FullCircle

Hi I was just reading the thread about which seminar did you hate the most and it spawned me to think of this. While I don't wish to rain on anyone's parade or memory lane, I am sorry but I just never had a good time at the ROA. I either got sunburned badly and had to deal with a hot hot tent during the day, or a cold and damp tent at night. Not having a true place to rest and sit down and be comfortable for a week or some privacy drove me bonkers. Besides doing Balllles Patrol and being feed and fodder for Ohio mosquitoes all night long in the deep dark woods by the chalet, and feeling that sense of doom and gloom and general nastiness at the last ROA I attended in 1986, I was just sharing a memory with my husband of volunterring to work in a drink stand. Hot thirsty, covered in sticky drink stuff, sweating like pig while Corps drove up in those little golf carts and got drinks, our supervisor sitting there in front of a fan with their feet up on a table, I asked if I could have a drink and I was told I had to ask and was suggested that I didn't ask as the last person who asked got yelled at. So all the good peeps went on working with their eyes lowered, I stared at them in horror, looked at the guy in front of the fan (I think this was 1979) and I walked off the line and never went back. When I ran into the fellow slaves a few times after that, they gave me disgusted looks. Ha.

I thought it was high cholesterol and plague that harden hearts?

I have a date set in february to try quitting again. I know what you mean about it being illogical. As a smoker, I still can't stand the smell of it, my clothes, anything. I hate what it is doing to me. I have tried quitting so many times, it's not funny. The best I have gone is a couple of months, but if you knew me, you would know that was a major triumph. The worse thing I ever did was allow myself one puff. One was all it took to get me hooked again. I do know I will not do the patch again this time. It just prolonged the agony of wanting a cig. It prolonged the agony of withdrawal and the funny thing was I felt it more on the second day of stepping down to a lesser patch then the first. Those damn patches must stay in your system for 24 hours. There was a time where I thought I would never get over thinking of having a cig. Like when getting on the phone, I would want to reach for them or when I got out of work I would think it was time to have one, only I quit. I thought those thoughts would never go away but eventually they did. I am going cold turkey this time. Three to seven days of hell. But it is better than months of prolonging it. I will cling to the fact that eventually I won't think about grabbing them out of habit. I just hope I can survive the wanting/craving them when things get rough. It is how I relieved stress, or think I do. A friend suggested that I try deep breath exercises when the cravings are too bad or I am so stressed. I hope this thread gets filled up with ideas.

I never skitched, and we called it that too. I watched my brothers and his friends do it. They did it in the day time as well and that is when the plows would leave enough snow on the street to get packed down to turn into ice. My brothers and his friends did it with their bodies under the car. They hung onto the bumpers and let the rest slide under the car. Yikes. So not only did they have to worry about dry patches but also to keep their legs straight and not go under the tires of the car.

Sure, why not. Been a long time since I had a glass of anything. I will then regale you with the seeds I bought today and how I will grow them inside then take them outside to put in my porch planters. We can watch the grass grow. You know, a most wonderful lady on my husband's side of the family died yesterday. She was only 54, cancer. She still has a daughter in high school. This woman worked, raised 6 children, never complained, always good natured, raised her own vegetables, worked part time to bring in a little extra cash. She never once complained about the pain she was in, or why her or anything. At the end they had to put shunts in her to relieve her of the excess fluid building up. Still no complaints. A remarkable woman and now she is gone. Stayed true to her family and her man. Most of the leadership in TWI and the offshoots could not hold a candle to her yet because of man made standards of self righteousness, she is counted for nothing and her accomplishments as nothing. When life is honored, and where life is honored, the simpliest of acts, the tokens of kindness and the generousity of the soul can then be appreciated and seen it for the nobilness it is.

First my mom would burn a bayberry candle till it was completely out. She couldn't buy it for herself, it had to be given as a gift so she and my older married sisters would buy each other candles. She would also have a spread out and there would be herring. Creamed and pickled herring. *shudders* And of course drinks for the adults and pop for the kids. New Year's Day we would have a pork roast with stuffing and apple sauce and all that. I skip over the herring and the candle. I put out a buffet spread for family and friends New Year's Eve. New Year's Day I will cook whatever the family votes on to have that day.

*Not for Christians to read who may get upset and triggered and all that* I will say some of what I truly think about statments like that. I am so glad I don't believe in God anymore. That type of talk is nothing but condemnation and a pile of bull excrement to make people feel guilty and get moving. I was handed such tripe as that when I was in TWI...oh the way you live your life the first three months after your WOW year determines how you will live the rest of your life, blah blah. I tell you (in general) what. When your God gets off his butt and kids quit dying of cancer, all the predators die off of the earth and quit preying on kids and molesting them, good people quit dying and people quit exploiting, fleecing and hurting people in his name (not to mention the millions killed in the name of the Christian religion since it started) I may start doing something that these high and mightey self appointed judges would like. Until then, it is all pie in the sky, lucy in the sky with diamonds fluff anuther. Until I will live my life like anyone else. Drug free and no booze either (not like some drambue heads I knew) working hard, paying my taxes and bills, helping out others and raising normal healthy kids. Please don't give me the redeemed salavation spiel. It won't work or God is good, it's the devil's fault.

Upon reflection, I felt I shared too much personal information about my situation and it sat here like a broken thumb so I decided to remove it. I wish the child mentioned in this thread and his parents all the best.

Raf I had read the letters, most of them anyway and so many posts that were swirling around in my mind, that my post was a direct result of putting myself in a person's shoes and going against a group of people trying to tell me I was possessed or something close to that. Having been in TWI, and having seen that done to others and having it done to me, I identified. It had nothing to do with your post at all. To be honest, as someone who left around 1989 and who was associated with CES then, and as such whenever I had associated with churches or groups after that, I always had to find something that DID not resemble TWI. I am most glad after reading this, I did not stay involved. I agree with you about the unstable part of it all. It just amazes me that people would base life altering decisions on dreams. It's insane. It's like reading about people who waste their life savings to have a curse removed or have a medium contact their dead loved ones for them.

I abused my power as family coordinator of a WOW family in 1985 over this very issue. As we met the next day after commissioning at the ROA and we gathered all our belongings together, I asked this very question and I let them know I wanted Hellman's. I told them if they wanted Miracle Whip, FINE, but both would be bought and there were to be no arguments against it. I once had a Corps WOW Vet coordinator in Tennessee who banned all mayo/salad dressing/miracle whip from the house cause he couldn't stand it. We had egg salad mixed with mustard, the dang mayo Nazi that he was!

Not agreeing to false prophecies (sp) and accusations made against a person was considered hardness of heart? I consider that to be a strong stable person. It also reminds me of a little book called "Animal Farm." The pigs, the leaders pressured the other animals to make false confessions of treason and treachery and hanging out or meeting with the dreaded SnowBall. Once an animal conceded to make a false accusation, their throat was ripped out. There was a movie, I believe it was "The Killing Fields." People who made false accusations against themselves or admitted to false accusations were also killed. Murder is illegal here, but for her or anyone to agree to those accusations made by others, would be suicide and they would be marked forever, damaged, their reputation damaged permanently. It's a no win situation for the accused. It's disgusting and reprehensible to commit such acts in the name of any religion.

Thank you for your welcome :) Isn 't that the truth? I remember it well in TWI. I remember RD coming to California and JAL and how hush hush it was to go to those meetings and the fear of being found out. I was spoken to by local leadership who quoted the TWI verse, cause it certainly wasn't biblical "Cover men's sins with silence." Ha. You couldn't talk and you couldn't listen to those who did talk. I was given the tapes speaking about the problems, and how it seemed because of the control of what people said and what people listened to, there was almost an underground of getting information. To me this is just another repeat of the same old thing., with CES I mean. It seems no matter where I went afterwards, church or not, splinter groups, the same rule was in effect. We were explained away as 'being in the process of healing' among other labels. Of course the splinter groups never pointed out that they were leaders from the groups that we 'were in the process of healing from" when we spoke out against issues. I found it to be used in church as well, from one degree to the next. *looks around at the controls here and wonders how I post this message with your post quoted in it, what happens if I push the wrong button????* *serious worried Look*

In the early days of the formation of CES, at least early for me, (1989-1990) I had also written JAL a letter framing my concerns about men who were involved with a cult jumping into another man made organization without a moment's hesitation or evaluation of what transpired in TWI and how not to perpetuate the same problems within their new group. It wasn't a nasty letter, as I had a genuine fondness for JAL. He wrote back, he had shared my letter with the others but then wrote me that he had to explain my heart to them all as they were upset. Well here we are some 16-17 years later. We are all middled age adults or close to that. They base life altering decisions (marriage divorce) on someone else's dreams. I am happily married for 19 years and doing well. I don't base my life's decisions on anything but solid concrete evidence. The day I base decisions on dreams, the shape of clouds or which way the birds fly, I hope my husband gets my power of attorney so I don't make bad decisions that would ruin our retirement funds/mutual funds and all other investments we have. When I read through this whole section, it was like reading about natives somewhere far from here accusing an old woman of witchcraft and the whole village killing her for that because Chief SoSo's wife stubbed her toe and the eggs they cracked open revealed that some old crone put a curse on her. It does happen. What is sad is that it happens here. There is more than one way to 'knock' someone off. Reporting dreams to scare people off of them is the same dang thing but only done within the norms of legality. It seems that besides power, these leaders of TWI and now leaders elsewhere enjoy living on the edge of society, and enjoy being part of the lunatic fringe. That was ONE thing I hated about being in TWI, being on the fringe of society, being an outsider in the middle of the crowd, being the separate one. I guess that is fine when you are a teenager or very young adult seeking to rebel against 'the establishment' and don clothes and makeup and hair as an act of rebellion against the established norms of society. Why in the name of cheeses would a group of aging adults still seek to gain that thrill? Happy New Year to Agnosticism. Ever noticed it's only Christians that see the devil and get possessed?

Greetings again to those who responded and thank you for your welcome :) I didn't think I would post here, as so much has changed since I first left TWI and then Waydale and the pretty early days of Greasespot. Much has changed in my belief system and my handling of such. Fair to say I have run the gammit, gone Full Circle and have become an agnostic at the very least and definitely antagonistic towards religion as a whole. So who I was then under my old handle has changed greatly, and if I am remembered, I have changed enough or at least my life has changed so much that using my old handle would be doing me a dis-service. But don't worry, I am not out to hurt or anything like that and as I get to know people or become reaccquainted with old friends, I will tell them if it is even an issue that needs to be brought up. For those who need to know, I never climbed beyond peasant status (or a handmaiden of da Lawwwwd) in TWI so I am not a threat by any means. Happy New Year.

Hello I am new but then not. I was around a few years ago. I wanted to post a hello here before I jumped into posting. I am Ex TWI, a WOW Vet, was apprentice corps and all that hoopla. woo hoo. Anyway, I hadn't read here in months then came on and starting reading the CES forum, and wouldn't you know, the damn nightmares started in again. It's been years since I had those dreams, of being involved in TWI, having leadership get on your case because the rocks outside your house were out of order...hehe, well it was a dream and it made sense to me once I woke up. What really moved me to register to post was to send a message to Long Gone. *sighs* Anyway, howdy.