Great. Just great. My car breaks down exactly at the door of the Assembly Hall as I am dropping someone off!

The downside? It’s embarrassing!

The upside? (which almost became a downside; it was so frequent) For the next 2 hours, until the tow truck arrived, (trust me on this—it needed a tow) brothers kept coming out to see if I needed help. They are all so nice and I am reminded of my non believing dad 40 years ago at my wedding saying to his own brother, ‘C’mon Joe, let’s go out in the parking lot for a smoke. These people are so nice I can’t stand it.’

Being brothers, many of them took for granted that they could get me going right then and there. I had to explain to each and every one that they couldn’t.

Among brothers, there are always some who really are mechanical. One of them quickly diagnosed the issue. No, it wasn’t the slave cylinder, he said, after diving into the interior and pointing out all the possible culprits, but the master cylinder, since the clutch pedal wouldn’t rise on its own. At 194K the car has a right to misbehave. But the tow truck took so long in coming that I sent someone in to the chairman’s office to say if they needed an afternoon interview for the ‘Exercise Patience’ theme, I was available. The Assembly Hall was then being used for the Regional Convention.

No, it wasn’t all the fault of the towing company. Some of it was the roadside assistance app that couldn’t fathom how Tom Harley could possibly be the same as Thomas Harley and so kept issuing denials of service without explanation. With a person, you could straighten in out in 2 seconds, but in the AI world it is not that way. It is, instead, like when your wife, though she has always been friendly, one day locks you out of the house without the hint of a reason and won’t tell you why other than to say that you should have been paying attention.

And no, I hadn’t waited till the last minute to address the issue. I had been nursing it for a few weeks. Sometimes problems go away on their own. Alas, this one did not.

***Revised, in connection with a discussion of ‘the kingdom of God does not come with striking observableness:’

For me, it does come with striking observableness, in the form of a car that breaks down at the Assembly Hall door. You know you have gone directly from last of the last days to last of the last of the last days, perhaps even last of the last of the last of the last days when your car does that. Cars will break down from time to time, maybe on the way to the grocery store, maybe in the grocery store lot, and one does not draw any spiritual conclusions. Even breaking down in the Assembly Hall lot does not make one ‘see the light.’ But when in breaks down at the Assembly Hall front door, Yes—striking observbleness there, no question.

Then, half of all brothers being gearheads, you must suffer a constant onslaught of people sure they can fix whatever the problem there is right then and there, and you have to painstakingly explain to each one that they cannot. Then, one who really does know his stuff, dives into the interior, sees it isn’t the slave cylinder, but the master cylinder, since the clutch pedal won’t rise on its own, and agrees that my goose is really cooked.

Then, the tow truck takes so long to arrive that (this happened during the Regional Convention, not mine, where I had dropped someone off) I send in word that if they need a brother to interview for the any Exercise Patience talk I’m available. Not the tow truck companies fault, but the roadside app, which cannot fathom how Tom Harley could possibly be the same as Thomas Harley and so kept issuing denials of service without explanation. With a person, you could straighten in out in 2 seconds, but in the AI world it is not that way. It is, instead, like when your wife, though she has always been friendly, one day locks you out of the house without the hint of a reason and won’t tell you why.

This is the same car that I used in ‘Last of the Last Days: Faith in the Age of Dysfunction’ to illustrate the point that you don’t need perfection to get you from point A to point B, only something serviceable and that if it breaks down you can repair it as you go. So it is with Jehovah’s visible organization driving the tangled and crazy roads of this system of things—it need not be perfect, though that would be preferable. It need only be serviceable. I wrote:

“Facts are overrated. You never have them all and if you wait for them all to come in you never do anything. There is no “fact” that is not incessantly resisted and debated by those who don’t want to go in a given direction, so they never do all come in. Eventually, you must just go with what you have, trusting that you can make repairs along the way if need be. You need a serviceable vehicle to get from point A to point B. It need not be perfect. Just like my wife and recently completed a road trip to Florida and back, stopping in at seven sets of friends and one set of relatives along the way. Though I’ve flown several times, I had never driven the distance.

“If you are from up north, as I am, you can depend upon countless friends who have moved south but to varying degrees. In time, they form a series of islands from which you can hop one to another. We only stayed two nights in hotels during our two and a half weeks on the road. All else was the hospitality of friends and the nice thing is that we could do it all over again with a different set of friends. Such is the benefit of spiritual family. Two of them even put us up into their unused time-shares. Our vehicle was serviceable, not perfect, with 180K miles and rust just beginning to peek through. We didn’t feel we had to make it perfect before we left home. We even had occasion for a repair. Blowing out a tire at 70 mph, I limped from the expressway, crossing several lanes when I saw an opening, took the exit ramp, and pulled into the first parking lot I saw. After swapping the bum tire for a donut, locals recommended a nearby shop. They fixed me up with a replacement tire in barely any time at all.

“Hasn’t the worldwide organization of Jehovah’s Witnesses done the same a few times? You think it’s easy holding firm to God in the last of the last days, what with religions seizing upon any misstep as evidence you are a false prophet and skeptics dismissing God because they confuse him with Santa Claus who’s supposed to shower down presents no matter what? It isn’t.”

Now my old car sits in the drive beside a shiny new one, which does the heavy duty. Like Old Jack, Sam Herd’s boyhood mule, I water it every day. I don’t throw if away just because it has grown old. Indeed, my wife hates the new one (you sit down too low and it is less easy to climb in and out) and will only drive the old one. If I protest, she likens herself to old wine that cannot be poured into new wine skins.

******  The bookstore

Another observation, this time within the Exercise Patience convention, on how so many hate to read. Such references are frequent. Here, the speaker tries to sell the apparently reluctant brothers on the notion that reading just five minutes a day has a significant positive impact on one’s well-being. 

Is it only me who finds this discouraging, as though proof that one is a ‘stranger in a strange land?’ I feel cheated if I cannot get 3 hours of reading in a day, and can easily do twice that. I mean, sheesh—five minutes?

So I get a little lonely, as though a fish out of water.  And I know that the brotherhood is but a cross section of society, and that society itself is  that way. And I know that in the case of Jehovah’s organization, it results in a people who can set up and dispose of Kingdom Halls pretty much as the greater world sets up and takes down Coleman tents. Let’s face it, we are the exact realization of what Paul said 2000 years ago, a people who “live quietly [usually]  and to mind your own business [we do till we don’t] and work with your hands, just as we ordered you.” (1 Thessalonians 4:11) Well, we haven’t been “ordered” to work with our hands, but it does usually work this way.

Now, if you read 3-6 or more hours a day among a people who must be coaxed to read 5 minutes a day, you begin to think you must be a different kind of animal. Not a better or worse kind of animal; just a different one. It is a gift and, as a gift, you bring it to the altar, rather than start feeling superior over it. Of course if you can bring your ‘gift,’ then it’s a fine thing, but a gift of reading is not necessarily viewed that way, and it’s derivative, writing, is particularly looked at askance. ‘Aren’t there people who are charged to write about God, and those people don’t include you?’ is a prevailing attitude. And just try to sell anyone on the idea that if you read 3-6+ hours a day, you just might know things that the five minute people have not yet come across. Whereas, if I was good at hanging drywall, I’d be highly esteemed. Instead, as a writer on spiritual things, I carry on as though practicing secret sin.

“And I've never gotten used to it
I've just learned to turn it off
Either I'm too sensitive
Or else I'm gettin' soft.” — Bob Dylan

It’s no wonder I am comfortable on Twitter, where reading and writing is a prerequisite and where there are abundant brothers and sisters who do just that. Three out of ten Americans say they spend virtually all their time online. Those people I like to reach out to.

Ah, just venting. Not to worry. I’m not on the cusp of joining Ahithorolf (who’s been to college!) Striking the shepherd is an unforgivable sin in my eyes. I have found my place and am content.

From my latest: In the Last of the Last Days: Faith in the Age of Dysfunction: 

“‘How come you never taught me to do stuff?’ I had queried my handy dad who’d been raised on a farm. The amiable duffer, long past his taciturn days, replied: ‘I did—but you weren’t paying attention that day.’ I think he had bought into the prevailing mantra that if you go to college you can always hire underlings to do the ordinary things that need doing.”

***Says nobody I know: My sons also asked me why I didn't teach them household skills like wiring, roofing, plumbing... I told them that I tried to, but I had to force them to work with me, it was so painful for all of us, that I ended up doing it all myself. 

Yeah. I’m sure I was that way with Pop, too. I do find it’s crippled me all my life though. Not that I can’t make do after a fashion. But I’m no craftman. No serious complaints, though. He was a very good dad overall. He took me sledding in the winter and miniature golfing in the summer.

But I did once hear a talk on exactly that scenario, that of fixing something around the house. The speaker considered just that problem: that you could fix it with you child or you could do it yourself in half the time. He advised re-evaluating just what you were trying to do. Were you fixing an appliance or training a child?

******  The bookstore

As shown in link, George Benson, long known as one of Jehovah’s Witnesses, is still going strong at 79..

This news did not sit well with all.

“You would think at this age he would put Jehovah first. Instead his career still going....still working hard on his career,” said Aubree.  “Older people like this could set the right example.”

Tom: At Prince’s funeral, one of the congregation’s pioneers told reporters, (I included the quote in the Prince chapter of Tom Irregardless & Me) “I was just standing there and all of a sudden, in he walks. I thought, ‘He just wants to be treated like an average person,’ so I just kind of acknowledged him, and he came in and sat down.” She added: “I think he wanted to be private and my observation is: he had to have his creative outlet. Maybe he just needed it to survive.” 

He wanted to be treated like an average person. But people do what they need to survive. I’m not sure that he’s not ‘putting Jehovah first.’ We can expend too much energy pounding square pegs into round holes.

Aubree didn’t give up:

“When one is famous and has a lot of income coming in from royalties.... one can cut your life-style and put Jehovah first….There are many brothers and sisters who have left lucrative political careers, football careers, ballet careers, singing careers, acting careers and other careers for which they have natural talent and have all the necessary skills - to put Jehovah first in their life.”

Tom: I would not assume that he is not. Time was when coming across someone like him we would say that he has his own special territory, one that others will find hard to reach. As to income, who is to say he does not put it to very good use? The angels may sing out, “Another nickel from Harley!” at the end of the month, but it is perhaps guys like Benson who provide much of the practical fuel.

“I do not share the same sentiment.…I have a nasty suspicion it is the ego that remains involved.... the need of achieving something and still be admired by the people!”

On the other hand, “Have you beheld a man skillful in his work? Before kings is where he will station himself; he will not station himself before commonplace men.” Do these ones all grovel around in sackcloth? These days ordinary publishers are given counsel not to let spiritual gifts go to their head. Why conclude just from his work that he has an inflated ego? If he does, he has plenty of company in others who have yet to separate their own egos from bringing their gifts to the altar.

In the mid-seventies, rumors swirled that Glen Campbell had become a Witness. The rumors were untrue. He hadn’t. However, one of his band members had and proceeded to talk Bible so much that an exasperated Glen forbade all discussion of religion during working hours. Who is to say that George is not doing the same before people who cannot tell him to shut up? He’s to quit this gig in order to write letters? Given the restricted forms of ministry available today, it’s even more understandable he would choose to continue what he does.

Aubree still doesn’t back down. She seldom does. It’s the prerogative of we old people who have seen a lot and think we have something to say, who see young people chomping down on cotton candy, imagining it substantial, and would warn them that it’s not. And it certainly is true that those who ‘reach for the stars’ come to spiritual ruin far more often than not. So I will tell her a story that spins things her way.

The story was told at LeRoy’s funeral that he, as a young black man in the Deep South, was invited to play along as one of B.B. King’s band members. His son confirmed it. He declined the offer, on the basis of family and spirituality. Instead, he went on to make his living on the railroad. He came up from the South in his later years to my neck of the woods. For a time we served together on the same body of elders. He was outspoken, even occasionally outrageous in things he would say, but always genuine and universally appreciated. In time, he stepped down as an elder. I even helped persuade him that it would be a good thing, that he had done it all, and should go out ‘on top,’ not when his faculties were starting to decline and people would start to say bad things about him. He was true to the faith till his death and would frequently get together and jam with brothers young enough to be his grandsons. 

I used to tell him that, should I die before him, I wanted him to give my funeral talk. What a trip that would be! “Hee hee hee,” I could picture him rumbling in his deep roguish and jocular voice, “that Tom Harley was a good ol boy, but he’s deead now, D-E-A-D!”

I don’t know. Maybe George is being a bad boy. There he is posted with a ‘Look! A celebrity! And he’s one of ours!’ type of admiration. Is it really so that having celebrities onboard somehow buttresses your cause? Some of the silliest people on earth are celebrities—all of them, really, except our guys, and we only have a handful. Serena doesn’t even count, because it doesn’t appear she was ever baptized and she has gone on record saying (now that she has a daughter) she means to get serious about the faith she was raised in. We shall see what comes to pass. I have a chapter in TrueTom vs the Apostates on the brouhaha surrounding that statement of hers..

No, I suppose George is not the one to emulate. But don’t we do damage when we become too insistent that everyone must be ‘an example?’ Leave the fellow in peace and appreciate him for what gifts he has. Here we put the constantly repeated, ‘Do not compare yourself with one another’ counsel in a setting that we usually don’t put it in, though it applies nonetheless. Alas it is human nature that we will do exactly that.

Growing up, I took one of those psychological tests in which you answer all sorts of nosy questions and are rewarded with indications of what vocation you are best suited for. Being raised in a suburban and non-Witness home, I imagined results would point me to some nice secure field, the sort in keeping with the saying then in vogue, “To get a good job, get a good education.” My dad, raised on the farm, used the GI bill to put himself through engineering school after WWII and took a job with the local utility. He figured that since everyone requires heat and electricity, no job could be more secure. People raised during the Depression came to highly value security. 

Instead of similar recommendations, results were that I should be A) a music performer, or (slightly lower priority, but still head and shoulders above anything else) B) a youth counselor. I’ve never done either of those things, but I have come close enough to satisfy both urges. Public speaking (and now blogging) is not so different than music performing. Shepherding (and now writing) is not so different than youth counseling. 

So I have a thing for creative people. And I don’t like  to see them dismissed as ones ‘trying to make a name for themselves.’ or persons incessantly in quest of satisfying their ‘big egos.’ That doesn’t have to be the case, though it can be.

***

Workers could be crude at the power company, though my dad was not one of them. “I just wasn’t prepared,” said one brother who started working there as a young man, “for one of those guys to grab me from behind and another pull my pants down,” a common hazing of new employees. He came to know my dad, as he was sometimes assigned to the nuclear plant where my dad had been promoted. Nuclear technology was then brand new. This plant was among the first in the country. Tour guides would lead visitors through the plant. By prior agreement, an employee would walk by staggering and drooling, muttering nonsense. “Don’t mind him,” the guide would say. “He’s one of the earliest here and absorbed a little too much radiation.” 

Another story this new employee told, our brother who is now retired, was of visiting laborers being advised that invisible radiation hangs around at the 3 foot level, but if you stay below that, you’re okay. They would walk about and work all day, even carrying heavy gear, in a crouched over position. 

Here were jokesters satisfying their ‘big egos,’ though perhaps not making ‘a great name for themselves.’ Or maybe they were. Our brother remembers these donkeys decades later as though it were yesterday.

To be continued here

******  The bookstore

On pet peeves: Here’s one: those talks that end, “so may we never fall into the trap of Elijah, who….” (Substitute Peter, Moses, Paul&Barnabas, any of the good guys—it all works out the same.) What! Are you kidding me? We’re going to outdo Elijah? If he fell for it, we will fall for it too. At best we will be guided by their course in seeing how they recovered from it.’

On anxiety and faith: Anxiety has caused problems in the past. At the moment it is at bay, but don’t ever think one immune. Is faith, like anxiety, part of the variation of people? Some are anxious by nature. Some have never been anxious a day in their lives. Faith may be like that. It builds more easily is some than others. 

For what it’s worth, I’ve benefited much by making relevant that supposedly irrelevant ancient model of humans tugged at by, in clockwise order, air, water, earth, and fire, for a 360 degree spectrum circle of human qualities. Heady people are overly given to “air.” Their heads are “in the clouds,” At it’s most severe, their feet begin to lose touch with the “earth,” and they are given to anxiety and various forms of mental distress. 

“Earth” people, on the other hand, are rock-solid dependable, Here are they people who typify Solomon’s remarks, people who eat, drink, sleep, and see good for all their hard work under the sun. Here is the person who goes on and one about the delicious meal they’ve just eaten. They’re not particularly speculative nor brilliant, not overly given to deep thought, but they are solidly competent and not easily derailed by anxiety. 

Fire and Water are at opposite poles, too. Water completely envelopes any situation. Here is the person people love to confide in because he or she can see both sides of any issue, get their heads around it, and are not given to condemn. From this direction the ‘peacemakers’ are most likely to be found. Of course, from ‘fire’ comes the hotheads, the ones most given to ‘shoot first and ask questions later.’ There’s a place for them. Ask Phinehas.

There are all these types in Jehovah’s organization since that is the fabric of humanity. I like how they bind together as a brotherhood where they love, cooperate with, and compensate for one another. The too-frequent pattern in the greater world is for these extremes to congeal at opposite poles and from there scream at each other. 

On Bible reading: By far, just plain Bible reading works for me. And it works for the organization too. As much as they carry on about the wholesome spiritual food they supply, they also make clear that daily Bible reading comes first.

The digital age has changed many habits. When that Watchtower used to come in the mail I would set aside time to read it cover to cover in one sitting. I didn’t even take the shortcut recommended jokingly by one brother regarding the Letters from Readers, who said he would read the question then skip down to the last line to see whether he could do it or not.

I lost touch of that routine when the magazines went virtual. I tend to focus on talks now, those presented online, and I take “stream of consciousness” notes in order to pay attention. If I don’t my mind wanders. I typically don’t read the Watchtower articles until shortly before we study them, and some articles it may be many months before I get to. Some, no doubt, I never see at all. It doesn’t help that as my appetite for reading detailed material grows, our articles get simpler and simpler.

Just plain Bible reading works as a first go-to, there absorbing directly from Jehovah’s written word what best builds faith in ways we may not be able to even put our finger on. Once you have the pattern of healthful teachings  you can extrapolate into what is written in the Bible that the organization hasn’t commented on, or hasn’t commented on much. Sometimes I am surprised at the “gems” they choose to highlight, gems that seem to be simply Bible trivia and not especially geared for building faith. Too, I would give a lot to hear, “Man, that weird!” over some conduct of the prophets rather than continually euphemizing it into “their expression and manner [that] doubtless reflected intensity and feeling that were truly extraordinary.” 

***The bookstore

Weekend Meeting

I am Zooming to Georgia for the meeting today. A friend’s son is giving his first public talk. Last time I saw him the boy was 10 and his parents were leaning on him to keep up with his homework and saxophone lessons.

There are a number of people I know here, &haven’t seen in a long time—from many places. Zoom makes that possible. Most friends say they look forward to Kingdom Halls reopening, but I have heard some say they don’t care if they ever see a Hall again—Zoom enables that streamlining

“Friends are like buttons on a elevator,” the kid says. “Some will bring you up and some will bring you down.” #WeekendMeeting

It is no surprise that the kid has iPad rather than print Bible—most young people do, and even adults. But it is especially apt for him. His dad is a high-tech honcho for a Fortune500 company. When we flew down to visit, he tracked us every inch of the way via an app.

No surprise, too, that the young man has a pure blue background, probably virtual. First I have seen other than on jw.org. Usually, as with newsmakers, there is a home background. ...1/2

One bro would take down his distracting baseball pics, but you could still see the hooks. Apparently he’d put them up again after the meeting....2/2

Look, this talk is very very good. He is from a family of high-achievers. And yet it lacks nothing in warmth and affability. Is it too stereotypical to say that the family is Asian?

Congregation is on the ball. Everyone has a blue background. Maybe the KH is opened for the purpose. And field service to commence in a breakout room 5 minutes after mtg. I’ve never seen it. Usually, chatter continues until someone pulls the plug and dedicates the rest to service.

I am atypically not prepared at all for the Watchtower study. Things happened last night. Nothing severe, just unanticipated. I have to skim ahead during the meeting, & I prefer not to do it that way.

Ah. It is refreshing that this together congregation is, like the rest of us mortals, experiencing minor Zoom problems. #watchtowerstudy It is almost like, “Rise, for I too am a man.”

Yikes. There are six pages here. It will not be a slam-dunk to get in a comment here. Maybe just as well, given my lack of prep. I would not be surprise if a HUGE number were visitors come to see my friend’s son’s first talk—he is very supportive of his family.

This is the Watchtower study that focuses upon the new year text, this year “Your strength will be in keeping calm and showing trust.” (Isa 30:15) It is in keeping with the overall there of coping with anxiety. One pic has someone holding the verse, as though a note reminder

Since I type my life away, I am not as given to anxiety as I might be at other times—writing is a coping mechanism in itself.

Yeah. I tried. I raised my hand but there are too many here to choose from. There is also very good participation

What I would have said is appreciation for how Acts 5 simplifies it. They felt they “must” preach, not could they or would they. Even in times of upheaval to normal routine, (like now) it can be possible to find a way and means, even devising one.

This is one together congregation. I tell you, there is no one here that is likely to have a cat walking behind them.

I raised my hand then lowered it. Someone had just said much the same. With so many people here, you don’t want to blow time with parroting something already said.

In this study on anxiety, Jesus’ pithy “Stop being anxious” is not quoted. I like the verse for introducing the notion it is open to attitudinal influence , but there have been anxious ones discouraged at any suggestion it is a switch that one can readily be flipped off.

Ah. There is a footnote that says anxiety may be a medical condition. As to stopping it, if you can’t do it you can’t do it. Don’t worry about it. Of course, those precise words were not used.

As the words to closing song are displayed, the speaker’s box and only his is displayed as thumbnail, as though presiding. I didn’t even know that was possible. I am told 8 pages of instruction come with Zoom meetings, largely to thwart trolls, but also for general appearance. ...1/2

Most congregation struggle with too many and some botch them all. This one didn’t miss a trick, I think, and may have added a few....2/2

Oh my goodness! The breakout rooms are named for scriptural themes! I have never seen anything other than #1, #2, #3, etc

Whoa! The 21-year old speaker (his first talk) is deluged with praise, and for the first time looks a little uncomfortable. It WAS a near perfect talk, & few give public talks at 21.    1/2

I’ll write to tell him not to let it go to his head—no doubt unnecessary as he is from a terrific family and seems well-grounded, but it can’t hurt and will be good pretext for getting reacquainted.   2/2

When you give a talk and people mob you to gush on how you have knocked it out of the park, it is a very awkward moment. There are only so many times you can say, “It’s not me, it’s Jehovah.” I learned to just say “Thank you,” and change the topic to them.

Of course, I never had this problem. What they would say to me is, “When I hear you speak, Brother Harley, I marvel at the wisdom of God’s organization in cutting public talks from 45 minutes to 30.”

When I first met my friend, he was himself about 21. A Vietnamese refugee, he loaded trucks for UPS and I believe it was they who were putting him through college. I recall him telling me that, having just left the bank, he was held up, I think it was at gunpoint. He would not relinquish his rent money! “I am one of Jehovah’s Witnesses,” he told the robber. “I don’t care about money. You can have all of it except what is for rent. I need that.” Way to get himself killed! However, he did emerge the victor of his “negotiations!” The thief did not get the rent money. He was insistent on that point.

After graduation, before departing for his new IT job with the firm he had loaded trucks for, he married the last single pioneer sister from a family of ten. At the wedding reception, I could tell his refugee sponsors were not entirely thrilled about it. They were gracious, of course, and you had to drag it out of them—they didn’t go around muttering. I know how this works with career-minded college people when you marry into a family with no college. I know this because my own grandmother had grilled my prospective wife as to whether she was “good enough” for me. She is more than good enough, thank you very much. And my friend’s wife is more that good enough for him. If he is like me, he has turned the question around to say, “Am I good enough for her?”My grandmother was certainly not a bad woman, nor was she stuck up. She just wanted the best for her grandson, and I as firstborn was her favorite. (A wise choice, as the second-born is the brother with whom I play bi-weekly games of Scrabble, and he always cheats.)

I studied with this grandmother (actually a step-grandmother, no blood relation, though you would never know it) after my graduation from college—I had learned the Bible during my junior-senior summer break, and I almost didn’t return to school. My mom was so distraught at this, not speaking to me out of tears—and believe me, my mother not speaking was as unlikely as Trump not speaking with tears or without—that I knuckled under and returned for the final year. It was a little silly, after all, to go three years and not to completion. The brother studying with me offered to set me up in the other city, and for whatever reason I said no. I was studying the Bible with the aid of.a book, and if there was one thing a college student knew how to do, it was read a book. Besides, I liked him well-enough, but maybe the person he sent would be a nut. Like the born-again nut that had approached myself and two buddies on our camping trip that had us stopping from here to Washington DC and back.

He came out of nowhere into our campsite. “I just wanted to know if you boys knew the Lord,” he said. He rambled on for the longest time and I don’t remember all he said but I do remember we all thought he was a kook but we also respected him (and God) for mustering up the courage. He ran himself out of words after awhile and we spent the rest of the week composing songs of mockery—one friend had a guitar and all of us could sing. I mean, it was God, and we all respected that, but he wasn’t saying anything that appealed to the head. His emotion alone didn’t do it for us.

I did study on my own back in college, but only for a short while, for I was soon immersed in college life. In time, out of discouragement at where college was leading (or not leading) and at how I had been convinced I had found something of spiritual substance, I looked up the address of a Kingdom Hall and walked in. Therein begins another story and I’ve probably told it somewhere, but if not maybe I will.

The grandmother I studied with—she may have been my first Bible study—would have me over for dinner every week, or maybe it was every two weeks. Again, I was her favorite. After homemade cooking, we would study out of the truth book. She went to the Baptist church, and I learned later that my dad thought her a religious fanatic, but then, anyone bringing up the Bible was a religious fanatic to him. I think the Second World War was a big turnoff to him. Oh, and it didn’t help when the priest said he could not marry my Protestant mom unless she converted. Forget that!” he said, and they never saw him again.

Nobody else ever thought Nana a fanatic. She wasn’t a Bible-thumper. I can’t recall her ever preaching to anyone. She just went to church. Anyway, we went through several chapters of the Truth Book, and she was a very good student, but she also became troubled. “I see what this is saying,” she would tell me, “and I see how the scriptures support it, but it is just so different, she said.” I will never forget how troubled she was to think I had rejected the Trinity. But it turned out that by trinity, she just thought that their were three parties, and Witnesses must be denying that. When I explained about co-equal, co-powerful, co-eternal, co-this, and co-that, she said that she had never believed that—she just thought there were three close parties, so there was really no conflict!

Between school and courting, I don’t think my Vietnamese friend had too much to do with the fledgling Vietnamese group that was forming. That was largely Erna, a pioneer who had rented homes to some of them, had offered them studies, and two had accepted. This will be interesting she said, for she didn’t know a word of Vietnamese. But Erna was staggeringly resourceful. Her dad, whose home building business she had probably helped launch from one-house-at-a-time to lucrative, put her through law school and she emerged a commuter lawyer for Bethel. Some ne’er-do-wells online were carrying on once about how Witness women must have a horrible time always kowtowing to men. “I don’t know,” one of them said, “I knew Erna at Bethel and she wouldn’t put up with that crap for a moment.” So he does know Erna, I smiled. As congregation secretary, I had drafted her letter of recommendation to Bethel.

Though there were high and mighty Vietnamese, as there are those sorts everywhere, the ones we came in contact with arrived as boat people, They were remarkable. They would arrive with nothing, on welfare and food assistance. Within two years they were homeowners growing their own food, and bartering at the market. Venders of chickens had to come to grips with some of them being purchased for sacrifice. Another was rushed to the hospital when the mushrooms her family picked in the local schoolyard turned out to be poisonous toadstools—I guess that problem didn’t present back home. Each family member would work a job, sometimes more than one, almost always for minimum wage, but the income added up. I spoke with Anh once about demons. Did they know much about them where he had come from. Oh yes, he said matter-of-factly. They were always to be found in the woods, were apt to cause trouble, and sometimes his peasant neighbors would go hunting them down, which was not easy work and was fraught with danger because they could be nasty. Many years later I thought of that woman doctor from the Caribbean who had championed the anti-malarial drug that Trump advocated. Media felt obliged to discredit her, so they made mockery at similar statements she had made regarding demonism—it is not an “educated” Western concept even if it is an unremarkable fact of life for many lowly people today.

Oh, there is plenty more to the story, and I must get to it someday. Possibly, I already have and it is buried in posts somewhere. I really do need a massive overhaul in my filing system, but will probably never get around to it. After I die, in the unlikely event anyone tries to unravel this stuff, they will say, “Huh! The old buzzard must have said this 15 times if he said it once!”

And here is from the mid-week meeting. I usually do these first, but reconnecting with my old friend took precedence this time:

A new ‘translate’ button has appeared and it was explained it was for members of our foreign language group. Someone asked if it would work for.Charlie’s Brooklyn accent. #midweekmeeting

That zealous sister who suffered the heart attack is back. Someone asked her if the territory of Upstate Hospital is now completely covered.

“Way to fit a 5 1/2 minute video into a 5 minute part, the presiding elder said to the one conducting it? Was the “Organizational Accomplishments video really longer than the time allotted for it?

The local needs speaker built his talk, geared toward the young, around Isa 41: “Do not be afraid, for I am with you. Do not gaze about, for I am your God. I will fortify you. ..For I...am grasping your right hand...saying to you, ‘Do not be afraid. I myself will help you.’

The new Zoom settings enable personalized hands. Some black friends have brown hands, some white have tan hands. Were I Irish, would I choose a green hand, or if Native American, red? I have the default yellow, which apparently is not reserved for Asian.

Spurred on by Covid, there are many museum tours offered virtually from afar. The “disgusting idols,” even “false gods” that “competed” with Jehovah and triggered not-so-hot conduct are on display, and the guides are always more than ready to explain them. #Ezekielstudy

A new Zoom function was employed for the first time, allowing participants to come and go and switch breakout rooms at any time. But I didn’t like it. I feared it might be a revisit of school gym days where everyone was chosen for dodge ball before me.

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The three magnificent ships of Henry VIII land ashore and Henry leaps out of the most magnificent in a single bound. He splats in the mud. He landed on his feet, to be sure, but it was his not exactly the grand entrance he had envisioned. It was more like that Far Side cartoon in which the head alien trips and tumbles down the gangway, landing with his nose to earth, and the ones still aboard the ship say, “So much for impressing them with awe and grandeur.”

Deathly silence prevailed among all on show and yet afloat—that’s how ‘A Man for all Seasons’ presents the landing scene. Would Henry erupt in fury at his crew for “botching” the landing? Would he turn his wrath upon the household of Thomas Moore, whose castle he had come to visit? You did not want to cross the king! For seconds that seemed like hours all held their breath.

“Ha Ha!” Henry bellowed out at last, savoring the fine joke that nature had played upon him, and everyone knew it was safe to breath.

He loved it that way—everyone holding their breath awaiting his next move! Bold and larger than life—this portrayal is so much like Henry. At any rate, I instantly assume that the movie has it right. It squares perfectly with the image built up by Dale Hoak, the professor conducting ‘The Age of Henry VIII’ Great Courses series.

When I listen to CDs such as this, I become what they said about Paul at Acts 17:18–that he was a “chatterer.” (babbler—NIV, KJV, know-it-all—CEV, pseudo-intellectual—HCSB, word-sower—Douay, blabbermouth (!)—ISV, ignorant show-off (!!)—CSB) The word literally means “seed-picker,” denoting a bird that picks up a seed here and poops it out there. Only ‘Young’s Literal Translation’ renders it just that way—as seed picker. Accordingly, I drop something in conversation, and people assume that I am as smart as Dale Hoak. They do not realize that I have just said everything I know. Press Dale Hoak for details and he will regale you for hours. Press me for details and I will change the subject to Gilligan’s Island.

The bold portrait of Henry VIII striking a defiant pose that everyone will recall, and if not they will know it when they see it, is not anatomically correct. Body proportions are altered by the artist (Hans Holbein) to heighten the sense of majesty. What was Henry’s purpose on earth? Pretty much to enjoy himself—Professor Hoak infers this but does not outright assert it. His reign over England? Kings of that age ran their domains pretty much as a business. His foreign policy? Whatever made him look good and contributed to his glory—that Professor does assert repeatedly.

Does he not remind me of a certain customer of mine from long ago, a doctor, a fellow I used to describe as a man who expected that the world revolve around him? Upon hearing that description, friends would sympathize with me for how unpleasant it must have been to deal with him. Not at all, I would tell them. As long as the world did revolve around him, he was very pleasant, so I—I was in business, after all—tried to ensure that it did, until one day that it just got to be more trouble than it was worth, and I let a certain hour of decision blow whichever way it would.

Henry was like that—jovial and pleasant as long as the world revolved around him—but the moment it didn’t.... Now, this doctor wasn’t imposing like Henry at all. He was a petty stickler impressed with personalities whose staff poked fun at him behind his back. Spying through the blinds the young couple touring the manor for sale next door, he exclaimed to his wife, “They can’t afford that house! They’re just a bunch of grungy hippies!” However, it turned out that the grungy hippie was a rock star. Afterwards, the doc would tell everyone how he live right next to so-and-so and they were on the chumminess of terms.

But back to Henry:

At first, you almost feel sorry for Dale the Professor having to cover such a lout—it’s like being a celebrity reporter for Inside Edition, only to discover that many celebrities that look so shiny on the outside are in reality not so hot. At first, it really does seem that if you know the Herman’s Hermits song, you know all you need to know about Henry VIII. But sometimes the pivotal moments of history are steered by overbearing louts—they just are. One must get used to it.

Henry’s reign is pivotal because it marks a break from the Church—severing a connection of only 1500 years (!) to found what became known as the Anglican Church. He made the break, popular opinion says, because he wanted a divorce from his first wife and the Pope wouldn’t give him one. Professor Hoak doesn’t declare this nothing—it is a factor, he says, but he advances a greater reason: Henry needed the Church’s money. The Church was fabulously rich, and he had squandered every penny that had come his way. Not just in wartime did he squander it—that was to be expected—but even in peacetime his expenditures bore no restraint. With 50 palaces around the country, all them hosting gala bashes constantly to impress whatever dignitaries might come around, and certainly the one he occupied at the moment—like the Jurassic Park guy who “spared no expense” on anything, he needed the dough. Badly.

Doesn’t it remind one of what Samual told the people in Bible times when they demanded a king?

“Samuel told the people who were asking him for a king all the words of Jehovah.  He said: “This is what the king who rules over you will have the right to demand: He will take your sons and put them in his chariots and make them his horsemen, and some will have to run before his chariots.  And he will appoint for himself chiefs over thousands and chiefs over fifties, and some will do his plowing, reap his harvest, and make his weapons of war and equipment for his chariots. He will take your daughters to be ointment mixers, cooks, and bakers. He will take the best of your fields, your vineyards, and your olive groves, and he will give them to his servants. He will take the tenth of your grainfields and your vineyards, and he will give it to his court officials and his servants. And he will take your male and female servants, your best herds, and your donkeys, and he will use them for his work. He will take the tenth of your flocks, and you will become his servants. The day will come when you will cry out because of the king you have chosen for yourselves, but Jehovah will not answer you in that day.” (1 Samuel 8:10-18)

Yeah. That’s pretty much what Henry did—drained the country dry. You wouldn’t think it possible for one man to cause such cash flow chaos—but there it is. He broke with Rome and dissolved the monasteries. All that was theirs became his.

‘Retrospect’ is the title of Professor Hoak’s last lecture, and here he turns pontifical. Maybe you have to do this if you’re an historian—you just can’t say, “the guy’s a jerk.” What was Henry like? “By what criteria, whose criteria should we judge him: yours, mine, his subjects, those who knew him, himself?”—the professor sets the stage for consideration, and first starts out with what he considers the good: He was a “brilliant player of the game of princes, of intelligence taste, training, of record for princely pursuits. A man for the renaissance.” Great.

A short list of his attainments. He cherished music, his compositions are really good, his playing might not have landed him a philharmonic spot, but it was surely good enough “for the Boston Pops.” He was a great athlete, first rate with bow and arrow, tops at tennis, wresting, horseback, feats of arms. He was a great dancer! a master of the “art of conversation!” he could write in several languages. He had fantastic artistic tastes! his tapestry collection “the greatest ever assembled!”

He “understood the requirements of princely magnificence!” He “set a very high standard of princely high conduct! And his war-making! The professor quotes some author who describe renaissance monarchies as “machines for the battlefield,” and in this Henry excelled!*

Got it. He knew how to play the game. Is it only me who wishes to be remembered for things more meaningful than this?

“But what of his character?” the professor says.  “Ah.”

“We must admit that the character of any person ultimately remains unknowable, even enigmatic. But I think it is possible to draw a few tentative generalizations based on what we clearly know of the king’s behavior.”... and with that Dale goes on to mention “the executions of two wives, a cardinal of the Church, a bishop (John Fisher) lord chancellor (that’s Thomas More) a duke, a marquis, two earls, a viscount, a viscountess, four barons, and hundreds of subjects, commoners who resisted his authority.” Well, yes—that might give a clue as to his “character.”

Look, the professor is an historian. He has to do it. His job is not to judge history—it is to relate it. But I kind of miss the Bible accounts that sum up this or that king by saying he was a real rotter. “He did on a grand scale what was bad in Jehovah’s eyes, to offend him,” we read of one. And as to what a person might hope to be remembered for, who can beat the prayer of Nehemiah: “Remember me, O Jehovah, for good”?

...

*Henry is also listed as renowned for his “theology.” Professor Hoak mentions his interchange with the Pope, and I wish he had explored it more thoroughly, but he didn’t. There were other factors involved, but the Pope annulled marriages all the time. If Henry had just asked him to override scripture, he might have done it—he was the Pope, after all. But instead Henry sought to debate scripture (Leviticus 18:16, 20:21—his first marriage was never valid because it violated these two passages) with the Pope—as though he was equally qualified—and you just KNOW that will arise the ire of the latter.

Oh, and Thomas More, the “man for all seasons” from the first paragraph? He lost his head. It was chopped off. Literally. He was supposed to cheerlead for Henry’s break from Rome and he just couldn’t do it.

There is a firm movement under the guise of ‘anti-cultism’ to make religion a decided subset of the state—with all its policies to be reviewable by the state. How strongly Rulf plays into this I cannot say, but I’ll bet it leans that way. You have probably hit the nail on the head.

“Could it be a matter of politics?” someone asked.

Yes. I think so. Someone asked Rush Limbaugh his reaction to the Boy Scout bankruptcy. In answer, he spoke to a radical leftist move to destroy anything standing for traditional family, using their own occasional failures to bring them down. I hadn’t thought of that before, I but think there is a common theme—that JWs are part of, but by no means the whole target of a movement that would remold anything of traditional family or God.

And, no—I don’t listen to Rush 24/7. Unless I am driving somewhere with the radio on, I don’t listen at all. But I did, 30 years ago, record the show and listen each night. I also, before that, listened to Larry King each night—and he is of the opposite politics. In his heyday he had the most interesting show of all. Each night he interviewed an author, each one of a different field of interest. One hour of his own Q & A, followed by 2 hours of call-in questions from the audience. He was so good. He would not let callers ramble on with long-winded speech-making questions—he forced the windbags to be succinct. He kept focus on the guest and made his own comments few. Unfortunately, his show got bought out by some network and they changed the format completely, putting him on only interviews with puff celebrities, and his newsworthy relevance fell off a cliff. 

Before that I would zip through Books on Tape from the library during my mundane work, and only stopped when the library ran out of books other than the bestsellers of the day. “Stupid janitor forgot to leave an extra roll of toilet paper—I’m screwed,” someone tweeted. I tweeted back, “I read 50 of the BBC’s top 100 books of all time via Books on Tape, far more than anyone else on the thread, while working as a janitor. Sorry about the toilet paper.”

Larry King famously did not read the books beforehand of the authors he would interview. He said he did it that way so that he could approach each book with a layman’s curiosity and not his own pre-formed opinion. He was probably just being lazy, but that does not mean that what he said was not true—he could more easily approach topics with honest curiosity and without bias. I find myself doing something similar with books such as Rulf’s, which I may someday read but I am in no hurry. It is in my area of expertise—why should I drop everything to wolf it down? It is someone’s takeaway from their own experiences. I have my own experiences and my own reactions to things he responds to. Why should I assume his are better? Did he go to a fancy-pants school? So did I. I don’t make a big deal over it because it has never done me any good (my fault, not theirs) but if he starts slobbering over ‘higher education’—well, I know that world well. 

None of us are Jesus, of course, but I like the response to his Sermon on the Mount of how people were astounded. “When Jesus finished these sayings, the effect was that the crowds were astounded at his way of teaching. for he was teaching as one having authority and not as their scribes”—the scribes that had nothing original to say but would just expound upon the opinions of each other. Jesus ignored it all to contribute his own (actually God’s) take on things. 

Everybody has a few books in them and if they do not have the wherewithal to write them, that does not make their stories any the less valid or interesting. I may get around to Rulf, but he’ll have to wait his turn. My story is as good. As it is, there is a certain idiot here (he will not have read down this far because he cries foul at any sentence longer than a dozen words) who crows about all that Rulf has “proven” the moment he is aware of the book, without even reading it. I’ll know that I have arrived when I release a book and Billy gushes on about how I have knocked the ball out of the park without having read it.

Windy mornings like we just had, and I think of the huge tree that came crashing down on the home of some friends in southern tier, pinning them in their bed. “This room is original, this one is new,” my pal later told me on a tour of his house that the friends had rebuilt. The upstairs bedroom—brand spanking new? His wife will not sleep in it. The tree no longer threatens—it came crashing down upon her already during that storm. But she will not sleep in that room again.

The exasperating thing about a power outage is that you keep forgetting. Flip a switch, nothing happens—continual aggravation. Well, I have my Go Kit ready in the event of a really huge natural disaster. Many think that the Witness organization dreamed up the idea, but it is actually the government, and the Witnesses said, “Yeah! Let’s get on that one!” I tend to put things like that off and for the longest time my Go Kit consisted of a bag of pretzels and whatever else I could scrounge up in 2 minutes. But now it’s in pretty good shape and I am preparation in search of a disaster.

Not every little thing is fully cared for. “Oh, did I tell you about my dog?” I will say to my temporary hosts as Samson tracks mud across their kitchen floor. That’s not Sampson of Bible fame, who pushes apart the pillars. That’s Samson the dog, who pees on them. Confused by the change, maybe he will even pee in the new residence.

I was staying with my dad, attending him in his old age, when another wind storm hit 3 or 4 years ago—wow-whee can wind ever do damage! “Have you entered the storehouses of the snow, or have you seen the storehouses of the hail [or the wind], which I have reserved for the time of distress?” Job 38:22 says. Yeah, I have seen them at medium throttle. I can only imagine what might happen when the pedal is to the metal.

Going back almost 30 years, my parents stayed with us for over a week. Ice storms paralyzed the entire region. Our electric line was laying right there on the ground—we didn’t come prop it up—but it was still delivering the juice. In one of those rare reverses of how this system usually works, the people with money, living out in heavily-treed areas, lost their power, but the people living within city limits did not!

Power went out to my dad’s during that windstorm 3 or 4 years ago, too, but not to me, and he again stayed with us until it was restored. By that time he had dementia. “I think we should swing by the house and see if the power has come back on,” he would say every 30 seconds.

Surprisingly, there is a time to lie. The elder-care people recommend it in the case of seniors with dementia. “How’s Jill doing these days?” he wants to know again and again. Why should I tell him again and again about the divorce in the family that will trouble him, yet he can do nothing about it? “Fine, Pop, she’s just fine. All of them are.”

Why should I tell him every day that his wife died 20 years ago—stabbing him each time? “She’s fine, Pop. She’s away to visit her cousin, remember? She’ll be back soon.”

The stressor that triggered a mental breakdown in “They’re coming to take me away, ha haa” was a runaway dog, not a girlfriend! The artist included the line, “They'll find you yet and when they do, they'll put you in the ASPCA, you mangy mutt" to defuse the charge that he was making fun of mentally ill persons. “And it worked!” said Jerry Samuels, the songwriter.

It didn’t work for Rochester’s WBBF, the station for kids throughout my childhood. I well remember the 1966 novelty song. It instantly soared to the top of the station’s playlist—and then it disappeared. A most unusual public service announcement (as though from God, from the perspective of a child) then stated that the song had been pulled because it made fun of the mentally ill.

Apparently, WBBF’s action was as unusual as their PSA. Wikipedia (accessed 10/15/2019) makes no mention of the song’s being unwelcome anywhere. And yet it clearly did make fun of the mentally ill—WBBF was right. “And I’ll be happy to see those nice young men in their clean white coats, and they’re coming to take me awaayyy ha haaa! — to the ‘funny farm,’ where life is beautiful all the time”—you don’t think that’s making fun of the mentally ill? What difference does it make whether the trigger is a runaway girlfriend or a runaway dog?

In fact, I remember that line about the “mangy mutt” and I took it for just bitter words directed at the girlfriend—I’m not sure that I knew what the ASPCA was back then. Had the lyrics been, “Lollypop Farm,” it would have been a different story for anyone in Monroe County, even if meaningless for those anywhere else.

This makes me reflect on the AM radio of my youth, WBBF. Only that station, and the more avant-grade and unpredictable WSAY played the songs popular with my g-g-generation. All the rest played Perry Como. There was no FM radio at the time.

Was WBBF unusually responsible back then—a pillar among young-people stations? I am inclined to assign it that grade retroactively. I certainly know that it could be hilarious. Jack Palvino was the morning host, and he intertwined jokes that still hold up, decades later. I still remember them, and smile whenever I do.

“Friends, do you have bills to pay?” one seeming commercial began. “Well, please give it back. Bill’s head is getting cold.”

Jack ran a lot of spots like that. It must have been some subscription service for jokes—unless he just made them up, which is possible. Even the more raucous ones like the teary, “I can’t stand it! I can’t stand it! I can’t stand it!” and a sympathetic Jack would say, “You poor man! You can tell me—what is it you can’t stand?” to which the answer would be, “YOUR FACE!” still prompts a grin, juvenile though it is.

And don’t get me going about Chickenman, a spoof on Superman! Chickenman offered his services to the city as crimefighter, and they would have just as soon that he dropped dead. A horrible klutz with a secret identity like Superman—he woke the police commissioner’s secretary, Miss Helpinger, out of a sound sleep, disguising his voice (which she instantly saw through) to report that he had been kidnapped. Somehow he managed to set his wings on fire with his utility laser light and as the approaching fire truck sirens could be heard in the background, the exasperated secretary advised him to flap his wings, for this would serve to put out the fire—or perhaps it would serve to spread it, which may have been her real aim.

As young teens, Jack Palvino inspired us to try our hand doing the same. My best chum, a few houses down, was a hobbyist with electronics. He built a radio station. We named it WNOR. It’s antenna stretched from his bedroom window to a weeping-willow tree 100 yards away. WNOR station had a radius of about a mile—we walked around the block to check—and we would spend much time after school spinning our limited number of records during on-air sessions. The “Evil One” in our mind, at the time, was the FCC, which supposedly raided and shut down stations such as ours—this reputedly was the fate of one such pirate station (I loved the term—pirates!) several miles to the south of us.

We copied Jack Palvino’s techniques, inventing the series of short snippets, “Golf tips—-(cue a golf swing by the mike)—with Jack Bogey”—Jack Nicklaus was all the rage back then. A listener would ask Jack if he preferred his woods, and Jack would say that he did not because he lost too many balls there. We were kids, you must remember.

The creative phase even carried through when I later attended Potsdam State and volunteered for the student radio station—I forget what the call letters there were. Another chum and I took the morning slot—just like Jack had done in my childhood. A few minutes after the sports report, read off the AP wire, we wrote alternating “special” sports reports, with mine running down his team (Syracuse) and his running down mine.

Jack Palvino made his life career in radio, though he was only behind the microphone during my youth. From time to time, his name would pop up in local news, as would that of Nick Nickson, another WBBF mainstay. I wonder where they are today—and even if they are yet alive. I will look it up after finishing this post.

And—coming back to the topic of mental illness—if you had a mental breakdown in Rochester, they would take you to the R-wing of Strong Hospital. Throughout my adult life this has been so. It still is. It has never occurred to me to ask, “Where does the R come from?” Nevertheless, I discovered the answer to the question I had never asked during a recent visit to the Jello Museum in nearly Leroy, NY. Heir to the Jello fortune, Helen Rivas gave $2.1 million to the hospital for the purpose of a facility to treat those suffering mental illness, and the R stands for Rivas.