Well, all I can say is thank you for clearing some things up. You have said more about who and what you are in this one post, than in all the posts of yours that I have read in the past 2 years. I congradulate you on that, really. All this time I thought you were someone else that came into the program at the old Morgan Yacht Building around October of '78. My apologys, for thinking that.
There are VAST differences between the Straight Program in the early years, and in the program that ensued after the introduction of Miller Newton. I am really just beginning to see some of the differences and how it affected people. I wanna thank you RTP for sort of blasting open a vault hidden away in my memory.
Get this people......... Helen Petermann, George Ross, Scotty Cassidy, Jim Hartz, Laura Morgan, and several others all pulled away from the Straight Incorporated program following the Board of Directors decision to place Dr. Miller Newton as Executive Director of the Gandy Blvd Facility. All of these people had operated for YEARS with impunity to the various forms of abuse that had gone on in the program. They had set the stage, talked the talk and walked the walk. I was a part of all the shit that made the meat and potatos of the program. What I want to know is what the fuck happened? I really did not have much to do with the Gandy Building other than attend the 7 stepper meetings and even then it got to the point where we all would show up in the parking lot, decide what movie to go see, and split. We all knew Miller was a fucking dick, but what the fuck were we supposed to do about it? We were just young adults, most of us still living at home with our parents. I do remember the one time I came into group after work one day. That building had way shittier ventalation than the ones I had been in. The structure was built to be meant for air-conditioning, and without it, the fucking B.O. was goddamn incredible. I had come there as a favor to the hated William Rollins and Carrie Heapner to help in a rap. I think it was a Wednesday sometime in the fall of 1980. I remember coming into the lobby and then being led into the Staff Office where Carrie, William and I had a brief reunion and discussed what the topic of the rap would be.
William left and went in to Big Group to warm them up for the "special treat" of my being there and Carrie sort of briefed me on how to act and what not to say and shit like that. She looked a lot older without braces, but shit, she still must have only been 16 or so and here she was Junior Staff. She led me into group down the girls side which was on the left of the door if I remember right, and when I got to the front where William was it all hit me. The funk was unbearable. It had been over a year and a half since I had ever been in Big Group. The kids were all clapping and shit, but my head started swimming from the goddamn smell of fear and desperation that permeated from the very walls. I pushed past William and ran for the nearest door holding my hand over my mouth. One of the 5th phase guys at the door used to drop off at my house as a newcomer and since he could see I was ready to throw up, he had enough sense to open the door and stand aside.
I vomitted all over the bushes outside until I was on my knees dry heaving. All I remember of my last vision was seeing Kathy Wynn sitting on front row. The look on her face was too much for me to handle. Two months earlier she had been recently 7 stepped and arguing with her dad at a special "parent's meeting" that Newton had cooked up for us. She had been free, and now she was a caged animal. It was fucked up. I guess now, looking back on it, that she had been one of the first "7 Step Refresher's" in the history of the program. Such a thing would have never happened in my program. If you fucked up, that was it, no more contact with anyone from the program. Since the program was all we knew, most of us Old School people were not willing to risk being left out in the cold with no friends at all. Fucking Miller Newton was all about money. Why else would they take someone back? Holy fucking shit............ Kathy Wynn went on to become staff. So did Kim Hyde, Jim Sailor, one of them Kune pricks, and if I remember correctly, most of them had fucked up and been put back on refreshers. THE NEW STRAIGHT WAS RUN BY A BUNCH OF FUCK-UPS!!!!! Them assholes went through all that shit, fuckin graduated, were stupid enough to get caught fucking up again by their parents, went BACK through the shit a SECOND time around, became staff members because they were too fucking stupid to even flip burgers, and you poor 2nd Generation Straightlings had to endure their wrath. It's all starting to come together now. I hope Wes Fager don't read this because he'll probably have a fuckin brain anuerism! Thank you RTP whoever you are, I don't think you realize how much this means.