OK -----Let's see is accurate; Planning,planning, and planning to plan yet more plans for an event involving VIP who supposedly were tighter than tight with GOD Almighty. ----------For Joe B. Liever on the field: Just believe GOD( and don't forget to ABS , it takes cash to make such a big event as a bike trip a blessing for all.)
Post#16 details some of the intense planning that went into the big "BIKE TRIP". Reading this ,for me at least, gave added significance to WW's post #9 on the SHATTERED PIECES thread.
Oldies: Yeah. I remember you guys coming to Emporia, where I was taking the AC at the time. Did you hang with VP much? I was curious how his behavior was. He knew he had cancer and he was dead less than a year later. Sounds like a fun trip.
John, we did hang out some during the trip. I remember going with him and a couple of other bikers to Lake Louise in Banff. We were on the coach chatting a few times with Mrs. Wierwille. Other times, we hung out as a group.
Can't say how much "fun" it was for him. He had his glass eye by then which was probably uncomfortable. His behavior seemed to me what one might expect, sort of grandfatherly as has been described by folks at various times.
What can Bear say , 1981-1992 I was Wow in Auburn Wa. I had very hard time finding work that Ok , with being a WOW . Thius was not easy time, one car for 4 people needed jobs and little boy 3 years old. . What never forget allmost killed hitching back from " Living Victoriously 40th anniversary June 1982 ". There two people shot a the car was in , just givein me ride . The driver was killed. this happen around Granite Montana . When Sherriff had me write up what happen : , I said persons did shooting had devil spirit of " fill in the blank" Yes this went into the offical report , check out all my stuff the bilbel all... Why was out three in the first place , sold car , no job return to just to hear V Pee for one week , this is sick .As newbee here I come believe V Pee sick sex acts , are just real the shooting in Montana June 1983.
The story second part while hitching back got ride by nice nice person- female was offer a place to say the night and clean up . No Nothing happen , never even thought trying , look what our leaders do : why did follow for so long
We did run classes , for the most part left alone . I understand reports were made of us by intern core that ran the Wow family . MY whole year in Auburn I never herad the word Cult , now that what I call the Way.
In '79 my wife and I had stopped going to fellowships. At the end of '80 I found out there was a Way home a mile and a half down the road from us. In the beginning of '81 we started going back to fellowships.
The feel of the area had started to change because we were starting to have Corp running things in the area and it seemed like they didn't know how to relate to us as normal people.
But there were still some great people. I was going to a Twig run by Bob and Pat Koch ( I had taken PFAL with her ) and they had, and still have, a wonderful heart for God and His people. I later heard about Bob reaming the local Corp leadership for having the typical attitude that the rank and file were there to swerve him.
My wife and I loved the Word but because of the previous experience that had made us quit we were never "sold out to the ministry." People would say " you should go WOW" and we'd say "Thanks, but no thanks." We felt that we were taking things on our own terms and not TWI's.
My wife and I split up in our interim year of the 10th corps and we were divorced in 1981...Of course I was dropped from the 10th corps because of it...
Martindale told me to "find a twig somewhere and keep in touch" (In between bites of his lunch, and very coldly I might add)..I did neither.
I went back to school, got my degree in communications and got a job as a program director at an FM radio station instead. Made some great friends and learned a lot of stuff...had fun.
In 1984 I made a huge mistake...I started going to twig again after a 3 year hiatus. They immediately made me a twig leader and of course I was associating with a bunch of corps people again...but something had changed with me. I was no longer intimidated nor impressed by twi leaders and openly disagreed with them often. They tried to control my personal life and even my business (I had quit the radio job and started a remodeling business)...I laughed at them and refused their "suggestions"...In their view I had become a problem.
When lcm received the mantle and was dubbed "king okie", I was somewhat perturbed and let people know about it. BY the time the "Schoenheit controversy" had hit I was ready to split...but that was after the time period we are talking about...
Looking back at it, getting the bums rush from Martindale opened my eyes. I had committed myself to twi and was ready to do whatever they asked of me...after they booted me from the corp without a second thought and without an ounce of loyalty to me...I mentally, emotionally and spiritually kept my distance. Yes, I did get involved again but I had changed and never bought into their "waytree wisdom" again, as I had once done.
I suppose I would describe the years of 1981-84 as the time period when I began to think for myself again...when twi's credibility began to wane...and I put more stock in my own decisions than I did any of the twi leaders that I dealt with. They could see that in me...and didn't like it.
I suppose the biggest benefit to me in going back was that when I finally left in 87, I did it on MY terms.
In 1981-82 I was a WOW Vet in Chicago (lived at 2845 North Halsted with about six others) ... had a good year working in an advertising agency full time that year (had been my part time job during my WOW year) ... made good bucks. It was my apprentice year in the 13th Corps.
Went in residence in the 13th Corps at Emporia in the fall of 1982, a couple of weeks after my father died unexpectedly. We were not close. I felt strong nausea and actually threw up my first afternoon in residence ... was a portent of things to come, I guess. Continued in residence at Emporia until May, when I was sent to HQ for the last block ... we had fun, got to help with the Rock of Ages. I enjoyed it because I had an indoor, air-conditioned job!
Interim year awful in many ways ... spent at HQ ... but got lots of support from Michael Fort, who was quite loving and caring in those days to all of us interim Corps. Went back into residence at Emporia in the fall of 1984 and had a great first block (until Ho-Ho Relo/aka Christmas). In looking back, I realize God tried several times to tell me not to go back into the Corps after I came home to North Carolina during Christmas ... but I went back anyway ... to the hell-hole of Gunnison with TJ the Czar in charge. It was so awful that the things he said to me have taken me YEARS to get over. God was right ... I never should have gone back ....
God will always look out after us if we just let him ... it took me getting out of TWI to learn that.
In the summer, June/July-ish, of 1981 I took the Advanced Class at a hotel in Peebles, Scotland. There were some big-wigs from the US there - Vin** F!nn&^an was running it, and VPW was there for about a week. They and the local Core were looking around for a property at that time, I think
One of the major things that I remember is that "they" told us we were eating too much, and I wonder if this is where the idea that the European people didn't eat properly came from - how ironic would that be. I'm sure it wasn't a normal diet for any of us, but the hotel put on a good spread, and what young person having a good tiime with friends is going to say no, especially when it was all included in the price. Anyway, they had a word with the staff and there were some changes made. I don't think we were excessively dopey during the sessions, but I definitely wasn't getting my normal fresh air exercise and sleep.
Well I am going to just go through my whole time there with my list of stuff I saw or ran into I was in TWI from spring of 1979 to spring of 1983, My memory of some events is a bit fuzzy but I will do my best to share it I will probably break it up in bits.
1979 I took PFAL it was a pretty big class I think there were about 18 or 20 of us in the class. A group of Corps people had come through witnessing at the local college (one of them eventually ended up being my spouse though I did not meet him then) and had rounded up a large class I wasn't one of those witnessed to but one of the people they signed up for the class told me about it and I wanted to go to the class... To put this into a bit of perspective, I was at that time, having been a Christian for about 3 years looking for something that would give me a better understanding of the bible and somewhere to learn a little more about how to read it... So as you can see I was the perfect sort of person to fall for the green card.
Anyway I took the class... I tend to be a bit of a rebel as far as, I listened to the class but I wanted to really read it all by myself to see how much of it was true or not... (any of you who have spent much time in the way can see where this is going to head) From the very beggining I was already being reprimanded that I needed to trust VP and just study PFAL... I was trying to take what I learned in PFAl and see if it really lined up with the bible.
I also decided to go WOW... for a lot of reasons. One of them being I was really trying to put God first in my life and learn to stand on my own two feet on the word so it seemed like the perfect thing to do. And i was young so traveling to a new place sounded fun and exciting.
VP was visiting Camp Gunnison in July it was not officially opened yet and i believe the only thing open was the main Chalet. Anyway we all sat outside and VP taught all about how we needed to stand on God's Word and if that meant seperating from our families then we darned well better be seperating from our families because the WORD was what mattered the most... (littel red flags began to fire in my head and I should have listened but I quelled them.. this was a man of GOD you know). Another incident happened there that I should have paid more attention to but i didn't.
I wanted to meet VP but the Corps person I was with, instead of just taking me over and introducing me to him kept trying to make me go over myself and introduce myself..(I wonder now if this is because he was afraid of getting yelled at for interupting VP, he was ninth corps and going back for his last year of residence, I am sure he knew VP's temperament by then but not sure why he would send me over for this with out some kind of warning)mind you I was all of 19 and very shy... so this was not going to happen.. anyway he kept pushing me and I of course dug in my heels... I ended up not meeting him and maybe that was a good thing, not sure..maybe if i had shook his hand I would have left... (Because I was sexually molested as a child it is one of the things I recognize when i actually meet people, Shake their hands, I can see it in them or sometimes if I see them with their victim... a look in their eyes, the way they look at their victim, they look predetory I guess you would call it) I probably would have walked away from TWI then. ( Now i often wonder why I didn't listen to the red flags and my unease with TWI from the get go, I guess i really fell for the whole MAN OF GOD thing, plus I was young still)
Anyway as we were getting ready to leave we decided to meet VP on the side of teh highway he was traveling with his motorcycle( a gift from the Corps), he and the Misses, and we, all the believers from Pueblo, met them on the side of the road and prayed with him... then he was off and so where we, we had a long ride home sitll and it was getting very dark.
I arrived at ROA a week early as I was traveling with a 9th Corps who was going back into residence that year and so I being a nice person volunteered to help the work crews i was on Porta potty patrol and a couple of shifts of gate patrol.. some of you who have been around a while will know the spot it was the gate right at the edge of tent city and the farmers market, the one VP would drive through going full speed with out stopping while you had to run to get the gate open in time.
Sorry I have to take a break now... I will be back to share more as the weekend goes on. I know it is mostly probably just my story of my time in TWI but I want to share the things I learned as I went along and saw stuff so those of you who were more in the know or who came later can see how it was to those of us who lived sort of on the edges of TWI and maybe why people got fooled.
Also because right from the get go I believe I was singled out as Corps material I spent a lot of time around the Corps with out being corps... So, well, I saw things from a different perspective. Feel free to ask questions and stuff as i go along.
Okay i am back.. I just realized this may take a lot of time LOL
Okay Working at ROA and Corps week.. I was on Mark Graesers crew.. so let me tell you I was so surprised upon arriving at Grease spot to see he had continued in the ministry and on into CES.
While I was on his crew he was nice enough to us on the crew but there was a long lament about TWI and different leaders.. he was clearly unhappy with VP and the entire organization, so I am not sure why he stayed, he also had a pretty volitile temper.. and would get mad pretty easily but then lots of people are like that.
When they had me work the gate I noticed they all really hussled and ran to open it for VP when he would drive through and asked about it... aparently it was VP's practice to aim for you if you were opening the gate and speed up. So I was cautioned to keep an eye out for him and let them know if I saw him comming... of course it fell to me to open the gate one day and Of course VP came through... I dutifully hussled out there and he sped up and of course I tripped and stumbled and he never even hit the breaks. Not that it matters maybe he could see I didn't fall down maybe he didn't care not sure but now as an adult with a little more circumspection I often wonder why he allowed that particular rumor or facet of himself to be put out there. that when he came through you better get yoursef running because he isn't stopping for you and will run you over.
I don't for a minute think he would have run me over but he really did speed up when he came to the gate I was there several times and watched him do it myself when I wans't opening the gate.
I also want to take a moment to talk about some other people I ran into that first year at ROA. There was one of the original families that had been there from the begining with VP, I met them quite by chance, I happened to sit down by them on the grass during a teaching and when it was over we chatted for quite a while about how much they like VP and how long they had been part of the ministry... (I was asking question because i still wasn't too sure if I wanted to be part of the ministry and all this in the midst of being about to go WOW.) Also that particular year there was a lot of talk about deprograming because some guy had recently escaped from some deprogrammers and he spoke at the ROA.. I can't remember now if it was at a Corps only meeting he spoke at, or one of the general meetings because as I was there during Corps week I ended up at a couple of Corps only meetings. (It wasn;t that hard to get into them)
During the actual ROA I met Chris Geer and Let me tell you that was interesting in and of itself.
He was running around with a big gun on the grounds Loaded because he was supposedly guarding VP from people who wanted to kill VP (his words). The Corps person I was with(from Florida) knew him personally and so I got to meet him in one of the people from Floridas RV.. and I can not remember their name they were really nice.. they had a couple of little kids with them. This was when Spoon training was just being introduced. So there was not the rampant control stuff going on with that teaching yet though I have to say there was some teaching in the class I believe about your kids doing every thing you said to do with out question. I could be wrong about this and maybe it was at some other teaching I went to tons of them during my time in TWI.Any way back to Geer he was very wound up about doing his guard duties with the guns.. and there was this air of being in danger that was given out not just with the Corps but even at the regualr events. THat some how people were out to get VP.
In the midst of all this I was trying to go WOW . I had purchased a car I had been making payments on but when I was getting ready to leave my parents decided they would not let me take my car with me... (a tactical mistake on there part if I had actually had the car I would have not been allowed to go WOW) any way there was lots of discussion about if I could go WOW even though I did nto have the car because I was supposed to make payments on the car. in hte end because i did not have the car they let me go. but I spent most of my time at ROA worried whether I would even be lalowed to go WOW.
in the midst of it all I just wanted to find a quiet place to think and figure out what I was going to do so I went wandering in the WAY woods which really is just a strip of woodland not very wide but it was a good place to escape teh huge crowds of people there. So apparently while I was off teh beaten path in the woods VP decided to walk through there. I was on a tree stump and saw the parade of folks go threew but I was sitting real still and they did not see me. so when I did come out the Corps person guarding that area asked where I was and how come I was in the woods... mind you I had walked in past him at least a half hour before this and he did not stop me.. I guess some Corps had been supposed to clear the whole woods out so VP could walk throuhg it with Craig and a couple other people. THe poor Corps guy was scared to death and after that no one could go wandering through the woods. (I am sure they thought some one else could hide in there and ambush VP but really who would?
I also met a couple of guys who had done a whole research project and were being bad mouthed by other Corps becasue their research contradicted VP. again 79 I don't remember what the topic was but tehy were really being bad mouthed. there was also another guy there who was doing some research on Christ and his brothers and sisters.. he had some ideas that really were kind of out there.. One of the things I was told was that if you researched the word some people would really go off the deep end and this was one of the reasons i needed to be careful and only study PFAL material.
On the day we left to go WOW we got to meet our families I was all excited thinking I would be going with 3 other girls. Imagine my surprise to be in a family of two guys and two girls. and we were going with another family of four guys. I have to say as far as WOW families go I really was lucky my family Coordinator was a good man he tried to live according to the bible and we really did have a difficult but good year also the guys in the other family were also really intent on trying to follow teh WOW rules.. We were all there to make God the focus of our lives that year... that year they had you go to one place for 6 months and then some of us got moved to a new place for the next 6 months.. So the first 6 Months all we were in this little town in montana on hte edge of Canada We lost one of my WOW brothers .. he had a drug habit and was continuing with it on the WOW field my Coordinator Bill W told him he couldn't do the drugs and be on the field... HE wanted to do his drugs and he wanted to know who put Bill in charge.. We had a long talk with him about how much we wanted him to stay with us but the drugs had to stop. HE left the field the next day so we were 3 in our family... For the most part we did well, There was a lot of controversy in the town we were in because we were a cult and the churches of course made sure every one in town knew it.. but most peopel were very kind to us there and Honestly I think we were actually more in the wrong and rude a few times when we should have handled things differently.
For example there was a gentlman who came to twon to do a little youth group ralley thing and we of course attended it and instead of praying when he prayed we all sat there and stared at him and were really very rude... he was actually pretty kind to us now that I think about it. anyway at the endo f our first 6 Months they moved us to Great falls. and we got two new WOW brothers added to our families one for each of us... they were military WOW's and of much the same temprement as the rest of us we were there to really put GOD frist in our lives.
I can honestly say we had a pretty uneventful WOW year when I hear about others years here but like I said I was lucky.
Okay I have to take another break but I do wnat to share about another incident from my WOW Year and then I will talk aobut 1980
During the actual ROA I met Chris Geer and Let me tell you that was interesting in and of itself.
He was running around with a big gun on the grounds Loaded because he was supposedly guarding VP from people who wanted to kill VP (his words)... I guess some Corps had been supposed to clear the whole woods out so VP could walk throuhg it with Craig and a couple other people. THe poor Corps guy was scared to death and after that no one could go wandering through the woods. (I am sure they thought some one else could hide in there and ambush VP but really who would?
My, my, my, for someone who believed and trusted God, vp seems awful paranoid. What happened to fear is negative believing?
Yeah, ooooh for those halcyon days of WayWorld, when THE WORD really worked, and God still loved us...
Yeah, really...For me those years are filled with memories that I have consigned to "things I'd rather forget"...What a waste of time! Id rather have spent those years following the Grateful Dead and smoking dope...at least THAT was honest.
One of the nicest things that happened on my WOW year was that our two families got to go stay for a few days with teh WOW's in Kalispell. Our groups 9th Corps guy was best friends with the family coordinato of that group s 9th corps leader, who happened to be one of the corps that came through Pueblo CO and put together the PFAL class I took. We got to go to Glacier Park but they didn't. IT was a really nice thing .. THe Limb Leader of Montana set it up he was Kipp Holdren. He was really a good guy at that time.. not sure if that changed later on. Anyway it was nice.. I would have wished for a couple of girls there for some more of the feminine perspective but it was good.. and Glacier Park is beautiful but of course all things come to an end and we had to go home.
Okay at some point in 1980 we went to Bellevue washington for a regional get together, They let all the WOW's go... or that is what they said.. of course I am sure it was a way to get all the numbers of attendees up, there were a lot of us. Maybe if Cherann comes on she will remember when it actually was as she was in Idaho when I was in montana.
Also i need to make a correction, the guys running twigs when I took the class were eighth Corps.. The corps on the WOW field with us were 9th Corps.
Being all of 20 years old it was all very exciting and fun... keep in mind please my family was actually all getting along for the most part.
A couple more things happened right at the end of my WOW year one of my WOW brothers told me that he knew things about TWI and stuff that went on that would blow my mind.. aluding to the fact that i was not spiritually mature enough to deal with it. He made no bones that it was sexually explicit stuff and involved an early Corps girl, and stuff she had told him that she had done and some of the stuff he and she did... I ignored what he said because I thought he was exagerating. He hinted at just enough to make me remember it and worry a little about it. It wasn't until I came here that the whole picture became clear.
The other thing that happened was that when we got back to ROA at the end of our WOW year all of the WOW's met in the woods at the site of the future WOW Auditorium... I think it was just at the beggining of it all .. They hadn't broken ground yet or maybe they were just getting ready to start setting aside money for it.
Every one was cheering and I was at the back and had a hard time hearing everything they said. THey also had recently finished teh Log cabin that Craig was living in.
Okay ROA 1980. I met the WOW's from Hawaii, OMG they spent the whole year BAKED. they were high the entire time at the ROA as far as i could tell and no one did anything about it. Okay and I went there with a bunch of people from the class we ran in Great Falls. We went in a 48 Ford Pick up with a hand built camper shell on it... We looked like the beverly hill billies LOL. I think the scariest part was when we got to OHIO in the middle of the night and it was pouring rain. THe truck had one window wiper on the drivers side it was a manuel wiper meaning you had to turn the nob back and forth with your hand while steering with the other had. I was driving .. IT was pitch black out and dong a typical Midwest rain storm .. you know the ones where it is like some one is dumping a bucket of water on you. The vents were open and my legs and feet were drinched with water coming in through the vents. We finaly found a rest stop to pull over.
And honestly I have no idea ho I managed to not run us into aditch except that there was another car infornt of us and I followed their taillights as best I could.
This was a very wet muddy ROA that year. I spent most of my time there being very wet, I did meet people from all over the world too. And a bunch of the New york. Manhatten crew.. A bunch of them were artists. One of them actually has gone on and done quite a bit of stuff. I am not sure if he is still in TWI or moved on. One of these days Maybe i will email him.
I went back to Montana for a year in a Way home, 1980/1981
THe next thing I can tell you about is VP in spring of 1981 had a Word in the Arts Conference at head quarters, it was a four day event. I went with one of the artists from montana and of course met up with the guy from Manhattan as we had been talking on the phone pretty regularly. We hadn't quite hooked up as it was a really long distance romance LOL. any way the things i remeber about that were that one of the presenters was a gay artist who VP used as a very public example of how God could heal you from being gay. VP was very nice to him publicly so it gave an impression of a more accepting TWI I guess. There was also a sculpter there, he was very good.. and of course I remeber almost none of the names.. VP spent a lot of time emphasizing that we should all be using our talents to illustrate God's word.. I think the one thing that was disapointing was that VP didn't talk much about how to use the word to help you enhance you talent it was all teh other way around.. that the only real way to use your talent was in ministry activities.. He also bragged about how he wouldn't let the art department have paints they could only have crayons.. and how wasn[t he clever because look at what they produced.. mind you they did do some really awesome psters using the crayons in a pointilism style(little dots used to make pictures) but I kept thinking it was kind of odd that he would hinder them in this way. OF course now that I have gotten older I look a it and see how very one sided it was. I went away from it with a more limited view of what i could do with my talent than when i was on my way there.
There was also a word in Business COnference that year... I can't remember if it was the first year for this conference or if there had been one before but teh word inteh Arts Conference was teh first for that.
As far as my way home experience goes it was probablly pretty standard. We had the usual angst of money issues and one person trying to push everyone else around. and we managed to put together a PFAL class. We also did alot of fun things. We wnet skiing.. and a bunch of people went Skidiving Not me because i went to the Word in the Arts Conference and had only been back two weeks when they went so i didn't have enough money to go.
Now when i went to ROA 1981 I was supposed to go on to New york to try to get a career in Art started but I never could find The artist guy from Manhattan... Interestingly I did meet up with his Twig coordinator or area coordinator who told me he thought it might not be a good idea for me to come to New York.( I had been talking to a bunch of people organizxing a way home and they were inviting me to come there).. he was concerned that i would be going there with out a support system in place, and he was worried that the guy would not come through for me as in his words he was not a reliable person.. this actually turned out to be a good thing.. the guy i was looking for had hooked up with another girl.. And i ended up going to Idaho to live with a girl friend. or that was the plan... I landed in A small town a sew days ahead of her... and started hanging out with the twig leader .. a just graduated 9th Corps guy .. the same 9th Corps guy that was the Family Coordinator of the WOW's in Kalispell . the same 9th Corps guy who had been part of the crew that put together the PFAL class that I took but I didn't get to meet. Anyway we ended up spending a ton of time together. The person i was supposed to live with showed up a week late and was going to go back home she had met some guy she was going to marry and wasn't going to stay in idaho at all.. So i ended up moving in with the 9th Corps guy and another guy and we set up a way home. We each had our own room and we started running TWIGS.
Okay I am going to take a break here again.
I will come back tomorrow and go throught 81/82. This is when I started to see some not so nice changes to TWI and of course I am not sure how much of it was because I was now a part of Corps or that the whole thing was changing.
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penworks
Hi everyone, In August 1984, since I'd had in-house training at The Way in Aramaic over the years, and I was a loyal 2nd Corps grad, I was invited to work on the biblical research team at Headqua
outandabout
hmmm 1981-1984. 1981 I was in Mississippi as a Corps grad. Pretty much alone in Greenville, MS. A WOW vet was with me but she eventually left. Don't blame her. When I was sent, there was supposedl
TLC
A sad report, for sure, outandabout. But unfortunately, probably not all that uncommon. It was far too easy to think what we were doing "for the ministry" was doing something for God. Which naturall
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alleycat
I know the Bible Lands tour was in 85, is there another thread for that event or time period?
And when was the dedication of the Word Over the World Auditorium? I think that must have been in this time period.
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waysider
OK -----Let's see is accurate; Planning,planning, and planning to plan yet more plans for an event involving VIP who supposedly were tighter than tight with GOD Almighty. ----------For Joe B. Liever on the field: Just believe GOD( and don't forget to ABS , it takes cash to make such a big event as a bike trip a blessing for all.)
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waysider
Post#16 details some of the intense planning that went into the big "BIKE TRIP". Reading this ,for me at least, gave added significance to WW's post #9 on the SHATTERED PIECES thread.
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oldiesman
Tom, they were present tense as of the ride, 1984.
I would imagine most if not all these folks are out now.
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oldiesman
John, we did hang out some during the trip. I remember going with him and a couple of other bikers to Lake Louise in Banff. We were on the coach chatting a few times with Mrs. Wierwille. Other times, we hung out as a group.
Can't say how much "fun" it was for him. He had his glass eye by then which was probably uncomfortable. His behavior seemed to me what one might expect, sort of grandfatherly as has been described by folks at various times.
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andy Bear
What can Bear say , 1981-1992 I was Wow in Auburn Wa. I had very hard time finding work that Ok , with being a WOW . Thius was not easy time, one car for 4 people needed jobs and little boy 3 years old. . What never forget allmost killed hitching back from " Living Victoriously 40th anniversary June 1982 ". There two people shot a the car was in , just givein me ride . The driver was killed. this happen around Granite Montana . When Sherriff had me write up what happen : , I said persons did shooting had devil spirit of " fill in the blank" Yes this went into the offical report , check out all my stuff the bilbel all... Why was out three in the first place , sold car , no job return to just to hear V Pee for one week , this is sick .As newbee here I come believe V Pee sick sex acts , are just real the shooting in Montana June 1983.
The story second part while hitching back got ride by nice nice person- female was offer a place to say the night and clean up . No Nothing happen , never even thought trying , look what our leaders do : why did follow for so long
We did run classes , for the most part left alone . I understand reports were made of us by intern core that ran the Wow family . MY whole year in Auburn I never herad the word Cult , now that what I call the Way.
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pawtucket
The Auditorium dedication was late 84, early 85 I believe
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Ductape
As long as you “believe”
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TOMMYZ
Let's see, 1981 to 1984.
In '79 my wife and I had stopped going to fellowships. At the end of '80 I found out there was a Way home a mile and a half down the road from us. In the beginning of '81 we started going back to fellowships.
The feel of the area had started to change because we were starting to have Corp running things in the area and it seemed like they didn't know how to relate to us as normal people.
But there were still some great people. I was going to a Twig run by Bob and Pat Koch ( I had taken PFAL with her ) and they had, and still have, a wonderful heart for God and His people. I later heard about Bob reaming the local Corp leadership for having the typical attitude that the rank and file were there to swerve him.
My wife and I loved the Word but because of the previous experience that had made us quit we were never "sold out to the ministry." People would say " you should go WOW" and we'd say "Thanks, but no thanks." We felt that we were taking things on our own terms and not TWI's.
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GrouchoMarxJr
!981-84 was a strange time for me...
My wife and I split up in our interim year of the 10th corps and we were divorced in 1981...Of course I was dropped from the 10th corps because of it...
Martindale told me to "find a twig somewhere and keep in touch" (In between bites of his lunch, and very coldly I might add)..I did neither.
I went back to school, got my degree in communications and got a job as a program director at an FM radio station instead. Made some great friends and learned a lot of stuff...had fun.
In 1984 I made a huge mistake...I started going to twig again after a 3 year hiatus. They immediately made me a twig leader and of course I was associating with a bunch of corps people again...but something had changed with me. I was no longer intimidated nor impressed by twi leaders and openly disagreed with them often. They tried to control my personal life and even my business (I had quit the radio job and started a remodeling business)...I laughed at them and refused their "suggestions"...In their view I had become a problem.
When lcm received the mantle and was dubbed "king okie", I was somewhat perturbed and let people know about it. BY the time the "Schoenheit controversy" had hit I was ready to split...but that was after the time period we are talking about...
Looking back at it, getting the bums rush from Martindale opened my eyes. I had committed myself to twi and was ready to do whatever they asked of me...after they booted me from the corp without a second thought and without an ounce of loyalty to me...I mentally, emotionally and spiritually kept my distance. Yes, I did get involved again but I had changed and never bought into their "waytree wisdom" again, as I had once done.
I suppose I would describe the years of 1981-84 as the time period when I began to think for myself again...when twi's credibility began to wane...and I put more stock in my own decisions than I did any of the twi leaders that I dealt with. They could see that in me...and didn't like it.
I suppose the biggest benefit to me in going back was that when I finally left in 87, I did it on MY terms.
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WordWolf
twi's official timeline (issued at vpw's memorial thing)
gave the opening as 1985. (Same as vpw's death.)
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johniam
I'm pretty sure the dedication of the auditorium was on Uncle Harry sunday, which would have been March, about 2 months before VP died.
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GrouchoMarxJr
The auditorium was dedicated on uncle Harry day?...maybe they should have thrown IT into the fire.
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excathedra
OHMYGOD andy bear how horrible, i'm so sorry !!!!!!!!
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DogLover
In 1981-82 I was a WOW Vet in Chicago (lived at 2845 North Halsted with about six others) ... had a good year working in an advertising agency full time that year (had been my part time job during my WOW year) ... made good bucks. It was my apprentice year in the 13th Corps.
Went in residence in the 13th Corps at Emporia in the fall of 1982, a couple of weeks after my father died unexpectedly. We were not close. I felt strong nausea and actually threw up my first afternoon in residence ... was a portent of things to come, I guess. Continued in residence at Emporia until May, when I was sent to HQ for the last block ... we had fun, got to help with the Rock of Ages. I enjoyed it because I had an indoor, air-conditioned job!
Interim year awful in many ways ... spent at HQ ... but got lots of support from Michael Fort, who was quite loving and caring in those days to all of us interim Corps. Went back into residence at Emporia in the fall of 1984 and had a great first block (until Ho-Ho Relo/aka Christmas). In looking back, I realize God tried several times to tell me not to go back into the Corps after I came home to North Carolina during Christmas ... but I went back anyway ... to the hell-hole of Gunnison with TJ the Czar in charge. It was so awful that the things he said to me have taken me YEARS to get over. God was right ... I never should have gone back ....
God will always look out after us if we just let him ... it took me getting out of TWI to learn that.
DogLover
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Sunnyfla
1983,
I took PFAL. Very life changeing at that time.
I remember the believers were kind and loving and would go out of their way to help those in the household.
I didn't see any bitterness towards others or the ministry. Everything was hunky-dory :blink:
Coffee houses
Fun holloween parties
Dinner Branch Potluck Parties
Great friends!!!
Fun times....then 1986 :( things started to fall apart in our area.
Saddness
People leaving
Hopelessness
Division and so on.
I got divorced then went WOW in 1988-89
Time sure flys doesn't it?? :unsure:
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cara
In the summer, June/July-ish, of 1981 I took the Advanced Class at a hotel in Peebles, Scotland. There were some big-wigs from the US there - Vin** F!nn&^an was running it, and VPW was there for about a week. They and the local Core were looking around for a property at that time, I think
One of the major things that I remember is that "they" told us we were eating too much, and I wonder if this is where the idea that the European people didn't eat properly came from - how ironic would that be. I'm sure it wasn't a normal diet for any of us, but the hotel put on a good spread, and what young person having a good tiime with friends is going to say no, especially when it was all included in the price. Anyway, they had a word with the staff and there were some changes made. I don't think we were excessively dopey during the sessions, but I definitely wasn't getting my normal fresh air exercise and sleep.
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Jim
Malpacks...
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leafytwiglet
Well I am going to just go through my whole time there with my list of stuff I saw or ran into I was in TWI from spring of 1979 to spring of 1983, My memory of some events is a bit fuzzy but I will do my best to share it I will probably break it up in bits.
1979 I took PFAL it was a pretty big class I think there were about 18 or 20 of us in the class. A group of Corps people had come through witnessing at the local college (one of them eventually ended up being my spouse though I did not meet him then) and had rounded up a large class I wasn't one of those witnessed to but one of the people they signed up for the class told me about it and I wanted to go to the class... To put this into a bit of perspective, I was at that time, having been a Christian for about 3 years looking for something that would give me a better understanding of the bible and somewhere to learn a little more about how to read it... So as you can see I was the perfect sort of person to fall for the green card.
Anyway I took the class... I tend to be a bit of a rebel as far as, I listened to the class but I wanted to really read it all by myself to see how much of it was true or not... (any of you who have spent much time in the way can see where this is going to head) From the very beggining I was already being reprimanded that I needed to trust VP and just study PFAL... I was trying to take what I learned in PFAl and see if it really lined up with the bible.
I also decided to go WOW... for a lot of reasons. One of them being I was really trying to put God first in my life and learn to stand on my own two feet on the word so it seemed like the perfect thing to do. And i was young so traveling to a new place sounded fun and exciting.
VP was visiting Camp Gunnison in July it was not officially opened yet and i believe the only thing open was the main Chalet. Anyway we all sat outside and VP taught all about how we needed to stand on God's Word and if that meant seperating from our families then we darned well better be seperating from our families because the WORD was what mattered the most... (littel red flags began to fire in my head and I should have listened but I quelled them.. this was a man of GOD you know). Another incident happened there that I should have paid more attention to but i didn't.
I wanted to meet VP but the Corps person I was with, instead of just taking me over and introducing me to him kept trying to make me go over myself and introduce myself..(I wonder now if this is because he was afraid of getting yelled at for interupting VP, he was ninth corps and going back for his last year of residence, I am sure he knew VP's temperament by then but not sure why he would send me over for this with out some kind of warning)mind you I was all of 19 and very shy... so this was not going to happen.. anyway he kept pushing me and I of course dug in my heels... I ended up not meeting him and maybe that was a good thing, not sure..maybe if i had shook his hand I would have left... (Because I was sexually molested as a child it is one of the things I recognize when i actually meet people, Shake their hands, I can see it in them or sometimes if I see them with their victim... a look in their eyes, the way they look at their victim, they look predetory I guess you would call it) I probably would have walked away from TWI then. ( Now i often wonder why I didn't listen to the red flags and my unease with TWI from the get go, I guess i really fell for the whole MAN OF GOD thing, plus I was young still)
Anyway as we were getting ready to leave we decided to meet VP on the side of teh highway he was traveling with his motorcycle( a gift from the Corps), he and the Misses, and we, all the believers from Pueblo, met them on the side of the road and prayed with him... then he was off and so where we, we had a long ride home sitll and it was getting very dark.
I arrived at ROA a week early as I was traveling with a 9th Corps who was going back into residence that year and so I being a nice person volunteered to help the work crews i was on Porta potty patrol and a couple of shifts of gate patrol.. some of you who have been around a while will know the spot it was the gate right at the edge of tent city and the farmers market, the one VP would drive through going full speed with out stopping while you had to run to get the gate open in time.
Sorry I have to take a break now... I will be back to share more as the weekend goes on. I know it is mostly probably just my story of my time in TWI but I want to share the things I learned as I went along and saw stuff so those of you who were more in the know or who came later can see how it was to those of us who lived sort of on the edges of TWI and maybe why people got fooled.
Also because right from the get go I believe I was singled out as Corps material I spent a lot of time around the Corps with out being corps... So, well, I saw things from a different perspective. Feel free to ask questions and stuff as i go along.
edited to fix a couple errors I just saw
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leafytwiglet
Okay i am back.. I just realized this may take a lot of time LOL
Okay Working at ROA and Corps week.. I was on Mark Graesers crew.. so let me tell you I was so surprised upon arriving at Grease spot to see he had continued in the ministry and on into CES.
While I was on his crew he was nice enough to us on the crew but there was a long lament about TWI and different leaders.. he was clearly unhappy with VP and the entire organization, so I am not sure why he stayed, he also had a pretty volitile temper.. and would get mad pretty easily but then lots of people are like that.
When they had me work the gate I noticed they all really hussled and ran to open it for VP when he would drive through and asked about it... aparently it was VP's practice to aim for you if you were opening the gate and speed up. So I was cautioned to keep an eye out for him and let them know if I saw him comming... of course it fell to me to open the gate one day and Of course VP came through... I dutifully hussled out there and he sped up and of course I tripped and stumbled and he never even hit the breaks. Not that it matters maybe he could see I didn't fall down maybe he didn't care not sure but now as an adult with a little more circumspection I often wonder why he allowed that particular rumor or facet of himself to be put out there. that when he came through you better get yoursef running because he isn't stopping for you and will run you over.
I don't for a minute think he would have run me over but he really did speed up when he came to the gate I was there several times and watched him do it myself when I wans't opening the gate.
I also want to take a moment to talk about some other people I ran into that first year at ROA. There was one of the original families that had been there from the begining with VP, I met them quite by chance, I happened to sit down by them on the grass during a teaching and when it was over we chatted for quite a while about how much they like VP and how long they had been part of the ministry... (I was asking question because i still wasn't too sure if I wanted to be part of the ministry and all this in the midst of being about to go WOW.) Also that particular year there was a lot of talk about deprograming because some guy had recently escaped from some deprogrammers and he spoke at the ROA.. I can't remember now if it was at a Corps only meeting he spoke at, or one of the general meetings because as I was there during Corps week I ended up at a couple of Corps only meetings. (It wasn;t that hard to get into them)
During the actual ROA I met Chris Geer and Let me tell you that was interesting in and of itself.
He was running around with a big gun on the grounds Loaded because he was supposedly guarding VP from people who wanted to kill VP (his words). The Corps person I was with(from Florida) knew him personally and so I got to meet him in one of the people from Floridas RV.. and I can not remember their name they were really nice.. they had a couple of little kids with them. This was when Spoon training was just being introduced. So there was not the rampant control stuff going on with that teaching yet though I have to say there was some teaching in the class I believe about your kids doing every thing you said to do with out question. I could be wrong about this and maybe it was at some other teaching I went to tons of them during my time in TWI.Any way back to Geer he was very wound up about doing his guard duties with the guns.. and there was this air of being in danger that was given out not just with the Corps but even at the regualr events. THat some how people were out to get VP.
In the midst of all this I was trying to go WOW . I had purchased a car I had been making payments on but when I was getting ready to leave my parents decided they would not let me take my car with me... (a tactical mistake on there part if I had actually had the car I would have not been allowed to go WOW) any way there was lots of discussion about if I could go WOW even though I did nto have the car because I was supposed to make payments on the car. in hte end because i did not have the car they let me go. but I spent most of my time at ROA worried whether I would even be lalowed to go WOW.
in the midst of it all I just wanted to find a quiet place to think and figure out what I was going to do so I went wandering in the WAY woods which really is just a strip of woodland not very wide but it was a good place to escape teh huge crowds of people there. So apparently while I was off teh beaten path in the woods VP decided to walk through there. I was on a tree stump and saw the parade of folks go threew but I was sitting real still and they did not see me. so when I did come out the Corps person guarding that area asked where I was and how come I was in the woods... mind you I had walked in past him at least a half hour before this and he did not stop me.. I guess some Corps had been supposed to clear the whole woods out so VP could walk throuhg it with Craig and a couple other people. THe poor Corps guy was scared to death and after that no one could go wandering through the woods. (I am sure they thought some one else could hide in there and ambush VP but really who would?
I also met a couple of guys who had done a whole research project and were being bad mouthed by other Corps becasue their research contradicted VP. again 79 I don't remember what the topic was but tehy were really being bad mouthed. there was also another guy there who was doing some research on Christ and his brothers and sisters.. he had some ideas that really were kind of out there.. One of the things I was told was that if you researched the word some people would really go off the deep end and this was one of the reasons i needed to be careful and only study PFAL material.
On the day we left to go WOW we got to meet our families I was all excited thinking I would be going with 3 other girls. Imagine my surprise to be in a family of two guys and two girls. and we were going with another family of four guys. I have to say as far as WOW families go I really was lucky my family Coordinator was a good man he tried to live according to the bible and we really did have a difficult but good year also the guys in the other family were also really intent on trying to follow teh WOW rules.. We were all there to make God the focus of our lives that year... that year they had you go to one place for 6 months and then some of us got moved to a new place for the next 6 months.. So the first 6 Months all we were in this little town in montana on hte edge of Canada We lost one of my WOW brothers .. he had a drug habit and was continuing with it on the WOW field my Coordinator Bill W told him he couldn't do the drugs and be on the field... HE wanted to do his drugs and he wanted to know who put Bill in charge.. We had a long talk with him about how much we wanted him to stay with us but the drugs had to stop. HE left the field the next day so we were 3 in our family... For the most part we did well, There was a lot of controversy in the town we were in because we were a cult and the churches of course made sure every one in town knew it.. but most peopel were very kind to us there and Honestly I think we were actually more in the wrong and rude a few times when we should have handled things differently.
For example there was a gentlman who came to twon to do a little youth group ralley thing and we of course attended it and instead of praying when he prayed we all sat there and stared at him and were really very rude... he was actually pretty kind to us now that I think about it. anyway at the endo f our first 6 Months they moved us to Great falls. and we got two new WOW brothers added to our families one for each of us... they were military WOW's and of much the same temprement as the rest of us we were there to really put GOD frist in our lives.
I can honestly say we had a pretty uneventful WOW year when I hear about others years here but like I said I was lucky.
Okay I have to take another break but I do wnat to share about another incident from my WOW Year and then I will talk aobut 1980
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So_crates
My, my, my, for someone who believed and trusted God, vp seems awful paranoid. What happened to fear is negative believing?
SoCrates
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GrouchoMarxJr
Yeah, really...For me those years are filled with memories that I have consigned to "things I'd rather forget"...What a waste of time! Id rather have spent those years following the Grateful Dead and smoking dope...at least THAT was honest.
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excathedra
leafy ohmygod i feel like i am there with you when you tell your story
pm me if you feel like it and tell me who the 9th corps was
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leafytwiglet
Okay I am back sorry i left you all hanging.
One of the nicest things that happened on my WOW year was that our two families got to go stay for a few days with teh WOW's in Kalispell. Our groups 9th Corps guy was best friends with the family coordinato of that group s 9th corps leader, who happened to be one of the corps that came through Pueblo CO and put together the PFAL class I took. We got to go to Glacier Park but they didn't. IT was a really nice thing .. THe Limb Leader of Montana set it up he was Kipp Holdren. He was really a good guy at that time.. not sure if that changed later on. Anyway it was nice.. I would have wished for a couple of girls there for some more of the feminine perspective but it was good.. and Glacier Park is beautiful but of course all things come to an end and we had to go home.
Okay at some point in 1980 we went to Bellevue washington for a regional get together, They let all the WOW's go... or that is what they said.. of course I am sure it was a way to get all the numbers of attendees up, there were a lot of us. Maybe if Cherann comes on she will remember when it actually was as she was in Idaho when I was in montana.
Also i need to make a correction, the guys running twigs when I took the class were eighth Corps.. The corps on the WOW field with us were 9th Corps.
Being all of 20 years old it was all very exciting and fun... keep in mind please my family was actually all getting along for the most part.
A couple more things happened right at the end of my WOW year one of my WOW brothers told me that he knew things about TWI and stuff that went on that would blow my mind.. aluding to the fact that i was not spiritually mature enough to deal with it. He made no bones that it was sexually explicit stuff and involved an early Corps girl, and stuff she had told him that she had done and some of the stuff he and she did... I ignored what he said because I thought he was exagerating. He hinted at just enough to make me remember it and worry a little about it. It wasn't until I came here that the whole picture became clear.
The other thing that happened was that when we got back to ROA at the end of our WOW year all of the WOW's met in the woods at the site of the future WOW Auditorium... I think it was just at the beggining of it all .. They hadn't broken ground yet or maybe they were just getting ready to start setting aside money for it.
Every one was cheering and I was at the back and had a hard time hearing everything they said. THey also had recently finished teh Log cabin that Craig was living in.
Okay ROA 1980. I met the WOW's from Hawaii, OMG they spent the whole year BAKED. they were high the entire time at the ROA as far as i could tell and no one did anything about it. Okay and I went there with a bunch of people from the class we ran in Great Falls. We went in a 48 Ford Pick up with a hand built camper shell on it... We looked like the beverly hill billies LOL. I think the scariest part was when we got to OHIO in the middle of the night and it was pouring rain. THe truck had one window wiper on the drivers side it was a manuel wiper meaning you had to turn the nob back and forth with your hand while steering with the other had. I was driving .. IT was pitch black out and dong a typical Midwest rain storm .. you know the ones where it is like some one is dumping a bucket of water on you. The vents were open and my legs and feet were drinched with water coming in through the vents. We finaly found a rest stop to pull over.
And honestly I have no idea ho I managed to not run us into aditch except that there was another car infornt of us and I followed their taillights as best I could.
This was a very wet muddy ROA that year. I spent most of my time there being very wet, I did meet people from all over the world too. And a bunch of the New york. Manhatten crew.. A bunch of them were artists. One of them actually has gone on and done quite a bit of stuff. I am not sure if he is still in TWI or moved on. One of these days Maybe i will email him.
I went back to Montana for a year in a Way home, 1980/1981
THe next thing I can tell you about is VP in spring of 1981 had a Word in the Arts Conference at head quarters, it was a four day event. I went with one of the artists from montana and of course met up with the guy from Manhattan as we had been talking on the phone pretty regularly. We hadn't quite hooked up as it was a really long distance romance LOL. any way the things i remeber about that were that one of the presenters was a gay artist who VP used as a very public example of how God could heal you from being gay. VP was very nice to him publicly so it gave an impression of a more accepting TWI I guess. There was also a sculpter there, he was very good.. and of course I remeber almost none of the names.. VP spent a lot of time emphasizing that we should all be using our talents to illustrate God's word.. I think the one thing that was disapointing was that VP didn't talk much about how to use the word to help you enhance you talent it was all teh other way around.. that the only real way to use your talent was in ministry activities.. He also bragged about how he wouldn't let the art department have paints they could only have crayons.. and how wasn[t he clever because look at what they produced.. mind you they did do some really awesome psters using the crayons in a pointilism style(little dots used to make pictures) but I kept thinking it was kind of odd that he would hinder them in this way. OF course now that I have gotten older I look a it and see how very one sided it was. I went away from it with a more limited view of what i could do with my talent than when i was on my way there.
There was also a word in Business COnference that year... I can't remember if it was the first year for this conference or if there had been one before but teh word inteh Arts Conference was teh first for that.
As far as my way home experience goes it was probablly pretty standard. We had the usual angst of money issues and one person trying to push everyone else around. and we managed to put together a PFAL class. We also did alot of fun things. We wnet skiing.. and a bunch of people went Skidiving Not me because i went to the Word in the Arts Conference and had only been back two weeks when they went so i didn't have enough money to go.
Now when i went to ROA 1981 I was supposed to go on to New york to try to get a career in Art started but I never could find The artist guy from Manhattan... Interestingly I did meet up with his Twig coordinator or area coordinator who told me he thought it might not be a good idea for me to come to New York.( I had been talking to a bunch of people organizxing a way home and they were inviting me to come there).. he was concerned that i would be going there with out a support system in place, and he was worried that the guy would not come through for me as in his words he was not a reliable person.. this actually turned out to be a good thing.. the guy i was looking for had hooked up with another girl.. And i ended up going to Idaho to live with a girl friend. or that was the plan... I landed in A small town a sew days ahead of her... and started hanging out with the twig leader .. a just graduated 9th Corps guy .. the same 9th Corps guy that was the Family Coordinator of the WOW's in Kalispell . the same 9th Corps guy who had been part of the crew that put together the PFAL class that I took but I didn't get to meet. Anyway we ended up spending a ton of time together. The person i was supposed to live with showed up a week late and was going to go back home she had met some guy she was going to marry and wasn't going to stay in idaho at all.. So i ended up moving in with the 9th Corps guy and another guy and we set up a way home. We each had our own room and we started running TWIGS.
Okay I am going to take a break here again.
I will come back tomorrow and go throught 81/82. This is when I started to see some not so nice changes to TWI and of course I am not sure how much of it was because I was now a part of Corps or that the whole thing was changing.
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