Hope R.

Never cared for the place. IMO, it was really dark in there.

I think one of the many things that ticked me off about LCM's reign was the name-change of the building from the VPW "Word over the World Auditorium" to the "Prevailing Word Auditorium" - or something like that. I think that he took VP's name off the building name as well.

Look, the Empire State Building will ALWAYS be the Empire State Building. Chrysler Building, Sears Tower, Yankee Stadium... they get their names and it stays that way.

I know that some stadiums (stadia?) change their names from time to time because of advertising (i.e., the old Tampa Stadium became Houlihan's Stadium when the Glasier's bought the team - then it got torn down and the new stadium is now called Raymond James Stadium - affectionatly known as "RayJay"). But for the most part, buildings - especially ones that are dedicated or named for a specific person, usually don't change names. Please correct me if I'm wrong about this. I suppose Trump Tower will always be Trump Tower, too...

Anyway - it ticked me off that LCM was so anal about changing WOW and VPW stuff that he spent my ABS to change the name on the overhang and everywhere else on that thing.

Hey - just saw this thread and browsed through it.

Yeah - I waited 5 years for John to decide it was time to get out but we had (and still have) a relationship that was built on other things besides TWI.

I was willing to wait because John was willing to listen to me b!tch about it. He was not totally enamored of LCM or the WAP class or the way things were running at HQ's. We never ditched our friends who left or M&A'd anyone.

I guess you could compare it to sky-diving... you're in the plane, you have the chute on, you know what will happen, you've decided you want to do it, and all you have to do is jump. But you get scared and you stare out at the open sky wondering what it would be like to actually jump - you can almost taste it, but you're too afraid to act. Afraid of the unknown and quite comfortable in the plane.

Other times, people jump and forget to pull the rip-cord and end up getting hurt (well, worse than hurt). You've got to know when it's the right time, and prepare yourself as much as possible.

I had lots of friends outside of TWI - more than who were IN TWI. Most of our close TWI friends got out a long time ago. We'd been in our area for 20 years - hadn't moved around. We had an established business, a home and great neighbors. We hadn't been social with Wayfers in a long time - except the ones who we knew we could commiserate with about the problems in TWI. We also didn't tell the Poobahs in our area our business. We mastered the art of vague answers!

Oh - and just for the record - we didn't leave, we got kicked out. We were ready to jump and well prepared - but got pushed out before we could jump - which was fine with me. Either way we landed on our feet.

Oh - I LOVE MONTY PYTHON!

Monty Python & the Holy Grail

Did you know that there's a new Broadway show called "Spammed" based on that movie? I heard it's sold out for 2 years.

Okay - here goes...

"Turned left at Greenland"

After we left in 2000 - someone gave us some good advice about religion in general. He said that it's a good idea to take a year off from any formal type of fellowship - whether it be offshoots or churches. He said, if you want to do anything -- have a home fellowship and get to know each other and our kids without TWI's influence and interference. We never did the home fellowship thing before we left - so we weren't too motivated to do it afterwards.

After 6 months, I decided that if it looked like the Way, sounded like the Way, or felt like the Way - I'd have nothing to do with it.

I figured that anyone who only got their information about God and the bible from one source only was much to narrow minded for my liking. Whether or not the offshoot was pro-TWI or anti-TWI - they all based their doctrine on what they'd learned from TWI, either to laud it or debunk it - it all contained the same teachings.

I think that sooner or later, even with the best of intentions, that these offshoots will end just like TWI and try to control the people who support them. I hope I'm wrong -- time will tell.

Yeah - TF - sad to say that last I heard they were still in -- and that wasn't too long ago.

Hills - just saw this -

My condolences to you and your sister & brother-in-law.

My dad died 5 years ago on March 8th - there's not a day that goes by that I don't think about him... only now, I think about all the fun stuff we did instead of the sadness I felt when he died.

Hope R.

Ron Howard

The Music Man

Robert Preston

"Gary, Indiana, Gary, Indiana, Gary, Indiana, let me ttttthay it onthhhhh again!!!"

Is the gun thingy your quote, Belle?

Owen Wilson

The Royal Tennenbaums

Anjelica Huston

Raf - are HBO aired movies allowed? Or "made for TV" movies? I was thinking about Al Pacino and how remarkable he was in "Angels in America" - that was better than most films I've seen in a movie theater.

Yes... thanks Belle...

Charles Durning

The Hudsucker Proxy

Paul Newman

ahhhhhh now what was he in again?

(just jumping in...)

Oliver Hardy never said "That's another fine mess..." but he did say "Well, here's a another nice mess you've gotten me into."

Laurel and Hardy made a movie called "Another Fine Mess" in 1930 - that's where the above quote came from.

(courtesy of the Internet Movie Data Base )

... now back to your regularly scheduled nostalgia thread... :D-->

Guessing....

"Big Fish"???

Ya think it would be, Cindy! But other than little Drew - the only other "actor" I remember was E.T. - and I don't think he was in anything after that flick!

Thanks Raf! So if "Animal House" comes up, I can use Stephen Bishop ("On and On", "It Might be You") - who not only sang the theme song for the film, but has a cameo as the "charming guy with guitar" (sitting on the stairs during the toga party! Belushi smashes it and hands it back to him!)

As far as "Flashdance" goes - I don't remember anyone other than Jennifer Beals - so I'll wait...

Hmmmm.... does it count if one of his songs was featured in a film? I think "Every Little Thing She Does is Magic" has been in quite a few movies. He had a song in the last Bridget Jones movie - but I can't remember the title...

Darn - I looked, too - but I thought it another movie so it would REALLY be cheating if I answered!

It's a hard one. I saw that movie once a long time ago and wouldn't remembered the quote.

Rosanna Arquette

Desperately Seeking Susan

Madonna

Towards the end of LCM's regime - beginning with the "homo" purge - there was a lot of walking on eggshells around other people in your fellowship. You had to be so careful of what you said - who you said it to - how you said things, etc.

I remember having a Labor Day party for our fellowship and some other fellowships in the area. It was before the first lawsuit -- I wish I could recall exactly when - I know the debt policy was in high gear.

Anyway, after the majority of people left, there were two or three other couples who hung out for a while. I carefully brought up some of the policies and behaviors I disagreed with. I was so relieved when one of the women chimed in - more vehemently than I had - to express her disgust as well. The other people who stayed also agreed - and it was a great relief to be able to talk freely about things without being worried about "getting in trouble" for what we said.

That's why so many people turned into "Stepford" believers - smiling and quoting LCM's teachings and making statements about being overjoyed to be disciples in the "Promised Land of the Prevailing Word"© (ugh). We were afraid to say what we really felt - afraid of getting ratted out! I still can't believe I went along with it.

Chazzy...

The last 5 or 6 years we were in we blew off a lot of "suggestions". Y2K just being one of them.

We were on the internet - and I was on ex-Way sites.

We had a mortgage. Heck, at one time we had 4 or 5 rental properties that all had mortgages on them. But we sorta forgot to tell anyone in TWI about them! Like you - we didn't volunteer any information that wasn't asked for.

It paid off when I blew off taking the newest version of the Advanced Class by waiting until the grace period for debt was over - and then I wasn't allowed to go because we had a mortgage!

Neither of my kids took LCM's WAP class (they were too young when PFAL was around). There was no way I was going to subject them to that freaky rubbish.

I think the reason John & I survived with most of our sanity in tact was because we did pretty much whatever we wanted to and just didn't talk about it to anyone in TWI.

I was reading the thread about Confrontation and so many of the posts started with or had the phrase "we got in trouble" or "I got in trouble" or "we got him in trouble" for something or other.

I remember thinking about this towards the end of my TWI years how juvenile it was to worry about "getting in trouble". It sounded like a teenager telling a friend "I'd better not do that, I'll get in trouble and won't be able to use the car."

Yeah - Trouble with a capital T and that rhymes with B and that stands for BULLSH!T!

It was an often-used phrase in TWI 2. It was used about stuff you shouldn't do or stuff you might do. It caused self- doubt - a loss of confidence in your decision making. "Will I get in trouble if I don't go to fellowship?" "Will I get in trouble if I ask a question about something in a teaching?" or "... if I give a person free movie tickets?"

Why was everyone so worried about getting in trouble???

It pretty much ensured some kind of punishment - perhaps a reprimand, a confrontation, or even being put "on probation" - maybe you would even risk being (gawd forbid) marked and avoided!"

There was no more risk-taking in TWI - no "holy boldness" (a 70's phrase). Everyone was afraid of "getting in trouble".

So no one talked anymore - no one complained - no one criticized anything for fear of the trouble it would cause if anyone repeated what you'd said.

It was just another way of TWI controlling people's lives. Another form of fear.

Ooops - I hope I don't "get in trouble" for posting this!

When I was in NJ we had a branch full of former Roman Catholic adults who had grown to dislike the rules the church wanted them to follow.

There was one particular gentleman who loved PFAL, thought TWI was the answer to his prayers and felt much freer than the church made him feel about worshipping God.

Then we had communion. It was a 2 twig effort.

After it was over and mostly everyone was gone, he came up to me and the twig leader and said that the communion service made him really uptight - that it was too much like the RC Church and why did we do it that way? He couldn't believe that TWI would have such a formal, rigid service (this was the late 70's!).

I didn't disagree with the man, but I was one of the twig leaders doing the ceremony. He wasn't in my fellowship so the other Twig Leader handled it. He had also been Catholic and was able to show the guy the differences, and that "God was in the details" stuff.

I think the man was appeased, but not fully satisfied with the explanation.

I just remember a story about Limb Leader who yelled and screamed at the Corps in his state because someone did't use red candles. Yeah - God was in that detail... uh huh...

I remember the first time it was cleaned out there were a couple of sinks that the former students had ripped out of the walls from one of the dorms when they found out the College of Emporia was closing and they wouldn't be awarded their degrees. I think I remember that there was a refrigerator in there as well. That pond was disgusting... I never swam in it... just the thought makes me queasy.

Oldies - do you mean the pond in Emporia? Lots of people got tossed into that from time to time. It was gross.

Kat - I was there - and you're right - it was the most surreal thing that happened when I was in-rez.

MMK's dad was there - BA was reading a poem. In the middle of it, he grunted and fell. We all thought it was a joke because he had made a comment on how old he was. I remember laughter, then silence when we realized he wasn't faking it.

I don't think the moment was "priceless", but you can bet I'll never forget it.

Now there's a film I'd like to see!

Where in Africa? Is it a Missionary thing?

Hey - were either of you in Rome City when MMK announced her engagement? That's one of those "did this really happen?" stories.