Sheep and Goats

Month: April 2020

  • Cliques in the Congregation – I Hate That Stuff!

    Through the back channels, I got a report of an elderly sister—new to the congregation, but certainly not new to the faith, who felt she had fallen through the cracks. She felt overlooked, as though the congregation was cliquish and she had not broken into the clique. It wasn’t so much her, actually—she just got depressed, asking herself whether she had done something wrong or whether Jehovah had forgotten her—but it was her non-Witness (though supportive) family who felt she was bypassed.

    It is the oldest lament in the book, dating even back to Acts: “Now in those days when the disciples were increasing, the Greek-speaking Jews began complaining against the Hebrew-speaking Jews, because their widows were being overlooked in the daily distribution,” (Acts 6:1) a lament that even has a favoritism by national background theme to it—today it would be called racism.

    Now, you don’t overreact to reports like this, but neither do you underreact. Is it true? It almost doesn’t matter. What matters is that someone thinks it is true. We are blind people ascertaining the nature of the elephant by feel, and someone has grabbed hold of a tusk. You go around looking for some butts to kick in case it is true and you seek to console and adjust the complaining one in case it is not true—probably it is some of both. And (gulp) you look at yourself—‘Am I one of the bad boys in the ‘in crowd’ that won’t give anyone else the time of day?’

    I like the seven congregations getting their comeuppance in Revelation 2 and 3. The ‘seven’ apparently stands for all of the variety to be seen today in the worldwide congregation. One of those congregations was an out an out clunker—nothing but a cause of rebuke from the Lord. Another was an out and out winner, earning praise, with but one or two tweaks recommended, as though topping off the tank. But the others were mixed bags—each with some good and some bad. Yet they were all congregations. We’re stuck with them. It’s the curse of being human.

    There’s a reason that Paul told the brothers to ‘widen out’—too many of them weren’t doing it. (2 Corinthians 6:12-14) There’s a reason that Solomon writes not to take too much to heart what others say or do—by doing so you’re fixating on something you can’t control to the possible neglect of something you can. “Do not take to heart every word that people say; otherwise, you may hear your servant calling down evil on you; for you well know in your heart that many times you yourself have called down evil on others.” (Eccles 7:21-22)

    Sometimes people avoid you because you are prickly. Other times it is because you are not a ‘people person’ and they, not being naturally people persons themselves, simply find it easier to hang with those they know well. Sometimes they just have too much on their plate as it is and you are that ‘one more thing’ that they assure themselves someone else will get around to. ‘Going through the motions’ is a charge too easily made of others. I don’t like to go there. Even if one is going through the motions, it is generally a case of ‘fake it till you make it.’

    “I’ve learned not to expect too much of other people,” is a tried and true formula long-time faithful ones will cite. Generally those others come through, but if you’re ever left holding the bag, you find that you can weather the storm with that attitude. It is the relationship with God that keeps you going. The people are just thrown in as a freebie. We are social beings—God made us that way—so the congregation is nothing but a boon, but if you come to over-rely on it and under-rely on its originator, you set yourself up for heartbreak should they ever drop the ball.

    What I like is that in a godly organization every person looks to themselves for the remedy to any discord. It contrasts so well with the leaders during Covid 19 time, preoccupied with blaming each other. Not for one moment do they look inward. It’s one thing to delay boarding the lifeboat because you don’t think the ship is going down. It’s another to think that it probably is, but it is still more important to affix blame.

    It’s like those congregation talks on marriage and family life. At first you use them to educate your mate on what he or she is doing wrong. But in time you use them to educate yourself. You pay attention to what your mama told you ages ago and you used to blow it off as nothing: “Point a finger at someone and there are three pointing at you.” Best to heed the three pointing at you. You can do something about that trinity.

    “Why, then, do you look at the straw in your brother’s eye but do not notice the rafter in your own eye? Or how can you say to your brother, ‘Allow me to remove the straw from your eye,’ when look! a rafter is in your own eye? Hypocrite! First remove the rafter from your own eye, and then you will see clearly how to remove the straw from your brother’s eye,” says Jesus. (Matthew 7:3-5) For want of applying this counsel, the deeds of ones greater than us unravel. He called them hypocrites—those who would not first look to themselves.

    “When I was a child, I used to speak as a child, to think as a child, to reason as a child; but now that I have become a man, I have done away with the traits of a child,” says Paul at 1 Corinthians 13:11. Same here. When I was new in the faith, I would gravitate to my buddies after each closing prayer. Now I ignore them and look for ones who seem unengaged. There will be time enough for the good ‘ol boys later.

    ….

    (Someone commented on how she felt just so left out, She was not a people person, she said, moreover she knew that her place was with the friends and she was determined to stay, but she does wish that people would not just walk by her with a quick ‘Hi. How are you?’)

    I answered:

    Sometimes it is better to reject a certain interpretation of things even if that interpretation seems the most reasonable. 

    On the troubles of shy people, I learned more from Garrison Keillor than I ever did from the Bible. Even at the height of his show’s popularity, he was, according to Chet Atkins, painfully shy. ‘You just cannot compliment him,’ Atkins would say. ‘He gets all awkward and walks away.’ He poked fun at his own condition. Made up sponsor for his show, ‘A Prairie Home Companion,’ was Powder Milk Biscuits, the biscuits “that give shy persons the strength to get up and do what needs to be done.” Each ‘ad’ for the ‘product’ he would begin with some narration about shy people, invariably coming to the punch line that Powder Milk Biscuits was just what they needed, before singing the Powder Milk song. He once said that a great aid to shyness was to take pleasure in the company of other people, simply as a spectator. It was almost better that way, for it relieved you of the pressure to think of something to say. Just learn to enjoy being in their midst and watching them.

    Get to the meetings ahead of time and don’t leave immediately afterwards. Sometimes just take your seat, and sometimes just stand watching the others. Try to have some tidbit in mind from the current Bible reading or the program that has nothing to do with yourself so that should you be called upon for conversation, you will have something to say. No need to leave should you get teary, I would not think, unless you are outright bawling, and maybe even then it is best to tough it out. It is very important not to blame anyone. Don’t blame yourself and don’t blame others. It is what it is. Maybe it will change. Maybe it will not. Try to learn to be comfortable in their midst, whether people speak with you or not. Years later you may come to have insight or reflections on the social environment. Don’t push those reflections to come just now.

    ….

    “Well, has your family tried them, Powder Milk?
    Yes, has your family tried them, Powder Milk?
    Well, if your family’s tried them, you know you’ve satisfied them.
    There’s a real hot item, Powder Milk”
     

    …I just threw in the ditty at the end because I remember Keillor singing it in every show. It is hardly necessary, but maybe in some way that I cannot define myself, it brings something to the table.

    ……

    To counsel that the above person should “step outside her comfort zone”:

    When they push me to step outside of my comfort zone I reply that I am not even completely comfortable IN my comfort zone, so I’m in no hurry to step outside it. No, I would not in any way increase the onus on yourself. It is likely to result in feelings of guilt and failure. 

    For whatever it is worth, I don’t think people are very good at being ‘people persons’ today, and that is true of Americans in particular. I don’t know why that is. I suspect vast media consumption has something to do with it. Conversation is an art and if you binge-watch a season of Monk or Bull or whatever at a time—well, that is time that you do not have to improve your conversation skills—and perhaps more importantly, your desire to communicate. Probably materialism plays a part. If you have stuff, it is just too easy to fall back on it for comfort, and thereby fail to advance in conversation ability.

    This is among the reasons, hardly the sole ones, that the organization says keep entertainment and material things in their place. Frankly, you would think that the friends as a whole would be making better progress in being ‘people persons’ than they are. Quite a few people are rather hard to converse with. I am easily able to hold back and listen, even draw out people, but with some you end up doing all the talking—they simply hold back, for whatever reason, and let you carry the ball. I confess these ones tend to wear me out, but I recharge elsewhere and give them another shot.

    Don’t try to figure it out. Put yourself where you need to be and do not judge yourself harshly. Keep that same attitude with regard to others in the congregation—don’t judge them harshly. Satan is pouring sand in the gearbox and it slows down the works. Do the things that you can, and be patient with what you cannot. Do the serenity prayer if you like. Ask to make changes with what you can, endure what you cannot, and recognize what components predominate in each.. 

  • The Gem I Learned is That Jacob Married Into a Family of Shysters

    Jacob protested: “Hey! I was betrothed to marry Rachel, and you foisted Leah upon me! What gives?”

    “You’re not much for reading the fine print, are you?” said Laban. “It’s in paragraph 242: “It is not our custom here to give the younger woman before the firstborn.” (Genesis 29:26) “You knew or should have known this.”

    There was a part of me that when they came to that meeting question of what ‘gem’ I had picked up from Genesis 29 & 30 wanted to say that Jacob had married into a ‘gem’ of a family—a real bunch of shysters. And to think he slept with Leah, supposing it was Rachel? C’mon! How can that be?

    The research guide explains how that can be. Speaking of bride customs of the time: “First she would bathe herself and rub herself with perfumed oil….she put on breastbands and a white robe, often richly embroidered…decked herself with ornaments and jewels…then covered herself with a light garment, a form of veil, that extended from head to foot.”

    She must have looked like a Christmas tree! And then take her into a dark tent—she keeps her mouth shut, and Jacob isn’t in a chatty mood himself, and yeah—I can see how it could happen.

    If Jacob married into a family of shysters—well, it serves him right, for he was somewhat of a shyster himself. Wasn’t he? It is not even a separate family, for they are relatives, and not all that distant.

    He had been opportunistic with his dumbbell brother Esau, snatching the birthright when Esau was hungry and couldn’t offhand see the relevance of it—he was hungry NOW and the birthright represented some nebulous benefits for LATER: “And Esau continued: “Here I am about to die! What use is a birthright to me?” (Genesis 25:32)

    Pop was not all that much different, so it would seem. He favored Esau, and why? “And Isaac loved Esau because it meant game in his mouth.” (Genesis.25:28) As for Jacob’s mom: “Rebekah loved Jacob.” She loved him so much that she told him how to pull a fast one on her husband—she knew that if you put food into his belly you could talk him into anything—to secure the blessing for himself, just like he had secured the birthright.

    Laban got seven years of work out of Jacob. It was the bridal price apparently. Bridal price was customary and Jacob didn’t come with the means to pay it, so he agreed to the seven years, and “but in his eyes they were like just a few days because of his love for her.” (Genesis 29:20) My wife likes that verse.

    He gets ANOTHER seven years out of him in order to work off his debt for Rachel. At least he delivered that second daughter pronto and didn’t make Jacob hold off for another seven years—I mean, there are limits. “Celebrate the week of this woman [Leah]. After that you will also be given this other woman in exchange for serving me seven more years,” says the wheeler-dealer. [By the way, is it only me who feels for poor Leah?]

    So you don’t feel too sorry when Jacob outmaneuvers the conniver through a process so convoluted that I can’t begin to get my head around it to increase his own flock of sheep at Laban’s expense:

    “Jacob then took freshly cut staffs of the storax, almond, and plane trees, and he peeled white spots in them by exposing the white wood of the staffs. Then he placed the staffs that he had peeled in front of the flock, in the gutters, in the drinking troughs, where the flocks would come to drink, that they might get into heat in front of them when they came to drink. So the flocks would get into heat in front of the staffs, and the flocks would produce striped, speckled, and color-patched offspring. Then Jacob separated the young rams and turned the flocks to face the striped ones and all the dark-brown ones among the flocks of Laʹban. Then he separated his own flocks and did not mix them with Laʹban’s flocks. And whenever the robust animals would get into heat, Jacob would place the staffs in the gutters before the eyes of the flocks, that they might get into heat by the staffs. But when the animals were weak, he would not place the staffs there. So the weak ones always came to be Laʹban’s, but the robust ones became Jacob’s. And the man grew very prosperous, and he acquired great flocks and male and female servants and camels and donkeys.” (Genesis 30:37-43)

    If anyone has the patience to work through that one, I’m all ears. It may be one of those things that you have to be a farmer to appreciate—I’ll bet Farmer Mort takes it in stride—and it reminds me of that circuit overseer who would point out that “a working mule won’t kick, and a kicking mule won’t work.” His purpose was to highlight the value of cooperation. He was a sensation in the rural congregations, but then he got to the big city and nobody knew what a mule was.

    They’re all shysters! They all pull fast ones on each other. They all cause HQ to hem and haw throughout Genesis that “well—there is nothing in the Bible to suggest that Jehovah approved of these little shenanigans.” I’m not so sure it is the best approach. If you conceded that they did some maneuvering back in the day, you wouldn’t get so bent out of shape if it turns out they’ve done some maneuverings, end-runs, and power plays in the modern day organization. Don’t carry on that Rutherford outmaneuvered the Russell devotees, or that Knorr or Franz or whoever didn’t cross all the T’s or dot all the ‘I’s. Instead, picture God saying: “What a bunch of yo-yos! How am I going to get anything done through this mess? I’ll just make they keep their paws off their neighbor’s wives like my servant David did not and let it go at that!”

    Esau wasn’t even that bad of a guy, really. He was just too much ‘earth’ on the ‘earth/fire/air/water’ pinwheel. There’s plenty of solid and respected brothers only slightly higher than him overall—you know, brothers that are rock-solid dependable and there is no practical ability that they cannot master and they love a good solid meal after a hard day’s work—but you have to prod them to do their daily Bible reading, and they continually carry on about how they don’t like study, and find reading a bore.

    How could Esau have been, really? He took a couple of Hittite wives that drove his parents nuts, but he was hardly the first one to do this. Didn’t Moses have a couple of these clunkers, too? Or was it just ‘foreign’ wives without reference to specific nationality?

    “When Esau was 40 years old, he took as wife Judith the daughter of Beeri the Hittite and also Basemath the daughter of Elan the Hittite. They were a source of great grief to Isaac and Rebekah.” (Genesis 26:34)

    He mended his bad ways. “Esau then realized that the daughters of Caʹnaan were displeasing to his father Isaac, so Esau went to Ishmael and took as wife Mahalath the daughter of Abraham’s son Ishmael, the sister of Nebaioth, in addition to the other wives he already had.” (Genesis 28:8-9) It’s a though he says: “Huh! The folks like wives from the A-team? Okay, I’ll go out and get me one of those.” I mean, he could have married some dragon-lady just to spite them, but he didn’t.

    And he forgave Jacob, despite of lifetime of being outmaneuvered by the little twerp. Here, decades later, the two respective families are about to encounter each other, and Jacob is sweating it that Esau will view it as payback time. He sends forth emissaries with presents to suck up to him, but it is all water under the bridge to Esau—contrast that to some pinheaded people even of our own who will nurse a grudge till the end of their days.

    “Esau said: “What is the purpose of all this camp of travelers that I have met?” He replied: “In order to find favor in the eyes of my lord.” Then Esau said: “I have a great many possessions, my brother. Keep what is yours.” However, Jacob said: “No, please. If I have found favor in your eyes, you must take my gift from my hand, because I brought it so that I could see your face. And I have seen your face as though seeing God’s face, in that you received me with pleasure. Take, please, the gift conveying my blessing that was brought to you, for God has favored me and I have everything I need.” And he continued to urge him, so that he took it.” (Genesis 33:8-11)

    Was Isaac all that different from Esau? Despite Jacob’s spirituality, Isaac preferred Esau because it meant game in his stomach. He didn’t think to send Jacob away to marry a worshipper of Jehovah of his own accord—Rebekah’s complaining prodded him to do it. And why did he yet go ahead and attempt to bless Esau if he appreciated that by rights it belonged to Jacob? There are chapters in the Bible about Abraham, and chapters in the Bible about Jacob. But Isaac is more or less of a placeholder. Not all that much is written about him. Who knows? Maybe he was traumatized by almost  being sacrificed.

    So Esau turned out to be okay himself—not hot stuff spiritually, but not hostile either. But he didn’t teach his kids. That’s the trouble with brothers who are too much ‘earth.’ They can neglect passing on spiritual gems to their own kids and what they do pass on is in the form of do’s and don’t, absent the principles that give them heart-appeal, and the kids become Edomites, without a spiritual bone in their bodies.

  • Sam Herd and the Brother With the Rotten Attitude

    “What did you learn that was new at the 2019 ‘Love Never Fails’ Regional Convention?”

    It is a question from a sorehead. It is from a brother in good standing (or at least, not bad) though how that can be I will never know, for a more faultfinding person you will never find—and the faultfinding only escalates as he ventures up the leadership ‘hierarchy,’ since he holds them responsible for whatever he thinks did not work out in his own life. I mean, he doesn’t exactly have a fine attitude.

    I know I cannot answer earnestly a question like this, for it will surely be thrown back in my face—it always is. In fact, this may be the type of fellow that I promised the elders I would not engage with again, but since I have no doubt that he truly is a brother—attending meetings and all—I answered him thus:

    “I took a great many notes with the intent to write up a post or two that never materialized, crowded out by too many other things to do. It was in between days that I, for the first time ever, blocked several apostates at once as they had, for the first time ever, ganged up on me. They had pierced my up-to-then successful armor of always linking to a post with my replies, effectively answering their 50 words with my 1000.

    But like the Borg, they adapted. Like charging a hill, caring not if they got mowed down, they started to came at me anyway. I would return to the hotel from a day at the convention and find a score or more of nastigrams from them, eager to call attention to some unflattering headline somewhere—all this with a wife who wanted to go out to supper or walk or just unwind, and who is not terribly enthused about my online activity in the first place. So I blasted them all away, and for reasons I no longer recall—I must have been watching Star Trek reruns, I drew heavily on that show for symbolism:

    What did I learn at the 2019 ‘Love Never Fails’ Regional Convention? I learned that Brother Herd, who may not even know what political correctness is, will never reprove me for ‘fat-shaming.’ He was a keynote speaker, from the Governing Body, and his talks were streamed in from the larger Phoenix gathering he was attending.

    Establishing the point that it is the heart that matters, Brother Herd posed the quandary of marrying the woman—an excellent catch—with a heart of pure gold, even though she “clocks in at 200 pounds.” Is this fellow a diplomat or what?

    Everybody loves Brother Herd—maybe even more so than Brother Lett, whom some secretly fear may be too over the top. Herd has to be the most humble man on earth. How can he not be? Born to a father in his old age—a mule driver—one of 8 or 9 children, he said at the convention that for the longest time he thought that “a chicken only had a neck and a back because that’s all he ever got.”

    Look, outsiders will never ever ever get it about how such a man can become one of the Governing Body, but it harkens back to something I once posted about how the GB is Plato’s dream come true: a monarchy type of governing in which the members are selected by merit, not by family line—and how that model assumes persons who do exist in the overall world—modest, non-materialistic, not power hungry—I mean, those persons do exist, but such are the values of this world that they can never ‘rise to the top.’ In Jehovah’s earthly organization, however, they can and do rise to the top—and part of their very qualifications is that they do not regard themselves as ‘rising to the top’ but only displaying a willingness to serve.

    At any rate, I got a lot of mileage out of him when some opposer posted footage of him shaking hands with well-wishers at the airport and tried to spin it that JWs make him an object of worship and that he eats it all up. Anyone who knows the slightest thing about the man knows that he practically scowls at the attention, but what can he do? There they are. They love him. He loves them, so he shakes everyone’s hand. “Imagine: Who would be so nasty and petty to begrudge an old man acknowledging the well-wishing of friends?” I tweeted. It was one of my most liked tweets of all time.

    I even have Sam down twice in ‘Tom Irregardless and Me.’ There is ‘Chapter 2 – Sam Herd’ and ‘Chapter 18 – Sam Herd.’ He had given some talk so humble, and yet so profound, that I used it to bookend my entire book—a book which, incidentally, I am using Covid time to refine a few rough edges out of it, so that anyone who has downloaded it might download it again and find it smoother.

    He is not even a good speaker, really—Sam Herd isn’t—but he is such a captivating story-teller that it doesn’t matter. His stories are so down-to-earth, so human, so involved in the day-to-day of life—very much like Jesus’ illustrations—so connected with all that is ‘real’ about life, that he doesn’t have to spin erudite talks; his stories are such that everyone grasps the moral that he nowhere explicitly states.

    “One thing is clear about jw.org,” a local brother said. “They don’t use paid actors.” No. You will never find people as unvarnished and real as are members of the Governing Body. You do not highlight people’s strengths. You highlight their weaknesses, though not in a fault-finding way, because in those weaknesses can be found God’s strength. If brilliant people accomplish brilliant things—well, it is easy to see why. But if decidedly non-brilliant people accomplish those things, it is not so easy to see why, and the credit goes to God. Three times the apostle Paul pleaded with God to remove a weakness. ‘Nothing doing,’ God replied. ‘I look better when you are a clod.’ (2 Corinthians 12:7-10)

  • Slow Joe and the Pork Chop Preachers

    Slow Joe used to refer to the semi-grifter preachers who set up storefront churches as ‘pork chop preachers.’ They preached just enough to keep themselves in pork chops. There was no particular opinion as to whether they were sincere or not but the inference was that they knew just enough of the Bible to buy their daily pork chop and no more.

    He tended to move slow, though he could move fast. He tended to speak slow, but any inference that he was slow-witted would be wrong. Rather, he spoke slow so that every word he said would land with the blow of a hammer if he wanted it too, which he frequently did. His voice was very deep and very stern. He would, back in the day, call on young people even though they had not raised their hands—I have never known anyone else so bold and oblivious to normal human decorum to do this. Children were afraid of him, unless they loved him, as many did. The ones who endured later came to reminisce on him fondly. Not a few adults were afraid of him, as well. Surely there were some who must have told him off.

    Slow Joe went all the way back to representing Jehovah during the days of World War II. Many of our people were accosted by mobs during that time. A few died. Many were beaten up, some tarred and feathered, or forced to drink castor oil. Countless numbers were tossed into prison, sometimes without charge—their neutrality made them simply too contemptible in popular opinion during those nationalistic times to be afforded the normal rights that would be accorded everyone else.

    There is a stereotype of Witnesses ‘turning the other cheek’ and being mild mannered no matter what the ordeal. It probably is true with most, but it wasn’t with Slow Joe; he was not averse to defending himself with fists. “We use to stack em up like cordwood,” he would say of certain ones who came out to attack, though it was not easy to draw this remark from him.

    Through chance and unforeseen circumstances many years later, I found myself a new and very green elder in a congregation that didn’t have too much more in the way of experience. Only one other elder could be described as all-around and experienced—there were several others but they were all hobbled in some manner. “Maybe be can raid that other congregation—they have plenty of elders—and draft Slow Joe,” I said to the co-elder.

    We arranged to meet with him. Slow Joe sat there scowling, seemingly, as he ever seemed to, but he was a good man—we knew it and he knew that we knew it. He said that he would think about it. A week later he showed up at the meeting with his wife. He didn’t say a word to us, chatted with some of the friends afterwards, and left. Later, the other elder and I emptied the contribution box and found his Publisher Record Cards. “I guess we have his answer,” that brother said to me.

    I am very grateful to Slow Joe. He didn’t have to come. He was old by then, could easily have gone into cruise mode, and no one would have thought any the less of him for it. And he did bring a wealth of experience. “Brothers, I think we’re going about this all wrong,” he said at a certain elder’s meeting where we were going about something all wrong. Then he set us on a way that worked out better. Moreover, Black Mack, another extremely experienced man, joined the congregation shortly thereafter—I think Slow Joe recruited him.

    Black Mack had equal stature with Joe—he had long served as an elder but he wasn’t one at the time. He was even separated from his wife, and I surmise that both circumstances were essentially the result of his rigidity and unwillingness to yield to which way the wind was blowing. He thrived in the new atmosphere, in time resolved all problems, and was again appointed an elder. If I recall correctly, he groused over having to  go through the stages of ministerial servant first, since he had not forgotten the spiritual things that he once had as an elder—he wanted to skip that step—he was deleted as an elder, he should be ‘reinstated’ as an elder, he thought. “Look, just do it, won’t you?” someone said. “It’s how we do things. Yield for once in your life and it will all be well.” And it was.

    Soon afterwards Davey the Kid came along, straight out of Bethel, a phenomenally talented ‘people person’ whose every touch turned something into gold. He talked his way immediately into some hot-shot job but quit when his new employer wouldn’t grant him time off for the convention. “They’re just like the Russians,” he told me, ‘crying that they aren’t doing this and they can’t do that, when all the time they are churning out weapons to beat the band.”

    Having quit, he had to do something to support himself and growing family, now including an infant son. So he walked into the eight-story Medical Arts building to secure the janitorial contract. The manager showed him around, noted a few special challenges, but then allowed that he himself didn’t know much about cleaning. “That makes two of us!” Davie told me he thought at the time, as he wowed the other with pure chutzpah. “It’s my gift,” he told me. “They never say no.”

    It was all good training for me. I had prayed for experienced help ‘tending to Jehovah’s sheep’ and in short order three three titans came along. I even called them ‘titans’ in the final chapter of ‘Tom Irregardless and Me.’ I related the time—it was real and I was there—when Davey the Kid gave his first student talk in the congregation before Slow Joe, the School conductor. With only mild exaggeration on both sides, I wrote that never in his life had Davey the Kid not been awarded a G following a talk (it stood for ‘good’) and never in his life had Slow Joe awarded one. I dramatized it for all I was worth and put it in a setting of the old West. I spoke of the climactic moment when ‘you could hear a pin drop.’ Solely because I like to play with words and images, I substituted that ‘you could hear a plane drop.’ Laura, who reviewed parts of the manuscript prior to self-publishing—Laura, who know nothing of the background, suggested that my substitution didn’t make any sense. What was I to tell her—that it did?