ToadFriend

I heard that story from macmarine ... he and Da**s Cro*ell were not Dana's roomies ... just did it for fun one night after Bless Patrol, as I remember. (They must have had more energy than I did after BP.) He lives locally and I'm pals with him and mrs. mac, so I will call him and will see if he is in the mood to write... ToadFriend

Michael Fort is a graduate of the 8th Corps. He is now the "limb" coordinator of Indiana, if indeed there is a real limb in Indiana. He WAS a wonderful person to me during my time in-residence and my interim year and he loved God, His Word, and yes, the ministry. He was treated, I have heard, roughly by LCM, and yes, has done some things I have known about personally that make me wonder what happened to the kind, understanding Michael Fort I knew. Sigh. TF -- who doesn't mean to derail the thread

I HAVE been told by an unimpeachable source that B*b Moneyhands cannot STAND RFR. Wonder how that affects HIS placement? TF, who assigns herself to her OWN lilypad

THE BONEHEAD TELLS ME SO (Craig's autobiography) ... I love it! What a great title! TF

Another priceless Corps Moments ... during our interim year, Michael F**t had shared with the 13th Corps about his Corps (8th) being kicked out of the Corps on at least two occasions by Dr. W. He told it as an amusing anecdote, and it WAS. Then he advised us just to "stay cool" if we were ever thrown out of the Corps as a group, and that shortly, we would be invited back in. Fast forward to right after HoHoRelo at Camp Gunnison. Tom J. asks all the staff to leave the Dining Room and go upstairs with him. All the 13th Corps there (many of whom spent their interim year at HQ and had heard Michael's speech) were laughing and talking ... then Tom J. came down and had us take off our Corps nametags and lay them on a table. He threw us all out of the Corps. Many people were freaking out ... but noticeably, those of us who had been warned about how to deal with such an eventuality just thought to ourselves, "TJ is such an a**h**e ... I'll just keep my cool and he will invite us to write a letter or some such within 24 hours" -- and he did. But I still should have left ... oh well, live and learn.

I was eating supper with my Twig at Emporia. Good buddy John Drake (WC 15) was sitting across from me. Jim W****sheim, our Twig leader, was praying. We had white bean soup that night, and I had already pushed mine out from me a little bit to make it a plurality. As Jim W. prayed, I happened to "open mine eyes" as the exact moment John Drake opened his, AND at the exact same moment a soupy COCKROACH crawled out of my soup bowl like a creature out of the primordial slime! John had been having some "issues" with Jim W, so he politely offered Jim my soup (they usually fought over extras) ... it was priceless. Susan Propst

VPW made a similar comment about Tom J. at Gunnison .. that he could run the camp himself in half a day and have the rest of the day to do other things. The fact is, that's pretty much what TJ did ... and spent the other half of the day (at LEAST!) making the lives of the Corps and the Staff miserable. Do I hear an "amen," Al? ToadFriend Friend of the Toad, but not of the Jacka**

One priceless Corps moment M.D. F**t was a part of ... final year in-residence at Emporia, early December on a Sunday morning ... beautiful snowfall. At the 10:30 fellowship, Michael shared scornfully about how some people loved snow, but that he grew up in Ohio, hated shoveling it, etc...went on for quite a while (and this was the 10:30 "service" in the Ambassador Room). After that we went down to lunch in the Dining Hall and Dr. Wierwille shared after lunch that while he had been listening to the 10:30 on a setup in his motorcoach, he thought he was in church, and proceeded to rail upon Michael and talk about "the treasures of the snow" mentioned in the Bible. Michael never complained about snow again in public, I will bet! Another one JAL shared with us: he once introduced Dorothy at a Corps wedding, as "Mrs. Ermal Organ" after introducing Rhoda as the piano player. TF

In Al's defense, I must say he brought a huge smile to my face when I overheard him ripping Arlene J a good one at Gunnison ... evidently she had said or done something unkind to L**da (Mrs. Al) and Al was telling her in no uncertain terms, "How DARE you ..." and "You will not..." At the time, I was suffering miserably and NOT speaking up under the reign of terror of Tom and Arlene and I thought for sure Al and the Mrs. would be gone before the day was out. I slipped back into the mailroom alcove and listened some more, and lo and behold! Arlene apologized to Al and the Mrs. Now THAT'S speaking up. Al also made me smile on the days we were packing up to leave that horrid block at Gunnison by walking around singing, "Ding! Dong! The witch is dead! The wicked witch is dead!" (Well, not dead exactly, but at least we were not under her evil thumb any more.)

All I have ever seen of Texas I saw lying down next to my Corps sister and Corps brother in the back of a pickup truck covered with a tarp with just enough air to breathe. It was raining. The guys driving the truck had stopped in God-knows-where, Texas and I looked up at saw the golden arches of McDonald's by the side of the road way up in the air .... very surreal. I remember thinking, "I could be anywhere," but was so tired I just went back to sleep. I woke up when we were dropped off at some truck stop in Kansas. The girl I hitched with, Angie, had been a Chic jeans model and was very sweet. The guy, Michael, was a real jerk (is still in TWI, I think), and he had not wanted me to be the third in the group. We had left from Gunnison (a block of hell that deserves its own thread) at the end of the block, went to LEAD, then were hitching back to Emporia for our final block in residence. It is all like a very bad dream, but amazingly clear in some of its more horrid details. TF

When I was at HQ in the Corps, VPW invited us to his clubhouse and was showing us all the different items there ... and grinned and said, "This is from the bull that threw Craig." Can't remember the bull's name, but we all laughed to ourselves. TF

When I went LEAD, there was a Family Corps couple in their late 50s/early 60s who had hitchhiked from the Indiana Campus. I thought that was stupid. The woman had a hard time, but did break through and excel, but I still think it is a stupid thing to require people to do in the name of Christian leadership. The ONE thing that I can say about LEAD is, as much as I hated it, and as lousy as I was at it, that ANYTHING that has happened in my life since then, I have approached with the attitude, "I survived LEAD ... I can do this." I do not think that is exactly what they had in mind when talking about LEAD building an "unalterable I Can Do attitude." By the way, if JAL is any authority (and he insisted he had done hundreds, if not thousands, of LEAD evaluations), my LEAD evaluation was the worst he had ever seen. He told me this is a kind voice about 5 days after Dr. Wierwille died (when JAL had returned to Emporia). He was explaining to me why I would not be graduating with the 13th Corps, but would need to go LOA. He was not harsh in any way, but he said he could not allow me to make the commitment for a lifetime of leadership -- that I was not ready to make that vow. He was right. I have come to see that I should have never entered the Way Corps. I am thankful for the experiences that I had there, but I really did not belong, and to be honest, I was most likely surrounded by LOTS of people who did not belong. Fortunately, I had someone (as well as family) who helped me pick up the pieces of my life when I left the Way Corps in late May, 1985. Rochelle Wajnberg did not have such a support system. JAL and I remain friends to this day (though I am not a follower of CES). He did me a favor. ToadFriend

I was in the 13th Corps at Emporia when we were told about LEAD 104. Later, after Craig had come back from Tinnie, he came to Emporia and I clearly remember him saying over and over (like bragging) that the accident at Tinnie "demanded" the presence of a Trustee member (or perhaps members, I don't remember how many went), and that's why he/they flew out there. He bragged on the supportive camaraderie of HCW and the other folks who were staying at the LEAD lodge ... the way it was presented to us was not that they were weak (that was never mentioned), but rather that they had had a great session, and because of that, they were ready to handle the challenges set before them in the days following the accident. No mention of any liability on anyone's part, of course. As an aside, I was harshly reproved for not holding some sort of belay rope correctly (after being given about 10 seconds -- and that is no exaggeration -- of instruction in how to do it) ... if the person had fallen, they would have fallen to their death, I was told. The LEAD jerk who was yelling at me just assumed that I knew this stuff since I did not go LEAD until my last year in residence, six weeks before graduation. It is a wonder that more people did not die because of the stupid things the Way had us do in the name of God. I DO believe God was protecting us, not because of our believing, but because we're His and He loves us. We survived IN SPITE OF The Way, not because of it. ToadFriend (who also does not like high places)

You go, Al! Yes, indeed...some of the folks most likely to kiss a** are the ones who are most vehemently angry here. Those like Radar who believed the Word out of a good heart stand up for what really happened regarding that issue (i.e., that the teachers really believed what they taught)...even while acknowledging we were tricked. But hey, we don't wrestle against flesh and blood ... so even though this is a great place to vent (I know, I have vented here) ... it's not a bad thing to realize that one of the reasons we were deceived (as were VPW and others) is that that is what deceiving spirits do best. Hopping off my soapbox and back to the pond, ToadFriend TF

Wow .. now there's a blast from the past! I remember going out to Mel's trailer when I was a College WOW at UNC-Chapel Hill in the early 1970s. He had recently taken PFAL. Nice guy. Ran into him again when we went out for a witnessing weekend during my stint in the 13th Corps .. but I have no idea whether it was in Kansas or Colorado...all those weekend trips sort of meld together after all these years. ToadFriend

Don't know about her [deleted by moderator]

I agree with Uncle Hairy ... and I think VPW was quite surprised, even more than those of us in at the time, that Craig gave up the duties of the presidency to be a ballerina ... sheer ego. TF

Happy New Year to all of you ... and for those who are still innies .. .make the resolution to get out with what is left of your sanity. It will be the best gift you have ever given yourself. God will heal your heart, and He will continue to work in you to will and do of His good pleasure ... and with Der Vey the way it is now, staying in is NOT His good pleasure for you. Happy to be out... ToadFriend

Der Vey taught people to be preoccupied with themselves and their actions. A wise fellow (I forget who, but he wasn't in Der Vey) once wrote: "preoccupation with self in the name of God is STILL preoccupation with self." ToadFriend

I happen to know the xxxxxxxxs quite well, and have since my early days in the Way in 1972 ... I left on January 11, 1996. xxx was a loving wife and mother, and xxxx a friendly, fun-loving, and intelligent man who worked, as I recall, for the EPA in Research Triangle Park. They lived in Durham. They were caught in the midst of this heart-breaking triangle. Trafficking does not describe what happened. They retained an attorney to help them locate a baby to adopt into a loving home. The birth mother's expenses were paid; there was no "buying" of the baby. The birth mother later saw a Geraldo show where the Way was featured as a dangerous cult, and so began the horrible torment for the xxxxxxxxx that resulted in the loss of a baby they loved, back to a home that could not offer very much in the way of love or money. It is a very sad thing, but I, too, do not agree that "trafficking" is a correct description. ToadFriend

If you knew and loved Lou Vuto, 13th Corps, and ever wondered what happened to him, have I got a surprise for you: www.memoriestheater.com -- he is an accomplished, humble, Godly, Elvis tribute artist .. in Pigeon Forge, TN ... still coordinates a home fellowship, too ... and it is a GREAT act!

Lightbearers was a pain in the butt! Very few people ever were won to the Word this way. The only plus of Lightbearers when I was at Gunnison was that we got to escape from Rev. TJ for two weeks and spend it with a very nice couple named Greg and Andi ... and my sweet WC coordinator in that two-week adventure went on to be a rather well-renowned Elvis tribute artist! Lightbearers my first year in Cedar Rapids, IA was the two weeks from hell, on the other hand ... (Edited for spelling by ToadFriend, who left the "n" out of "renowned" on the first go-round)

Congratulations on your newer, freer life, Hope and John! I left on January 11, 1996, and it has been wonderful since then ... I go to a great home-based church (lots of former Way folks, as well as others) and it has been great to read other things, challenge wrong doctrine and practice, and rejoice in the newness of life we have each day....and I have a great job, too! The lily pad is quite nice these days! TF

Odd you should have posted that cartoon, Pirate ... I am a very committed Get Fuzzy fan, and I really enjoyed seeing that cartoon, first online at comics.com (a daily ritual of mine), and also in The Charlotte Observer. Good to see it again... TF