Pride and Arrogance - A Fathers Legacy - Post #2

Pride and Shame - A Father’s Legacy.

Normally, I am not a fan of exposing the intimate problems of ones family or relationships on social media outlets. However, my current relationship with my father and mother demands a public outreach. As a shunned, disfellowshipped and previous member of the Jehovah’s Witnesses religion, an organization widely recognized as a cult, I am forbidden from having any relationship or conversations with any other believing members which includes all family members.

The reasons for my being shunned by this religion are not important here except to say that it was quite possibly the best thing that could have happened to me for now I am able to see what so many inside the organization are unable.

The lies.

No matter what source you use, the roles of fathers can be clearly defined. Even in the animal kingdom, the role of fathers is very clear. They are there to provide, lead and support. Its really that simple, yet in these three words lies a great amount of complication. From the moment a child is born the role of a father becomes significant. While in the initial phases of life, that child may not even recognize the man in the room, but soon there will become a time when that fathers role will become the most significant in that child’s life without respect to it being a male or female.

I too am a father and I can say with great confidence that being a father is the hardest job one could imagine and should not be undertaken without proper knowledge and preparation. I was certainly not prepared for it. In fact making the decision to have a child was not born from some deep consultative decision making process. It was just decided in a moment without much thought. In a moment when I thought that I could be, would be a much better father than mine had been to me. Giving little thought to the level of preparedness I needed, my first son was born not realizing much more is required than just deciding to be a better father than what I had growing up.

From the outside looking in, my father was a great man. So said many. He was a particularly handsome guy, held a steady job, we lived in a decent neighborhood and I don't ever recall any utilities being turned off or there not being enough food to eat. My Dad went to work each and every day, worked hard and it seemed as if we took vacations every year. There were things I noticed when I was in those early days when I was ranging in age from 8-14 years. I knew that my mom and dad had some problems, that he sometimes drank too much and that there were late night excursions to some local bar where he would flirt with those fairly unattractive women. I knew things were a little off when he would come home in the middle of the night smelling like beer and stale cigarettes, wake me up and make me talk to him about  little ‘guy stuff’. He was gone a lot during the week and often came home late at night, or sometimes he ‘worked’ nights, we didn't really care that much because he always made it up to us on Friday nights with Pizza and scary late night television shows. Saturday morning would continue the fun as he would sometimes watch cartoons with us and clown around acting out roles as Superman, Batman or sometimes even Wonder Woman.

But, I knew my dad has some issues. He was a man to be feared especially with that belt in hand, but he was for all his faults a fun dad. But all of that was about to change, as if over night. My mother had been since I was born raising my sister and I as Jehovahs Witnesses. It wasn't all bad. We had friends, participated in some school activities and had generally happy experiences. Even knocking on doors and giving presentations wasn't all that bad and I would dare say that we may have liked it a little bit. It was kinda fun. We got ice cream and lunch at McDonalds. What could be better?

At the time we thought that our little paradise could only get better if our beer drinking, cigarette smoking, pussy hunting but fun time father would become a witness. Oh how great our lives would be. So it was then that I, the most influential of the children began a relentless campaign to get my father to come to the ‘side of the truth’.

What a mistake that would turn out to be.

Before I continue you may recall that at the beginning of this article I spoke about my unwillingness to air my families dirty laundry on social media. Why do so now? To put it bluntly, its to get their attention There have been years of unresolved issues between my father and I that he is unwilling to address. My being disfellowshipped gives him a thick veil with which to hide behind. He has created a public persona based on a lie that vilifies me and gives no regard to my feelings or the things I had to deal with under his iron fisted monarchic rule. Things that in this day and time can be repaired through some simple conversations and an apology. This is an open letter, an acknowledgement that his public persona is false and here in lies an opportunity to leave a legacy different than the one I will remember when his days are long past.

As odd as this may seem I do not remember his baptism as well as I can remember all the physical abuses that came as a result of me not wanting to conform to all the ridiculous demands of a JW father hell bent on making his already well mannered family into Watchtower Society robots.  I vividly recall the announcement at the Kingdom Hall welcoming a new brother to the congregation, my father. I was proud because I thought I had saved his life but in reality I had made great strides towards destroying my own. He became very popular very quickly. A very good speaker and with a charisma I had not seen before in my dad, he quickly became a leader. People in the congregation looked up to him and very soon many were leaning upon him for his sage advice and his ability to apply scriptures to their situations. It was kinda cool having a father that was always being called on to offer prayer and to give talks from the platform, often delivering some of the lighter ‘special needs’ programs. I looked up to him and wanted to make sure I did nothing to make him look bad.

Then he became an elder.

Becoming an elder was like reaching celebrity status. You now have a following. You have ones that will now hang onto every word or piece of advice you offer. Being appointed to serve as an elder is akin to being promoted on your job. New title gives you a new air of respectability. You are SOMEBODY now. You can make decisions and you now have the right to make declarations and make demands on people without anyone really challenging you, at least not in public.  You are an elder now - God has given you authority to execute his commandments upon others and to carry out his orders knowing that most will be followed without question. A solid prescription for success in the Watchtower organization is to follow without question.  I never figured my father to be one of those types, but in retrospect I now see that he was. He put his thinking on hold in order to succeed and to be a SOMEBODY, to be an elder, to have followers. He wanted to be the chief administrator of the robot army.  One of the requirements for being an elder and maintaining that status was that your family had to act in lock step, they had to show that the robotic indoctrination had taken hold. My dad, the just appointed elder together with his newly christened authority thought he could practice and perfect the robotic indoctrination techniques on his family.

He was wrong. My mother would constantly remind him that although he was the head of the family, she was the neck that turned the head. What she meant was that he was not meant to make all decisions about the family’s future.  She was to be consulted. But because my fathers eldership relied heavily on how his family was perceived by others in the congregation and in order to protect his position of authority and the perception he carried amongst members of the congregation, he became a tyrant.

While my fathers tyranny had a negative effect on all members of the family, I would for many years suffer physical and emotional abuse far worse than anything inflicted upon my siblings.

POST #2  - Pride and Shame - A Father’s Legacy.

To be fair, my father was not an inherently evil man. He was not unkind, mean or selfish. As I mentioned earlier, he was quite dutiful in the way he cared for his family. It is fair to say that I did not really know him well in my early years. My father was not a man of feelings, not one to give compliments or to sharing his intimate thoughts, but yet not not without emotion, primarily angry emotion. He would not tolerate any disobedience out of any of his children of the time, primarily my sister and me although I think all my siblings would agree that I bore the brunt of his displeasure the majority of the time. For many years after my father became a witness, I lived in fear. Always looking over my should for the next time I might get a whipping with his belt, many times not looking forward to coming home from school. My fathers motto was beat first and ask questions later. It was important that the first born be bought into strict obedience such that no command given by him could be ignored or even questioned. Interestingly this sort of physical discipline would prepare me well for the mental and emotional enslavement I would suffer as one of Jehovah’s Witnesses for years to come.

As mentioned in an earlier post, my father quickly removed my sister and I from all ‘worldly extracurricular activities’ that might interfere with our theocratic captivities like attending the Kingdom hall for seven fucking meetings per week, ministry on the weekend and the countless family and personal study events we had at home. Not much time for anything else in life. Oh how we hated the family study. I recall one instance when I had purchased with my allowance, some extra fly dress shoes for myself. I boldly wore the them to the family study knowing that my father would make an issue with it since he told me not to buy them because I was to be no part of the world. Well at some point during our study he asked me if I though buying those shoes was being like the world or no part of the world? I told my dad that they were ‘just stinking shoes’. Keep in mind I was 14 at the time. Instead of trying to determine my intentions, he threw his heavy ass briefcase at me and then threw my shoes in the trash.

Had he been ‘real’ with me, he would have known that I was trying to impress a girl at the Kingdom Hall.

My father never understood me as a teen. Had he forgotten that he was at one time a handsome young teenager as I was now? Did he forget that teenagers start to develop their own interests and tastes as they get older? I hated wearing the same suit over and over and over to all the meetings and in field service. My dad made more money than most in our congregations but in his die hard attempts to make humble the 14 year old, I never got any new clothes. I was the brunt of jokes from all the other young boys in the kingdom hall. My suit jacket was 3 or 4 inches below my elbow and my pants were high waters. Remember that, high waters? I was embarrassed to leave my seat during the meetings. I would wait till everyone else left and then I would go to the car. One suit, one tie, one shirt and ragged ass shoes. The looks, the jokes.

Good job dad, who humiliates their 14 year son with excellent grades, hobbies, interests and dreams so that you can look like you have everything under control? But let’s not stand yet for the father of the year award. There is more.

Growing up in this religion, I really had no real friends. Dear dad’s main goal, it seemed was to make us the family that no one wanted to be around. Prominent elder with elder kids too perfect to be around and too scared to have any kind of fun. So, we were placed on the ‘no invite’ list. My mother had to beg other parents to let her kids be  part of activities. I never quite understood why the other kids just didn't like us. Maybe we were perceived as weird because we looked and acted so different than even ‘normal’ witness kids. No one knew the sort of torture we endured under the tyrannical rule of Don Hale. Can you imagine being sent to your bedroom after family study with no dinner because you didn't know the answers to bull shit questions that you just could not comprehend at 14 and 15 years of age? Who wants to sit and study for two to four hours on Saturday afternoon while all the neighborhood kids are outside?

Anyone that did not believe as the JW’s did were considered worldly and bad association that could spoil our useful habits. Every effort was made by families to make sure that they didn't show any worldly traits or have no real worldly desires. They taught that true Christians had to be separate from the world of unbelieving heathens. For a teenager, other than home, there was no place of greater influence than school. Before my father became an active nut case witness I was a very active kid. I played team sports and was starting to show some promise on the track team. I played clarinet and was learning to play percussion and signed up to learn every musical genre the school had to offer at the time. I was really starting to show some appreciation for classical jazz but my all time favorite was the marching band. There was nothing like football season in high school. I was never going to be big enough or bad enough to  play on the team, but I was good enough to play in the band. Being on the field for the pre-game and half time shows gave me a sense of pride and accomplishment beyond anything I had ever felt. Every kid wants be admired for some talent, for something they can do well. They want to be admired, by their parents, their friends and especially GIRLS.

I was doing it. I was in the marching band. I was making friends and being invited to hang out at Pizza Hut after the games. My music teacher really liked me because I showed up and gave it all my effort. There were cheerleaders. I looked forward to half time because there was always a pretty girl that wanted to hold hands with the drummer.

But, I was showing signs of worldliness, according to Watchtower policies. I had to be reigned in. How would there be time to save people from Armageddon if I was busy learning sheet music and increasing my speed on the track? Something would have to change so my father pulled me and my sister both from all of our extracurricular ‘worldly’ activities, or so he thought.

For some reason, I do not recall what my sister did, she was learning how to play the flute, but I didn't follow his orders. I didn't quit. Although I was forced to withdraw from the marching band because most of the games were on Friday night during our family study time, I managed to stay enrolled for a complete school year in numerous other music genre classes.  However, this secret would not last forever.

One day my dad got a call from my principal when I was a freshman in high school. The principal reported that a student in my music class had accused me of stealing his drumsticks and of course I had denied it. After all, I had a collection of drumsticks in my locker, its what I spent my allowance money on. Each month when dad gave us money for performing chores, I would ride my bike to Coyles Music on Broad Street and haggle for the best price on the best sticks they had in the store. My sticks were everything They were the connection to my interests, my love of drumming and maybe a career in a well known rock band, who knows. 

But on this day, I was a drum stick thief. As I walked home from school, I was so gripped with fear that I actually started to believe that I had stolen the drum sticks just so I could be prepared for the whipping I would get when I got home.  However, nothing I could do or say would prepare me for what lay ahead.

I hate recliners. I will not sit in one, I will not own one, I will not have one in my house or any place I choose to live. I hate the look and especially the feel of them. I will sit on the floor before I choose to sit in a recliner. It’s not even a love hate relationship, I just hate recliners. What did a recliner ever do to me to merit such scorn? Nothing really but be an unwilling pawn in my fathers evil ploy to destroy me. Well, maybe not destroy but discipline for sure.

My father had a recliner, in fact he had two recliners. The first pair were made of a blue velvet like material very soft to the touch. I was very excited about our first pair of recliners. They were purchased with my fathers comfort in mind and we were rarely allowed to sit in them. There were times when we knew that dad was not coming home for the evening and we would sit in the recliners, kings and queens if even for a moment.  My dad always preferred the recliner closest to the wall away from the front door. We would often find him there sleeping after a long day at work. Over time we noticed that the chair was beginning to lose its luster and freshness and slowly that ‘old dad who believes in showers twice per week in order to keep the water bill down’ smell took over. 

The recliner smelled like old ass.

The one day as I returned home from school, I noticed the blue velvet recliners were gone, both of them. Evidently new furniture was on the horizon, thats exciting, I thought. New recliners? Lord, please let them be leather this time. As I started walking up the driveway, I noticed that one of the recliners was sitting on the curb awaiting trash pick up day and that the material had been torn from it. Add to this my dad was home early. I stopped for a moment to look at the broken down recliner, to examine its anatomy of sorts. How exactly does a recliner, recline? I looked for the reclining lever and paid close attention to the simple gear like mechanisms that work in perfect synch with other to perform the reclining action and wondered what bright engineer had dreamed this up and if he was rich by now. Of particular interest to me was the actual rocker glide itself. It was much different than what you find on an average rocking chair. This one was shaped like a sine wave. If you don't know what a sine wave looks like, GOOGLE it now before you continue reading. I noticed that this essential piece of the recliners rocking mechanism was broken off from the rest of the chair. Its all trash anyway and I made my way into the house to see what sort of pain as coming my way.

On an average day, I would walk into the living room and would see dad sitting in that blue recliner. Always sitting in that damn blue recliner, studying Jehovah Witness shit or doing the crossword puzzle. Always with a burrowed brow or maybe even a frown. Did he hate reading the Jehovah Witness bullshit as much as I did or was he deep in thought trying to convince himself that the lies were true? I hated seeing him in that recliner. Sitting there pretending not to hear and not to see. This man, looking at me, watching me, judging me.

Hating me. Hating the fact that I forced him to marry my mother, my dear mom, the wife HE chose.

But at this moment, he was just standing there, for me, no point of reference for there was no blue recliner. Why was he standing there? What the hell is your problem, man?

“Your music teach called” he said.

“So”

Did I just say that?

“Your music teacher says you stole Michaels drumsticks from his locker” he snorted.

“No, I didn't and I don't know what you are talking about.”

My mother was standing close by in the kitchen, she was trying her best not to get involved. At this point, my sister walks in the house moments behind me. He directs her to go upstairs and get started on her homework, after all it was a meeting night.

“I am so sick and tired of you telling lies all the time, I want the truth or your are going to regret it”. He shouted.

“Im telling you the truth, I didn't steal this boys drumsticks, I have my own, plenty of them.”

At that moment I pulled out my own sticks and showed them, he took them from me and disappeared outside. Still trembling from fear, I figured I had dodged a bullet. Moments later he come back in through the front door with something large and wooden in his hands, my eyes were unbelieving. 

Why was he standing in the living room shouting at me with the sine wave shaped rocker from the broken down recliner in his hand?

“If you are not going to tell me the truth, I will beat it out of you”, he shouted.

He then proceeded to ask me several more times, the same lame ass question.

And I gave him the same honest and truthful answer. This would not do any longer so he made me put my hands on the piano that loomed large in our small living room. He then proceeded to whack me with all his manly strength on my butt with that sine wave shaped wooden rocker while repeating his questions: “Did you steal the drumsticks”? “No, I did not” I screamed, WHACK! Repeated over and over until I passed out on the floor.

Did I just hear this man tell my mother to get a bucket of water? Reality was a cold splash in the face as I lay on the floor of our tiny living room, at this point feeling no pain. “Get up” says the asshole. “Hands on the piano”. More questions. WHACK! I feel nothing. More questions, same answer. WHACK. No more tears. I was numb. It seemed like an hour had passed when finally my mother stepped up out of pure shame and said “ENOUGH”.  My father, frustrated threw down his weapon stomped up the stairs, leaned over the rails and told me that the next time I lied to him, he would beat me to death with a baseball bat.

Then he went on to the Kingdom Hall. 

Mom prepared for me a bath of epsom salt. That is where I spent my evening. I had open gashes of flesh on my ass, bleeding and swollen, I couldnt  even fit into my pajamas. The next morning my mother sent me to school with a note:

“Please allow my son to stand during class, he is suffering lower back pain”. Later that day, my music teacher apologized to me for his mistake, Michael had left his drumsticks out on the practice field.

Why did I tell this story? Why am I sharing such an intimate and disturbing part of my life with the world? Every form of cultism is abusive. My story is NOT unique. Many of us having grown up a part of this religion have suffered in similar ways where fathers have taken on roles as extreme enforcers with the simple goal of gaining compliance.

While international attention is being drawn to this religion because of their extremist views, this does not absolve me or others from making sure that the truth of abuses surrounding this religion are told.

Be well, live well and beware.