St. Patrick's Day: Green vs. Blue

Every year around this time you see lists of things that everyone supposedly gets wrong about St. Patrick's Day. Many of them are correct, for example the tradition of corned beef and cabbage is an American invention. But one just seemed off the first time I heard it. This was the supposed "fact" that the color of St. Patrick was blue, not green. The first time I heard it was from a know-it-all from the B&R corporate office. (The same guy who thought we didn't need to account for the different origins of Spanish-speaking customers when doing our Hispanic merchandising)  According to the Wikipedia article on "St. Patrick's Blue", English King Henry VIII was the first English king to declare himself "King of Ireland". He had an official flag designed that featured a gold harp on a blue field. The color blue in this case was not specifically associated with St. Patrick.

The color blue's actual association with St. Patrick only dates back to the 1780's and the Anglo-Irish  and Protestant 'Order of St. Patrick'. Yes, Anglo-Irish, the descendants of those who the English had settled in Ireland in order to keep the locals in line. In fact, the order had considered orange as their official color, but decided that the sectarian associations with the color would be too obvious. Orange was the color of militant Protestants who aligned themselves with the English. William of Orange was the Protestant champion in the revolt against the Catholic King James II. (For those who are unaware, the pro-English Irish tended to be Protestant while the pro-independence Irish were predominantly Catholic) There is no evidence that St. Patrick even had an official color and if so, what it was, but there is a large consensus that "St. Patrick's Blue" was an "invention of tradition" to bolster the choices of the tenuously Irish 'Order of St. Patrick'.

Native Irish societies, such as 'Irish Catholic Confederation' and 'The Friendly Brothers of St. Patrick' founded in  the 1680's and 1750 respectively, used green as their official color, partially as a counter to the English use of blue as an identifying hue. During the 1790's Irish nationalists adopted green as their color as well. The phrase "wearin' of the green" comes from a song from that era referring to Irish nationalists being persecuted for wearing green. As time went by the color green became more and more associated with Ireland by Irish expatriates and by extension, St. Patrick's Day, a day when Irish heritage was celebrated in the United States. When the mass emigrations to the United States took place in the mid 1800's to early 1900's green was firmly in place as the color symbolizing Irish independence, Irish culture and especially independence from England. It's doubtful that many Irish thought about whether green was specifically associated with St. Patrick, but knew that it was intimately associated with a free Ireland.

Wear the green...forget that blue nonsense.
 

So, You Want to Join a Cult - Part XXV

The "Ministry Year" of 1980-81 that had just ended was a big one in Wayworld. Victor P Wierwille, the founder and leader of The Way International was retiring as President of the organization and a successor would need to be named. Around Christmas 1980 it had been announced that Loy Martindale, usually known by his middle name, Craig, had been chosen as Wierwille's replacement as Way President and would be installed in that position during The Way's 40th Anniversary in 1982. 

A brief aside regarding the Way calendar: Victor Wierwille had been a minister in the Evangelical & Reformed Church in 1941 and served as a pastor in that denomination until 1957, although from early on he had what we would now call "side gigs" starting in 1942 when he hosted a weekly radio program. Although he didn't start teaching his "Power for Abundant Living" (PFAL) class until 1953, or incorporate his activities outside his denomination until 1955 as The Way, Inc., or separate from his denomination until 1957, at some point he began retroactively claiming October 1942 as the genesis of The Way. 

Craig Martindale, Wierwille's anointed heir, had been the director of The Way Corps, billed as The Way's leadership training program. Martindale had been an early participant in the program, enrolling in the Second Way Corps group. Virtually all of The Way's leaders at all levels were graduates of The Way Corps, so Martindale, as that program's overseer, had an influence upon most of The Way's leaders across the world. The early 1980s saw The Way at its peak numerically. Every U.S. state had a Way presence and several other countries rivalled the United States in the number of active PFAL grads. 

The Way had always eschewed Biblical-type titles like bishop or religious designations such as priest, preferring corporate/academic terms such as Board of Trustees, President or Secretary-Treasurer for the top tier, and Coordinator for lower levels, but the installation of Martindale was to be a full-fledged religious experience. Wierwille had long been referred to as "The Man of God", or "The Man of God for Our Time", with unofficial speculation about which of the "gift ministries" of apostle, prophet, evangelist, pastor or teacher (probably all five!) that he exercised. Wierwille hagiography made much of the supernatural promises supposedly made to Wierwille that inaugurated his "ministry". Audible speech from God, snow on the gas pumps in the summer and other miraculous events all carried the suggestion that Wierwille wasn't just some guy who worked hard at studying the Bible, but someone who had been chosen by God to bring long-hidden light to our generation. The fact that everything Wierwille said had been previously published by others, some of it in the previous century, didn't deter the myth-making. Now, the wink and nod pretense that Wierwille had been chosen and sent by God was not hidden behind the corporate curtain, but out in the open as he passed the mantle in a very literal sense. 

When I say "literal" I mean that there was an actual, physical, mantle that was passed from Wierwille to Martindale in a ceremony that rivalled any papal installation or monarchal coronation. The year leading up to the "passing of the mantle" was spent honoring Wierwille, presenting him with gifts, printing a collection of essays in his honor, building up Martindale, and outlining the highly symbolic ceremony that would take place anointing (also very literally) Martindale as the new Man of God. There was a mantle, there was anointing with oil, there was something called a covenant of salt, there was laying on of hands and prophecy. There were teachings ad nauseum about the Biblical symbolism of all of these things. While Wierwille had earned his adulation by presenting an alternative to mainstream Christianity that looked new and unique (and "accurate") to people who didn't know any better, Martindale was starting his new gig propped up by symbolism and spiritual mumbo jumbo. 

As I ended my year as a WOW and began my new year as a WOWvet and apprentice Way Corps, the upcoming inauguration of the new president, with all the attendant "spiritual significance" was in the air and influenced everything that we did in Wayworld.

Start from the beginning: Part I

Workin' Man - Part XXV - Target On My Back

Well, I get up at seven, yeah

And I go to work at nine
I got no time for livin'
Yes, I'm workin' all the time

It seems to me
I could live my life
A lot better than I think I am
I guess that's why they call me
They call me the workin' man

'Cause I get home at five o'clock
And I take myself out an ice cold beer
Always seem to be wondering'
Why there's nothin' goin' down here

I guess that's why they call me
They call me the workin' man

"Workin' Man" - Words & Music by Lee & Lifeson 

 Overall, that first year went well. I had finally earned a position as a Store Director. There was a lot more stress — you never really know all the details of a job until you're in it — and even with a raise I was making less money due to a lack of a bonus. But I had achieved a long-term goal — I felt that I had finally proved that I could do it; that I was "worthy". I thought that, even though the store was still losing money, and I wasn't bonusing, I had gotten the place running smoothly and in some ways on autopilot. We did some fun things, like the chili contest, where Jamie, the Scanning Coordinator, won third place with a crock pot full of canned chili. We brought in a band to entertain the customers one Saturday. We had a group of regulars, retired guys who had breakfast just about every week day (one of whom made a point to tell my boss how I was doing a great job running the store). 

Things came crashing down Memorial Day weekend 2014, my second year as store director. 

I was working on Friday night, theoretically scheduled until 5:00pm, but still working at around 7:00 because we were swamped and I was helping out by checking, filling displays etc. I managed to get off my feet for about five minutes when one of the cashiers found me in my office — he had forgotten to scan a customer's loyalty card, which meant that the customer wouldn't get all the points that his large purchase had earned for him. When I arrived I saw that there was some alcohol, so I rang it up since the cashier was a minor and couldn't legally sell alcohol. As I finished up the order I realized that the previous customer was still there and was glaring at me angrily. The cashier then reminded me about the loyalty card not getting scanned. Correcting this could be done at the register, but it was a multi-step process that I wasn't totally sure that I could do accurately, and with the lines starting to build up again, I asked the cashier to take the customer over to the customer service counter, where I knew they could solve the problem pretty quickly and efficiently. I knew this was the quickest way to get the issue fixed. The customer refused, suggesting that I was sending him over there because he was Black. 

Yikes.

That was not a response I expected. I was already on my last nerve after being there all day, and the lines not getting any shorter. My father had passed away a couple of months previously, and I probably hadn't fully processed that yet. In retrospect I was probably a bit curt, but having the customer service clerk handle the issue was the best way to handle it. Frankly I was more than a little pissed at being accused of being a racist; I always felt that if you're going to lob that bomb, the discussion is over — I'm done talking to you. There was shouting. There was more shouting. At one point I got into his bubble and asked him who he thought he was talking to, but immediately backed up, realizing that this was not a good look. He continued to yell and demand that I fix the problem at the register, but we were well past that point. Some of my larger and potentially intimidating employees began to gather 'round. I threatened to call the police. He finally left, but we weren't done. 

The next morning I was forwarded an email from this customer that had gone to the corporate office. The email wildly exaggerated what had happened, accusing me not only of bigotry, but of threatening him and using profanity. I quickly sent off an email giving my side of the story, but his email, if even partially believed, could have ended my career then and there. Words like "sinister" peppered his account, and his opinion that I was going to use violence against him. I couldn't function the rest of the day, I couldn't sleep that night. Initially, my immediate supervisor thought that I had handled myself professionally, but I found out that without my knowledge the Director of Loss Prevention had conducted an "investigation" at my store on my day off and interviewed any employee who had been present. None of them contradicted my version of events. Scott Ruth, my boss, called the customer, apologized, added the appropriate amount of points to his card and gave him a gift card.  Scott let me know how the conversation went and I breathed a sigh of relief. 

But we weren't done. 

The customer, after talking to Scott, called back the next day. He had changed his mind. He wanted me fired and would accept nothing less. This engendered more investigations. It dragged on. I had no idea if I would be fired. Then one evening Scott Ruth and Tom Schulte, Scott's boss, showed up at my store and presented me with security footage showing me stepping close to the customer. I pointed out that if  the video showed me stepping close to him, what is there to talk about? I certainly wasn't going to deny what could clearly be seen on video. After going back and forth over this issue for weeks, I felt that they were looking for an excuse to believe the customer. After rambling on for awhile I was told that they needed to decide what to do and they would let me know in the morning. I lost my temper. I pointed out that this had been dragging on for weeks and that they needed to make a decision: either fire me or not, but make a decision right now! I was tired of waiting for the other shoe to drop. They told me to give them fifteen minutes, so I walked around the store for a quarter hour. When I returned, I was told that I still had my job, but that I would be written up for what they said was bad judgement in the whole situation. Tom showed up the next morning and presented me with a write up. I still had my job, but it continued to drag on. 

My annual review was due six weeks later in August. At B&R you were reviewed in 15 categories and scored from 1-4, with 4 being excellent and 2 being usually as low as anyone went. If you were really screwing up in a category, you received a 1. If you got a 1 in any category (or your total score was below a set amount), that automatically triggered a PIP — a Performance Improvement Plan. A PIP gave you 90 days to resolve a performance issue or you were fired. I got a 1 in Communications for the Memorial Day incident, which was fair, but even though the situation was supposedly wrapped up with the write-up at the end of June, it now was going to drag on for another 90 days. 

During those 90 days your immediate supervisor was supposed to give regular feedback on your progress toward improvement — which I wasn't getting, so I went to Scott and asked why. I was concerned that I would be canned after 90 days without any warning, which would have been par for the B&R course. I figured with regular feedback, at least I would be able to see it coming. After that I had weekly meetings to discuss my progress, which he said he was happy with. At the end of 90 days in November 2014 I passed my PIP and wasn't fired, but this process had dragged on for five months. 

What I found infuriating was that at one point Tom Schulte had a conversation with the customer's employer (he was a UNL professor) and was told that he did this all the time. Nonetheless, B&R executives had long memories — your "sins" were never truly forgiven. 

I had a target on my back and I was closely scrutinized. 

Start with Part I

An Agnostic's Look at The Bible - Part XXV - What The Hell?

I've often noted that The Bible isn't an instruction manual for Christians, nor is it a doctrinal exposition. The Old Testament is a collection of mythological creation stories, legendary ethic history, poems and songs. The New Testament has a few doctrinal treatises, but is many letters to churches and incomplete biographies of Jesus. The Biblical view of the afterlife, or even if there is one, is unclear. The description of an afterlife for those who are outside God's eternal rewards even less so. 

Here are a few verses in the New Testament:

(I did not include verses from Revelation, since they are describing events in the future, and generally refer to Satan, The Beast and the False Prophet; I also excluded Old Testament verses)

Matthew 10:28 Do not be afraid of those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. Rather, be afraid of the One who can destroy both soul and body in hell.

Matthew 13:42 They will throw them into the blazing furnace, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.

Matthew 13:50 and throw them into the blazing furnace, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.

Matthew 25:41 “Then he will say to those on his left, ‘Depart from me, you who are cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels.

Matthew 25:46 “Then they will go away to eternal punishment, but the righteous to eternal life.”

There is some scholarship that maintains that the word translated "Hell" is translated from hades, which could be translated "the grave". In the Greek translation of the Hebrew scriptures it translates sheol, which is simply the place or realm of the dead.  There is some reference to a blazing furnace and eternal punishment. 

Mark 9:43 If your hand causes you to stumble, cut it off. It is better for you to enter life maimed than with two hands to go into hell, where the fire never goes out.

Acts 2:27 because you will not abandon me to the realm of the dead, you will not let your holy one see decay.

II Thessalonians 1:9 They will be punished with everlasting destruction and shut out from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of his might

Jude 1:7 In a similar way, Sodom and Gomorrah and the surrounding towns gave themselves up to sexual immorality and perversion. They serve as an example of those who suffer the punishment of eternal fire.

In these other verses there are a few references to eternal fire. Acts 2:27 is an Old Testament quote. I'm sure there are others, but this sets the template: if you're not a beneficiary of eternal life, you're getting eternal punishment, described as eternal fire. One verse refers to everlasting destruction and shut out from The Lord's presence. I have seen scholarship that suggests that being thrown into a figurative furnace equals utter destruction, as being thrown into a physical furnace doesn't leave you alive, but obliterates you. 

So, with such a paucity of information in The Bible regarding an afterlife away from God and Jesus, where do we get the idea that Hell is a place of organized torment, let alone the domain of Satan/The Devil? Not from The Bible. 

Hell as the place of eternal punishment for the evil, presided over by The Devil and his demons, was a concept that evolved over time. One of the contributing factors was the desire for retribution against evil doers who had apparently escaped consequences in life. Some of the details were posited by theologians, others by popular imagination. When you think about it for a nanosecond, does it make sense that the place of punishment for rejecting God is presided over by the entity who is God's enemy, who would presumably be punished as well? 

One of the weird things I see culturally regarding Hell is when people imagine that Hell is a place where all the cool people hang out. I guess they look at how religious people act and figure the alternate must be okay, despite the popular imagery of what Hell is like. Another weird cultural thing is when people who reject organized religion proudly state that they're going to Hell, in all it's cultural imagery. I'm of the opinion that if you really believed in the popular concept of Hell, you would do everything you could to avoid ending up there. It's kind of a reverse Pascal's Wager. The person who says that is placing a bet that whatever benefits they're accruing by acting in an ungodly way is worth rolling the dice that they won't end up in what they imagine hell is. 

Hell, not even a real thing in The Bible.

Start at The Beginning: Part I 

Managers - Part XXV - You're Not Royalty

Lately I've been listening to a podcast about the history of Rome. The last few episodes have been about the early empire period and contrast has been drawn between the emperors who wanted power in order to accomplish something, run things more efficiently, build up the army, building projects, etc, and those who wanted power just so that they could be the guy who could tell everyone else what to do. It got me thinking how people who aspire to management positions could be compared to these two types of leaders way. 

I remember when I was a Store Director for a local grocery store and having a discussion with one of my department managers about holiday scheduling. His position was that once you have attained a certain position you were entitled to certain perks, when it came to holidays, you had earned, due to your position, the best schedule, holidays off, etc. I took a different position. As a leader, you should be leading, and part of leading was being there during the busy times. As Uncle Ben said, with great power comes great responsibility. Now this didn't mean that I scheduled myself all the "bad" shifts, or worked all day, every holiday, but that I led by example. 

Store Directors with whom I worked over the years were all over the map on this. I worked with one boss who worked six 12-hours days and a half day on Sunday, and who never took a holiday off. I knew of other managers who would take every holiday off, leave early on busy days like Christmas Eve or the days before Independence Day or Thanksgiving, leaving it to subordinates to run the show. I tried to take a middle path, spreading out the tough shifts and late nights among not only the "new guys", but requiring that the veterans, including myself would share in the responsibility of covering the store during the busy times. Holidays like Thanksgiving Day or July Fourth, which were fairly slow on the holiday itself, generally saw all the managers working a quarter shift to allow everybody to enjoy at least part of the day. 

Those of you who have slogged through all two dozen of these blog posts know that I don't view "good management" as being "one of the boys" or "doing things" rather than "getting things done" by way of training, supervision and delegation, but that you can't be an effective leader if you are absent. 

Start at the beginning: Part I
 

Antisemitism

If you're engaging in antisemitism, cut that shit out!

Bigotry against Jews never really goes away. It sinks into the mud and shoots up regularly for the ignorant and the hateful to engage in anew. 

Opposition to how Israel treats the Palestinians is not antisemitism. It's not even remotely arguable that the bombing of Gaza back to the Stone Age, or the stealing of Palestinian land by Settlers in the West Bank is defensible. But pro-Palestinian protests over the last few years have taken a decidedly anti-Jewish tone. As if Jewish people in the United States and worldwide have any influence on what the government of Israel does. I don't recall any widespread prejudice against WASPs when the U.K. was committing atrocities in Northern Ireland; Russian-Americans aren't subject to hatred based on what Russia is doing in Ukraine; Chinese-Americans aren't blamed for China's actions in Tibet and against the Uyghurs. But the bigots will make an exception for Jews. (For that matter, there is no suggestion that any other nation on Earth, no matter how terrible it treats its people, should not exist. But some activists make an exception for Israel — but that's a discussion for another time)

Another thread in the tapestry of modern antisemitism is the fact that Jeffrey Epstein, the twenty-first century's devil incarnate, was Jewish. Some of his correspondence speaks disparagingly of non-Jews. The term goy (plural goyim) is used — and people who are inclined to see nefarious Jewish conspiracies see the word as a slur, or a secret code word, when it simply means "non-Jew", or "gentile". The fact that someone named Rothschild appears in the Epstein files numerous times, with the Rothschilds being the favorite bogeymen of antisemitic conspiracies of yore, just adds fuel to the fire. 

Despite the support that many fundamentalists and White Christian Nationalists seem to have for Israel, they mainly do so because they believe the "End Times" that they have decoded from the Biblical Book of Revelation involves a revival of the nation of Israel. They don't like individual Jews, seeing them at best as people who aren't up to date in the religion department, and at worst, anti-Christ and Satanic. 

What is more disturbing than the MAGA crowd and their religious buddies expressing their antisemitism is the number of self-described progressives who buy into it. I have seen rationales for antisemitism, sharing articles that make the Protocols of The Elders of Zion seem reasonable, or quoting Jewish right wing bigots as if they represented all Jews. People need to vet their sources of information more thoroughly. 

Don't buy into the bigots' propaganda. 

So, You Want to Join a Cult - Part XXIV

Since Part XVI came out just before Christmas 2025, I decided to skip ahead to Part XXIII - The Holidays back in December. No need to rehash it, so we're going right to Part XXIV

When we got to Kearney we were, quite frankly, worn out, and were looking forward to August, when we would be done with this commitment, and with each other. One bright spot was that Kearney, being a college town, lacked the small town antipathy to outsiders that we encountered in Sidney. We got jobs where no one knew who we were, or that we were in a cult, and no one cared what we were doing. 

One of the things that WOWs supposed to be doing to "move The Word" was running Power for Abundant Living (PFAL) classes. During our time in Sidney we had convinced just two people to take this class, Randy, a young man with a mysterious background and Tom, a forty-ish man who we found out later hung around because he was having sex with Rosemarie! Both of these men followed us to Kearney. There were also several Kearney people who had been signed up for PFAL by two Way women who had been assigned to Kearney before us, but were to be reassigned to Lincoln. At first we were pretty excited about running a class. Getting a class together was viewed in Way-world as prima facie evidence that you were "believing". WOWs, or even Way people in general, were viewed as spiritual slackers if they couldn't convince seven people to plunk down $100 to take PFAL. (My memory is a bit fuzzy, but a one point the "donation" was reduced to $40 — it may have been during that year) 

The pressure was really on WOWs, since that was our primary job: witness for 8 hours a day, 6 days a week. If you couldn't run a class, surely the problem wasn't God, surely the problem wasn't God's Word, surely the problem wasn't The Class — this left just one suspect as the source of the lack of outreach success: you! This was a central tenet in The Way's circular reasoning, lack of results was never due to the plan, or the leadership being wrong, the problem was that you weren't believing. In a world where people ask questions, one might have asked why the leaders who assigned us to small town Nebraska, who supposedly made these assignments based on divine revelation, didn't know that these towns weren't interested in what we had to offer, but that kind of honest inquiry was discouraged in The Way. Five of the seven people in our PFAL class were signed up by others, but we got to run the class, so the spiritual pressure was off. 

Once we were done with the class, we kind of sleep-walked through the rest of the year. I've mentioned before how obeying "leadership" was a central plank in The Way's platform. Out on the WOW field, our leader Steve, who we were supposed to believe was inspired by God to lead us properly, was a twenty year old who was overly impressed with his own position as leader and more concerned with seducing women, both Way women and those whom we were supposed to be "sharing the Word" with, than actually leading. At one point he was spending time alone with a woman whose husband worked nights. (The Way was was big on doing things two-by-two, and for good reason!) When the husband found out about this there were threats, but Steve extricated himself from the situation without getting beaten up. 

One series of events that spotlighted his incompetence, dishonesty and manipulation as a leader involved finances. One of the things that was required of a WOW was working a part-time job. Everyone was to contribute to the "family fund" which was used for common expenses, with the details to be worked out by each "family". Three of us gotten jobs around town in various restaurants. Steve got a "job" doing work around our rental house, including putting in a new lawn. Steve was paid via a decrease in our rent equal to what he and the landlord agreed would be his monthly wages. Since Steve wasn't actually receiving any money directly from the landlord, he was given money from our "family fund" equal to his wages, less whatever his contribution to the common expenses would be. The problem was that Steve never did any of the work that he was contracted to do. He slept in, or hung out with some of the local Way women while the rest of us were at work. Eventually our landlord realized that no work was being done and demanded that we pay back the rent credit that ostensibly covered Steve's wages. Of course we no longer had the money. To avoid being evicted Steve convinced his father to lend us the money, to be paid back before our term was up in August. I can't recall if Steve got a real job after that, or how close to the end of the year this was, but just before we left Kearney for good, we had amassed enough surplus in our common funds to pay Steve's father back. However, Steve's dad allegedly gave the money to Steve. We weren't able to confirm this since we did not have his father's contact information. The three of us had ended up subsidizing Steve's months-long indolence. So much for leadership.

I started this segment by saying how we were looking forward to being done with our commitment...and each other. The Way promoted the WOW experience as being likely to be the best year of your life. It was depicted as the opportunity to live and work with a team of likeminded believers, all with a common goal, blessed by God. We were assured that the assignments were divinely guided. The company line was that each four-person family was selected for optimum compatibility and our location was where there were sure to be people hungry for God's Word. I think my description of our time in Sidney debunked the idea that the location was ideal. Our interpersonal relationships were far from ideal as well. We really couldn't stand each other. On good days we could tolerate each others' presence, at best. Although we were supposed to be spending our days in pairs, actively recruiting converts, we hardly ever spent any time together.  

I don't think anyone questions the part of the WOW commitment where you're supposed to witness for eight hours a day six days a week. I know we never did it in Sidney. One of the logistical problems of a four-person team all working part-time jobs and still attempting to do things as a group was that it's close to impossible to coordinate everyone's schedule. Someone would get off work at 11:00 and wait around until someone else got off work. Then there's the lack of people to witness to. The population was only around 5,000. At an average of 3.5 people per household, that's about 1400 doors to be knocked on. That's 350 doors per person, or 700 doors per pair. Even at a leisurely 10 doors per day per team, we would have knocked on every door in 12 weeks. At first we made an effort, we knocked on doors, we went to bars and diners, we mingled in public. But by the time we got to Kearney we were burned out. And we certainly made no effort to try to convert anyone. Once the PFAL class that we ran was over, we effectively quiet quit and skated along until August. 

None of us wanted to admit that we just weren't doing what we were supposed to be doing. The three non-leaders, Gail, Rosemarie and I, were disillusioned by Steve's lack of leadership. He seemed to be happy to sit around at night watching television at the home of Doreen and Janet, two local Way women. Gail spent a lot of her time hanging out with Freddie, a local Way guy. Rosemarie and I spent the afternoons at the lake and hit the bars in the evening. I consumed a lot of beer and had a succession of Jack Daniels bottles in my bedroom. 

Finally August arrived. Steve, as a member of the Way Corps, left a week early to participate in "Corps Week". Gail, Rosemarie and I headed out of Kearney for the last time. I dropped off some of my belonging in Lincoln, where I would be living the following year, and drove straight through to Way headquarters in Ohio. We got robbed at the hotel we were staying at. The tent that my cousin John sent via some New York Way people had no tent pegs. It rained heavily on the last night and my tent flooded. We received our blue WOW pins in a recognition ceremony at the first night of The Rock of Ages. I never saw Steve again. It was 21 years before I saw Gail again on a road trip to the East Coast. Rosemarie was my roommate for six months in Lincoln, and then we never saw each other again. I spent a week in New York with my parents before heading back to Nebraska. 

Continuing my pattern of ignoring red flags and subsequently doubling down, towards the end of this year, instead of cutting my losses and leaving The Way, I decided to apply to enter The Way Corps, The Way's alleged leadership training program. In the meantime I would participate in a "WOW Vet" outreach program in Lincoln. 

Start from the beginning: Part I

Go to: Part XXV