Treatment Abuse, Behavior Modification, Thought Reform > The Seed Discussion Forum
seed'70
Anonymous:
Where on the SR84 property was the peace sign hidden? I don't recall.
tom s.:
Yes, it was very smooth and hip and gentle at first.Free meals and some music-hugs were real.Pam had dark hair and a bayou face gentle looking w/knowledge integrating a kindly attitude.he had a light speech impediment like a lisp-but not.She was actually nowhere near resembling a beautiful blond but she may have been an angel.In her wisdom and as her life unfolded she chose to leave just before all the gentleness dissolved and the caustic agents of the seeds'dictates began to crystalize.She must have seen it coming.She gave of herself freely and uncomplaining and treated everyone as a well loved family member.She was not often spoken of but I hear her clearly in my heart 35 years later and I thank her where ever she is. I remember Happy and Mavis well.Happy had a handlebar mustache,a fatherly firm but caring disposition and a sense of humor to match the occasion and his wife Mavis was a tad portly if only to hold in an amazing inner strength and an english wit that bordered on Dickens' cockney along w/the accent.Two totally unforgetable characters.I don't remember them making the move down to around S.Andrews at the little mansion which was to eventuslly house the Seeds' really growing rap sessions.I remember them recalling their arguements w/each other when they were drinking.Mavis would throw cast iron pots and pans at Happy and then they would make up of course.I remember Maureens' name well and almost the sound of her voice,but I can't visualize her.I get her confused with Renee from n.y.who had at one time a several hundred $$ per day heroin habit-which was a huge liability even by todays standards.The record player was moved w/the seed into a back room for a while along w/the albums and eventually chosen music was cited as a remembered association with past highs and I think sort of edged out of sight.Naturally they couldn't stop radio play.Never heard of synanon at the time.
Antigen:
Hey Tom,
Welcome. How long did you hang around? First bldg I remember was S. Andrews.
I know that our bodies were made to thrive only in pure air, and the scenes in which pure air is found.
-- John Muir
--- End quote ---
tom s.:
I was somehow absorbed into being a participant.I remember being with them 6 months and then some more in '71.A bunch of us kids carried really heavy flagstones from down the street behind the seed at s. Andrews.These we placed down outside the house.As the rustic style floor became larger in area as we accumulated more of these flat stones,someone also built an overhead and presto-we had a meeting area much larger than the little cozy house we sadly left behind.At that point it appeared that the friendliness was washed away,but it existed more as an underground movement.I had appeared at the seed because I was running from my brother in law.I had to live w/my sister and him off and on because homelife was not possible peacefully.Well neither was the solution.Eventually I was placed into several other members' homes mostly to keep me apart from the flash point that would ensue from home life.Really,all I had to do was stand at the front door and an arguement would greet me-so-that was actually the basis for my mistaken entry into the orginization.The sessions at S.Andrews became heated.More staff members appeared.Charley Oats,Darlene,Rick and Linda-there's more but their names and faces don't always surface in clarity.Memory is sometimes like those magic eight-balls.You get what appears on the little window with a good shake!I remember when they got a pink toilet seat for what they would refer to as the hot seat.I think it was on a toilet.People got come down on hard.A lot of it was unnecessary.Many of us were accused of having attitudes of heavy druggies and we were entirely too young or inexperienced to know what in the world they were talking about.(Check my other post about the seed song)I was put on the hot seat because I liked someone.The girl was put on the seat because she was accused of playing games.Relationships were not allowed.But as youth flowers,so does the heart.I expect that's why so many cars that went by were accompanied by screams of "the seed sucks!!!"and so on.Those were humerous interludes spaced entirely too far apart.
marshall:
I have been trying to remember the peace sign you speak of and can't recall it for the life me. It was still there in 76, huh? Maybe I just blocked it out because it didn't fit the rest of the program. In any case, it was still a holdover from the old days of rockin' out to Mississippi Queen. Let me put it this way, if I'd walked into the Seed as an oldcomer wearing a peace sign necklace or T-shirt in 76 or 77, how do you suppose staff would have reacted? Remember, honesty is the first & most important rule. :wink:
As to the music; I think Straight did outlaw listening to specific radio stations. At the Seed, many oldcomers and graduates would criticize or condemn you if they knew you listened to rock. That's one thing I liked about moving to the guy's apartments. For some reason this condemnation was totally absent there. Nearly everyone rocked out on the weekends. I even remember listening to Jefferson Airplane's White Rabbit blaring. I don't know, but my bet is that staff eventually put a damper on that sort of thing too. It was an early version of the 'culture wars' that the right has declared of late.
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