was to break me, and to assist in the process of snuffing the light out of any individuality I might cling to.
Come to think of it, I think a lot of face meltings were not to correct someone in the error of their way, but to break their spirit, humiliate them rather than humble them, and above all, squelch any shred of gumption they might have, any semblance of individuality. Kinda like communist Russia, you know?
Sorry pals, I'm takin' my ownself back! I yam what I yam, and just try and stop me!
WG
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Outfield
Thank you all for your replies. I guess I just wonder what would make grown men want to behave in such a childish manner. Alot of times during the "yelling" it reminded me of a 4 year old that doesn't get to play with the toy he wants or has to take a bath.
These are grown men. I never respect that. A grown man knows how to hold his own and is mature. Doesn't pitch fits. Doesn't act spoiled.
But I love how it was always turned around that "we were spoiled, didn't know how to work, we were lazy....."
And then told to "renew our minds." Why didn't they renew their minds?
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Watered Garden
You know, Outfield, that's an excellent point. I have a wonderful 4 year old grandson, who is just learning to get along with peers. I've noticed that toddlers, when confronted with a social situation with other kids their age that they don't know how to deal with, often over-react.
Example: Bobby is playing with blocks. He builds a tower. Johnny comes along and knocks the tower down. Bobby doesn't know how to handle his unhappiness at this intrusion, and kicks the crap out of Johnny.
Example 2: Johnny is at the store with Mommy. Johnny wants a toy. Mommy says no. Johnny throws himself on the floor and kicks and screams.
I guess what I'm getting at, in a round about way, is that children often don't know how to handle a situation where they have been thwarted in some manner or other, whether by a teacher, a peer, or a parent. So they kick, scream, bite and throw things. I wonder if some of these screaming TWI misfits never learned how to handle social situations and just went right back to Day Care in their minds?
WG
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sprawled out
there i was, in-residence corps coordinator at hq during my last year in residence. it was late in the block, and i was really starting to feel like part of the place. one sunday morning, lcm taught something he was working on to the in-residence corps (at the 10:30 fellowship, or an after-meeting, or something), saying he was intending to teach it at the sns that evening.
afterwards, i went back to my room, and starting looking at some of the verses (i remember what they were, but that's not important here). after a bit, i realized what he'd taught was wrong. so i talked to a corps brother about it. he said "you should go to the corps coordinator." so i did. HE said, "you should go to craig." i was a bit freaked, but i picked up the phone--which was not in my room, but in a common area--and called. i very nervously explained to him what i'd found, AND HE LOST HIS FREAKING MIND. i thought the phone would melt in my hand. woozy and nauseous, i foolishly tried to say things in my defense, which only made things worse. MUCH worse. eventually, he hung up, after cursing me out, telling me i had no right, reminding me over and over who he was, and telling me to pack my bags.
i don't remember what happened between then and the sns. all i remember is that i was boiling mad and ready to leave. but we went to the service, sat in about the 5th row, just to one side of the lectern. when craiggy came out, he looked right at me and could see that i wasn't a happy camper. after his introduction, he went backstage, and a few minutes later, his lackey came out and handed me a folded 3x5 card that said "let's have a great night! love ya, craig," which i crushed and crammed into my pocket. the kicker came when he came out to teach--AND DID AN ENTIRELY DIFFERENT TEACHING THAN THE ONE FROM THE MORNING. then i was really p!ssed.
i remember walking into the corps after-meeting, pulling the note out of my pocket and throwing it at the corps coordinator, saying "what the f-ck is this?" afterwards, he and his wife took me back to their trailer, gave me ice cream, and calmed me down. don't ask me how.
that would pretty much be the end of the story, except that when we received our assignments at the end of the year, old craig managed to be standing right next to me when i opened the envelope. i was expecting (and had been led to believe i'd get) new york. i got washington state. and craig gleefully said, "do you know where that is? ALL THE WAY ACROSS THE COUNTRY!!" to me, it seemed he'd bided his time all that time, to personally stick it to me months later. the pr!ck.
of course, we went to washington, like good little corps. (ANOTHER time i should've left, but didn't!) i'll save those great northwest face-meltings for another time!
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WordWolf
Oh, right. lcm wrote about this.
Courtesy of the thread "vp and me in wonderland",
http://www.greasespotcafe.com/ipb/index.ph...st&p=195492
lcm:
"Dr and LCM invite/request all the (in-residence and on-field) Corps to write their autobiographies.
Oct 79 was set for the deadline. Dr was hurt when not many responded to the deadline."
WordWolf:
"Was it an "INVITATION" (thus optional)
or a "REQUIREMENT" (thus compulsory)?"
lcm:
"LCM had not done his yet either"
WW:
"Not a problem if it was an "INVITATION",
but if it was, lcm should have known it would be expected of him specifically."
lcm:
"Dr reproved LCM in front of the corps."
WW:
"A little public humiliation is standard operating procedure for vpw.
(As it was later for lcm.)
So much for "He handled it in private of course.""
lcm:
"How can you expect the younger Corps to do something when the leadership didn't do it, either?"
WW:
"Who wants to bet money vpw failed to set the example and write out HIS?"
lcm:
"Dr displayed great love and tenderness to him the next morning by inviting him to lead the 10:30am
fellowship."
WW:
"Or, he got over himself."
The whole thread is here:
http://www.greasespotcafe.com/ipb/index.php?showtopic=8019
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TheHighWay
Sorry, Hammie, but those 'twarnt nothing compared to his personal, in one person's face, face-meltings.
Corps training under his reign gave me a few opportunities to watch several that happened spontaniously and receive one myself... I'm afraid I cannot give you many details here because it would make me immediately identifiable to the wrong people, but I'll just say it was an experience that stuck in my craw where I KNEW that Craig was WRONG. Flat out wrong. I had warped my brain around other situations to convince myself I had just "missed it" or "wasn't spiritual enough to see" or whatever, but on this one, unh-uh. He was dead wrong. Period. And that knowledge never did leave me. I stuck it way back in the dark recesses of my thinking for many, many years and tried hard to forget it but it never went away. I guess I shoulda thanked him for that. It was one of the things that helped me leave when I was finally ready.
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TheHighWay
Agreed. I never saw anything so funny in my life as the expression on my local BC's face when he tried to face-melt me the very last time. He was a much bigger person than me so he came up into my personal space and leaned over into my face expecting me to look down or step back. But I had already made up my mind I was done with twi, so I just looked up at him calmly with a "are you done yet?" look on my face and said nothing. He was SO SHOCKED. His bullying tactics had always worked on me before!! But twi had lost its authority in my life, and therefore, he lost his control. It was glorious!!
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WordWolf
YEAH!!!!!
Deny them the power!
Gotta love it....
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TheHighWay
And now that I think about it... hats off to Ed H0rn*y and H@yw@rd Ch@pp*ll... I cannot remember ever seeing them melt someone's face... I saw them get steamed about things, but never just go completely bizerk about it. That is an amazing thing to say (if my memory isn't faulty on this)... that they were leadership, corps coordinators, at HQ, under Craig, in the late 80's, (I left HQ in 1990) and didn't routinely act like big bully jerks. Can anyone verify this?
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Sunesis
I had a few by my WC coordinators occassionally, but the one that really "woke me up" so to speak was one DM gave me when I was a WC grad on staff at a Way property when she and LCM were visiting this campus.
Out of the blue she cornered me one day and started going off on me. I had never seen her this way before. She started repeating things the wife of the corps coordinator had told her about me. Now the wife and I had never gotten along - we just did not like each other from day 1 when she arrived there. I guess what stunned me was how wrong - absolutely wrong - it was. I was stunned - this woman had made up stuff about me and worse, DM believed every word. When I would try to defend myself, DM got even more adamant.
I finally realized, just shut up and I let her go on and on. I was incredibly disapointed and amazed DM had believed this neurotic nutcase's lies. Even worse, DM did not believe me.
After that, what could I do? I was devastated. But, it was also a huge wake up call - it really woke me up and I realized, what I thought were my "spiritual" leaders were not too spiritual at all. In fact they were downright a****oles and the "top hotdogs" were not to be trusted. It was the beginning of the end for me with TWI. After that, sure, I could be friendly with leadership, but I never trusted them again. I kept my distance. My life was none of their business.
I never forgot that and it was an incident that when added to others gave me an impetus to leave when I finally did.
Face meltings - more like satanic attacks in my book.
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rascal
My first melting was when my tc`s wife declared me possessed....it destroyed me
God picked up the shattered pieces and put me back together...I was so carefull to never give anyone a reason to ever doubt my spirituality again....I never ever disagreed....I witnessed, I had people in every class I took every adv class....etc
My second face melting occured when my lc came to visit me when I was app corpes. The classes I needed to go into the way corpes had never been offered in any area that I had ever lived before...thus I had failed in my preperations...I also was short on money ... I WOULDN`T have been if they hadn`t required me to move out of my parents rent free home and live with huge expenses in a way home in town....He was enraged that I still had pets...
Anyway I got screamed litterally screamed at by r0tch w0tkins...frothing at the mouth with rage...I was terrified, having never seen anything like this enormous jock bent over bellowing at me in my teeny tiny bed room....I would have promised anything.....
I was so terrified that I would have promised anything to redeem myself....I asked him meekly if going out wow again might enable God to teach me what I needed to know to become corpes material....he calmed down immediately and said that would be acceptable...
The third time.....
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GeorgeStGeorge
I never had the "pleasure" of being Corps, so I had to take my "reproof" on the field. Honestly, though, I only had one coordinator who could be hot-tempered, but I think that was more because of his upbringing that any TWI indoctrination. In fact, most of my coordinators were rather uncomfortable with reproof. It was just annoying that they always thought that they were right, and, therefore, I was wrong. (I was occasionally wrong, of course; but it's not the default condition!)
George
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ChasUFarley
If you've ever been around J0hn Che@ler, who's now in NJ (I believe), then you know what a face melting is.
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waysider
I remember r0tch w. from Fellowlaborers. He and his wife P@!$y were FL3/staff.
He was in charge of prison outreach and she was in charge of children's fellowship for Ohio and worked on the food co-op(Manna)
He was also a twig leader in FLO.(night twig)
I can understand how he could physically intimidate someone. Yep---shore do.
Most of us had to go straight from morning fellowship (5:30 am) to our mile run, on to breakfast with the house, and then to our day jobs. From our day jobs we went straight to limb hq for dinner and then to evening work detail before going on to night twig (approx. start time 10:00 pm)-----Lights out! at midnight.
But not r0tch.-----no,no,no.
When HE got off work, he was allowed to go home and lift weights or spend time with his wife until dinner. A lot of us were envious of the free time he was afforded.
It would have been nice just to have an hour or two to do something selfish like read The Word, (let alone lift weights or spend time with your spouse.)
FL1, 2 and 3 may have good memories of FLO night(Wed.), but for FL4, 5 and 6 it was a night to dread.
It was pretty much a 3 hour group *face melt* every week.
We used to file in to take our seats and say to each other, "I wonder what we'll find out we screwed up THIS week?"
And then there was the time we were confined to the BRC in a weekend lockdown that was designed to break our spirits.
That was a 2&1/2 day*face melt*!
Of course, the term * face melt* was not actually in usage yet at that time.
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Watered Garden
The lockdown must've been your third year, Waysider. I am quite sure I would have gone completely nuts had I been there.
I never knew that about RW getting to go home to spend time with his wife. I stayed in their house for a block and hated it. But it was better than KS's house, where my personal belongings were sifted like wheat and sometimed thrown out if she didn't know what to do with them (like LEAVE THEM ALONE!).
The only time I remember Ho*** Y. getting upset and melting face was after we let our beloved coordinator, RA, sleep through morning fellowship, and how unloving it was, and so on and on and on. What he apparently didn't know was that a couple weeks prior to that, RA himself had melted all of us for being too loud and waking him up as he overslept.
Lessee. Heads, this guy oversleeps and we wake him up and get bytched out. Tails, this guy oversleeps, and we don't wake him and get bytched out. Of course, I was hot to go bang on his door, yell 'FIRE!!!' and run, but the person next to me wouldn't hear of it, him being The Man of God for Fellowlaborers of Ohio, you know.
Of course the next year, our second, was rife with face meltings a la J** M**ne. I think it was a defense mechanism for his personal inadequacy. What a street bum! Can't believe he did our marriage ceremony.
WG
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waysider
Yeah, You're right.
I probably have the years mixed up. They kinda all flow together after awhile.
Don't know why. It was only 30+ years ago--HeeHee
I do remember one big time arse chewin' I got once in my year #3.
Seems it was a Saturday morning and we were all supposed to be cleaning houses.
My new bride and I decided to slip away and spend some * quiet time* together.
Don't know who ratted us out but I was summoned to limb HQ (Right Now!) without a clue of what it was about.
(30-40 minute drive for those who are unfamiliar with the area.)
J.M. threatened to toss me(not my bride) out on my ear if I didn't bow down to him., in a figurative sense, for the rest of the year.
I only buckled because I knew how important it was to her to graduate.
My attitude was never the same after that.
I don't think he would have thrown her out anyway as he seemed to be quite fond of her.
( Know what I mean , Vern?)
Yawn---G'night ,Maw, G'nigh, Paw, G'night, 'Short Stuff, G'night John Boy.
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Watered Garden
That particular limb leader was soooo inappropriate with women.
By the way, I never heard our FL coordinator the second year get ugly with anyone. A rare bird. Hope he's happy wherever he is and whatever he's doing..
WG
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DogLover
Worse face melting I ever got was my interim year at HQ in 1983-84 from J*m F*r*a*o ... he probably went on for over 30 minutes and might be yelling at me still, had Charlie Q**ill*n not returned to his office and excused me ... you could tell he thought J*m had gone WAY over the edge.
Runner up in the face-melting category was TJ at Gunnison....also L*s* Th*m*s (12th Corps working in the kitchen at Gunnison in 1984-85) ... and I STILL don't know what she was talking about ... folks thought it made them more spiritual, I suppose ... they picked on who they thought they could.
I daresay none of the above would get in my face today ... and if they would choose to, God be with them.
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