dabobbada

Socks, As always you see thru the fog, bypass the detours and get to the heart of the matter.

So..... Weirville tried...... ehhh...? Who'd he plagarize this time, .... The Salvation Army?

REfunds?? Leave it to a squirrelly mathematician to think of it in money. I want my twentytwo years back. :P

Actually it's a misspell, They meant Pubic Figure.

Congratulations, I wish you both the best things in this life.

Cherry Humps candy bars

SIR... You insult Martinets everywhere. :o Even when washed, pigs still return to the hog waller.

skyrider, I wouldn't read too much into the pictures and who was there or not. These are not professionally made pictures but snapshots made by calling the group together, probably after some function like a sunday night teaching. The missing party was probably the one holding the camera. I was trained in photography and worked in professional photo labs for 20 years. No professional photographer would ever take such compositionally poor picures. But they all look like someone said, "Hey, let's get a picture while were all here." From the Atlanta Bible Fellowship, the First Way Corps pictures: August 1971 All the style of a teenager with a Kodak Brownie Instamatic camera. A tree is growing out of one's shoulder and reaching into everyone else's brain. The girls are either standing in a ditch or are on their knees in a sign of submissiveness. (Please don't kill me ex! ) The Graduates of 1972 A pleasant looking picture but the left side has way too much light and the right way too little. It distracts from the subjects and pulls your eye to the upper left brightspot. In a group this size, noone's face should be partially obstructed. Now look at picture number three, shot right after picture two. Extended Family Same poor lighting and composition. Much more casual. People on the left and right are cut in half. Again these are not professional pictures, but probably spur of the moment shots done at some gathering. Look for the missing person behind the camera.

Amen hiway, The early rocks were a whole different thing. The first three-four years, I showed up on a dirt bike with a change of clothes, an army poncho, and my bible. I slept out on the ground under the stars. If it rained, I'd find a tent with activity inside and call in to see if they had room for one more. I met some great people that way.

Actually the name is Bobba Dabobbada Neaderbobba Ebenezer Nebuchadnezzar O'Rielly O'Hansen, but people call me "What?" for short. :blink: A friend started calling me bobba and I didn't particularly like it. I started one day to play around with it and liked da-bobba but the rythem wasn't right. A little more fooling around and it came out da-bobba-da. I liked it. My friend didn't, so I filed it away somewhere in the lower id for a few years. When I got my first computer and went on the net, they insisted on some unique username to conduct your surfing with. All of a sudden dabobbada had a brand new home.

Sorry Faith, We don't offer whip cream, our double extra strong coffee turns it into something akin to cottage cheese. It is good seeing you again, pamsandiego.

By world's oldest, I hope that doesn't mean you have that "old critters road kill smell" :o Seriously, Congraduations and all that to you! Don't forget to hang low during Squirrel Season, I would feel terrible if someone served up Fricassee with a Masters Degree. :P

I'm in 100% agreement with socks. I got into TWI in '73 and lived 70 miles from HQ. I was there nearly every Sunday. Early TWI was completely the opposite of what it became. Very laid back and casual. Dress code was casually elegant but if the best you had was a paisley shirt and faded jeans, that was cool. The aura of "The Farm" (it really was a farm) was one of tenderness and tons of manifested love back then. One post I strongly remembered, I think on early greasespot,and I think it was David Anderson. The incident happened in '74. He was working in an office at HQ and VeePee walked in, apparently agitated. He then complained to David that love wasn't working. I guess he didn't think people were walking in love fast or hard enough. (Meybe too many girls were turning down his offers.) I do know that Anderson was one of TWI's most major and honored movers until then and then disappeared off the scene in the manner that later became so common. As to using the term doctor, it became the official nickname for VeePee and with 22 years of habit behind me, I find it is still the first word for him that comes to mind. I then have to go to my mental thesaurus to remember his other aliases.

Much of my time in TWI I lived near HQ so I spent many a Sunday there and always knew people working there. One of recuring themes in casual conversations was meal times. With all the "Healthy lifestyle" themes TWI pushed was the "Healthy" meals. The staff would be fed health food with health seasonings and in somewhat controlled healthy proportions. (Men who worked in heavy labor conditions got necessarily larger portions.) Part of the luck honor of getting to sit at VeePees' table was in getting to eat good old american food in american portions with real salt and pepper. The official reasoning was VeePee and BOT were too old and set in their ways to eat the rabbit food. :blush: (In the '70s I was a practicing mostly health food vegeterian so I watched TWIs' food trips closely. In the mid '70s they really were pushing the "rabbit food" diet. It proved unworkable, as too many people raised on a typical american diet ended doing poorly and getting sick off it. Toward the end of the '70s diet was modified to an odd blend health food and more substantial but still not quite normal foods.)

Linda, It is good to see you too. I come by and keep an eye on things around here. I don''t have much energy to reply much though. My medical problems caused me to go on disability back in '04 and I had to move to my very rural home town to be able to live. It was late 2010 when I was able to get back on the net again. Ohio limb had a function at the state fairgrounds shortly after the operation. There were rumors running rampant about some medical condition but officially little was said. When VP spoke, he looked, sounded and acted weak and distant to me. It left me for the first time realizing his mortality. Twinky, Though I don't doubt your source and story, I have not heard of it before. The well documented and many personal excesses and abuses have been brought up as possible reasons for VPs surgury. Medical and Psychiatric folks would readily tell us that any one excess or abuse puts a great deal of stress on the body and weakens the immune system. The many abuses pursued with such gusto by VP within the inner way mystery religion certainly set him up for a trainwreck worthy of a hollywood blockbuster. So I nominate all of the above. From the scriptural viewpoint, even from a casual read, the OT prophets, kings and servants of God who abused God's Kids always ended up in a bad place. I heard once from a reliable source that some of VP's last words were to the effect of wondering what he had done wrong. What he had done wrong!!? WHAT HE HAD DONE WRONG?!! What he had done wrong was abusing God's Grace by indulging his personal cravings for many things under the banner of God's Grace. Then he abused God's Daughters under God's Grace. Then he taught God's Leaders of the inner way mystery religion circle to abuse as he had abused.... supposing to be under God's Grace. (Let us sin that grace may abound... for answer see Romans.) It is said that it's better to tie a boulder around your neck and jump in the lake than to harm one of God's little ones. The second great commandment is love your neighbor as yourself. The whole purpose of life is to celebrate life with God and your neighbors. I need to rest. Maybe later...

What an enjoyable read. It does my heart good to see so many old friends here and such a concern for the facts. I am fascinated by the implication there might have been a poisoning or a suicide. I was at HQ that week when VP returned and left just before he died. I remember the going to gartmore well and coming back sick business, and the personal sense of dread when I left the area. For what it is worth, I was in the Air Force from 1966 to 72 and was trained in all things photography as it was known at the time. I learned all things camera from 8"x10' deardorf view to 16mm movie. All things film in black 'n' white to color negative and reversal, and all things printing. I have processed base activities, bomb drop films, radar images, and very strange images out of SR-71 blackbirds. While in the service, I became active in the base amateur theater guild and there did lighting for for a couple years amongst other things. The lights we had there were generically called kleigs or fresnells and looked like black one gallon paint cans on a swivel stick. From maybe 1910 thru at least the '70s the standard light source was an incandescent light bulb from 125 to 2000 watts in power. When I walked thru the way auditorium in 1985 I saw the exact same kleigs but cannot guarrantee the light source as halogen lights had changed many things in the late '70s. From my dimming memories of "the way, living in love" by Elena Whiteside mixed with a couple historical exhibits of the filming of the class around HQ. I remember pictures of the studio set, the cameras and lights and crew which was most or all wafers. There were seven or ten kleigs of the 250 to 500 watt variety. The camera was an ordinary workhorse 16mm movie maker standard from the '50s thru '70s. The story as I recall was they rented the equipment and studio for two weeks in dayton in 1967 and had to film it in that period. The people who rented them the equipment told them it was not wise to film it in such a short period as it could damage the eyes. VP made the decision to push thru and do it in the two weeks in spite of the warnings. What needs to be understood is color movie film was very slow in the '60s. At a speed rating of ASA 25 or 50, 1960s color film needed from 100 to 200 times more light than a modern digital camera to get a proper exposure. Another way to put that would be lighting your 10x15 living room with 25 100 watt bulbs and they are all focused by polished reflectors at you. The heat would be as obnoxious as the brightness. In our little theater the actors were warned not to look at the lights too long or you could get 'kleig eye' the symptoms are exactly the same as VPs or the welders. the actors were to look above the audience but below the kleigs. One last tidbit under useless information for you. Each segment of the class was about 20 minutes long. A fact i'm sure many remembered while waiting for a snack break or a much needed stretch. The segments were 20 minutes long because that was the time limitation of the 400 foot film cassettes used in the cameras.

I remember a similiar thread from back in the early 2000's. I felt compelled to add a new medical report that said that every adult human being generates an average of 250,000 new cancer cells a day throughout his life. A normal function of white cells is to take these cancer cells out. This was a fact from some published medical journal. I suppose if someone wants to, it is still findable on the net. All things considered, I guess we should be thankful cancer is not a lot more prevailent in this ol' world. The part I found amusing is that the medical facts prove that by 'wayfacts' every human being on the planet is possessed by a quarter million devil spuruts. No wonder it is so hard to do the right thing.

I never could get past this verse myself. :wacko: Matt 23:9 And call no man your father upon the earth: for one is your Father, which is in heaven. Of course veepee never called himself that, and believe it or not, I even heard him with a big smile on his face sort of apologize for those who did say it. Of course it never did stop. (With that one verse, he knew better.) :P

Thank you, Broken Arrow and Old Skool In Twinky's origional topic, she said: Again, this info is 8 to 11 years old and may or may not currently apply to CFFM. In the late 90's CFF was brand new in a small town in western Ohio. Twinky wondered about CFF and the wider community. They started out by renting a closed church building until they built their own. And they had joined the local church organization and were actively involved in church community activities. They wanted to be on a good relationship with their fellow christian neighbors. John Shroyer, native born to western Ohio, wanted to be active with his local community. I did hear a few stories of CFF helping someone who had a need. One family had a member with some serious health problem, and CFF bought them a new minivan so they could get around. Again, when I first went, CFF was maybe two years old, and maybe 3-400 people. When I faded away, it was 4-5 years old and had 800 subscribers to it's sunday tapes. They were still a young organization and trying to figure things out. Also they were growing very fast, taking in many of the walking wounded of twi. Anyway a few more twi curioddities; In '73 and '74 even before there were official branches and limbs, the area leader kept the abs for a month and then turned it in to the limb leader. Said limb leader then kept it also for a month before turning it in to hq. If either the area or limb leader needed something that month, the cost came out of the abs. My area leader needed some tires because he traveled a lot to care for his people so that was taken frrom the abs. Somewhere in '74-5 hq called all abs directly in to hq because they said some were abusing the privilege. In the early days, when abs was local I did hear of a few little financial assistances when a believer had need. nothing big, but then we were all young semi-hippies and had little we needed at the time. A funny thing happened on the way to TWI's self destruction. Apparently a part of Geer's godification of the patriarch for personal use, abuse, and self gratification was abs should have been to help believers. Twi announced it would use some abs to help those with need. (At least to the IRS max of $3000 per individual.) Our branch lesder filed for a single mom who's young son had broken a leg and she recieved the $3000. By the time she got the money, the program was already gone.

I attended some of the CFFM fellowships, both local and in Tipp City, in the early 2000's before my health went too seriously bad. Something to remember was John Shroyer was born and raised in twi. In those earlier days it was more innocent and loving in God. Fellowships and the people were sweet on each other and it seemed little miracles happened all the time. the smiles on peoples faces were very real. I got in '73 and listened to tapes from '71 & '72 wherein veepee would open a research sunday night on a biblical subject with walter cummins and a dozen books around him. He encouraged people to work it and write what they found back in to hq. I remember a number of times in those early days he gave credit to those men he learned from. Their memories faded only after the ministry grew larger than he knew to handle. (I guess too many pretty young ladies addled his brain.) What I am saying is the early ministry was wonderful in many ways, that is what captured our hearts and minds. then it shifted from love and grace subtly into the law and central domination. Though I didn't know John Shroyer very well, he knew me and usually knew what I was up to. He was a kind man ready to help anyone he could. When I heard about CFFM I was wary of course, having suffered a typical '90s twi send off. So I asked some questions. John and his small crew determined if they were to start another ministry, it was to be based on the old days when it was grounded in love and grace. Second, financially, it was to run or fail based on the principals of George Mueller. Georges' rule one was he never asked anyone for one red cent, but rather to rely on prayer and God get him what he needed when he needed it. For those not familiar with George Mueller, he ran several orphanages in England in the 1800's. Many times breakfast arrived as the orphans sat down to eat. George was a master servant of a miraclous God. John wanted to be like George was. Things happened rapidly getting land and a small church built. By the time they got it built, it was already too small. It seated maybe 60 -70 and another 80 -100 in the basement, but we made do. They never asked for donations for anything while I listened to them by tape for 3 -4 years. The tapes were free to anyone who asked. At a sunday meeting they would pass the hat. But the teaching was they taught the tithe because scripture did and that said scripture said it needed to be from a cheerful giver. If you can't give it cheerfully, it better to not give. Remember, all the early folk had just been burned by the previous ministry and insisted certain questions be answered about CFFM doctrine compared to recent twi insanities. (I'm getting too tired, I need to rest, but I'll give one example:) (Remember, Waydale and Greasespot were both well known by most CFFM'ers.) The biggest issue had to do with the sexual abuse in twi. When talking to John or other leaders, they said it was wrong and they were against it. One Sunday they they made it official by announcing it as official CFF policy at the podium. They said scripturally, sex is reserved only to married people, and that was CFFM's stance on it. I was there that day and quite pleased. After that my health failed. Thru their free newsletteres and tapes, I kept up for a while but lost touch after having to move back home. I know they have grown quite a bit and added some classes. You pay for the classes but if I remember right, the tapes are yours to keep. My memories of CFF are good, about loving people trying to return to the ministry of grace and love and sweet little miracles, and when you and God were good friends.

Guinness on the house and a toast to The Greasespot and to THE Skoal! :) DaPropheta

I've spent the last couple weeks reading THE 1 & 2. I thought posting a couple entrees from therein might amuse some of you.