I was confident there would be no
more performances of “Tombstones” after the 1979 summer tour. Interests were
waning. We had been within a short drive driving distance of every Alliance
church from Ontario to British Columbia and many US churches Pennsylvania to
Oregon. Few requests were trickling in and neither the school nor the Canadian
districts wanted further performances. That suited me well. There would be a
change. I was excited.
This was the first and only year I
had asked a person to leave the team and I did it early in the year. I was
regularly having my leadership and direction challenged. I felt like we never
had a practice that I was not dealing with dissension. The team member had
acting experience from high school and seemed to know better how to do things
and how to run the team. I could not continue in that leadership struggle and
asked them to step down. While not thrilled, they did leave and strangely we
remained cordial, maybe even friendly, something I was not expecting. I had
rejected a young man in a previous year while still in the selection process
and he harbored bitterness about my decision for several years. I was working
in Salem, OR when he came and apologize for his feelings toward me. I really
didn’t know he hated me.
That was a strange part of
teaching. There were several students throughout the years that at a future
point felt compelled to share their hatred of me while a student and wanted to
ask forgiveness. That was weird. In each case I had no idea what they felt
about me and wished they had kept their past feeling to themselves. If they had
dealt with that issue with God, that was good enough for me. I never understood
bringing me into the picture personally. I guess they thought I knew and needed
to forgive them. I guess I was just dense. I never knew — not from any of them.
I naturally assumed that some students would not particularly like me. I also
assumed they would get over it. I considered it the nature of student teacher
relations. I forgave them and life went on.
 |
| USS Missouri when in Bremerton |
The tour of ’79 went west and
dropped into the northwestern United States. It wasn’t until I got settled in
the Bremerton area that I remembered we had been here on tour and visited the
USS Missouri, then stationed in the Bremerton harbor. It was in Seattle that I
visited a Christian Science reading room with a couple of the curious guys. It
was a lark. I took their personality test that was extremely familiar Similar
to the TJTA) so I tweaked the answers so the results would read as I wanted,
When the monitor went over it with me he was absolutely convinced that I would
greatly benefit from the teaching of L. Ron Hubbard.
Surprise, surprise! Of course he
did. I asked plenty of questions about how much each level would cost and the
total outlay I would have to reach the top level. He would not share any of the
costs until I signed on the dotted line. We went round and round about his
attempt to get me to purchase something without knowing the actual costs. His
argument was that it was my spiritual life we were taking about and my ultimate
position in heaven. I told him I thought it sounded like I was able to buy my
way into heaven and since I have very little money I doubted I would ever be
able to make it. He back peddled until I took the two guys with me and just
walked out. We went for coffee and laughed about the whole experience. The guys
could hardly wait to share the experience with the rest of the team.
We got as far south as Canby and
Salem, both places I would ultimately work. I didn’t know those places lay in
my future at the time.
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