Hi guys
Ok Gandy bldg from the girls side.
There were three carpeted rooms which were separated by those hanging wall dividers. They could be opened into one longish room. Wanda favored these rooms for girls exercise rap. Each had it's own door leading into the main room. Gray concrete floor, white & gray walls. I guess the building was relatively new in the fall of 81 but it was already developing mold along the upper walls and at the edges of the 7 step signs, serenity prayer etc. That tends to happen in warehouses in a state that can boast about 98% humidity for like 90% of the year.Particularly if the ac is used about twice a week and the bldg is filled with 400 sweating teenagers.
We usually started our day crammed into the intake rooms.There were three of them along the front hall each about 10x 10. They were also used as time out rooms and marathon rooms. There were so many newcomers in group . Not nearly enough to keep an eye on all the newcomers getting dropped off at 7:00am so their oldcomers could go to school. We'd start off sitting & get more squeezed by the minute. By 8:00 we usually had to stand because there was no way to fit everyone in if we all sat. For the next hour we'd continue to squeeze until they'd start taking us by the beltloop two at a time to the big room for morning rap.
Dr Newton's office was along the front hall just to the left of the reception desk whenyou were facing it. At some point his office mov down the right hall I think. We didn't go down the right hall much. Once for a marathon and once for a meeting with that guy who used to run the 7step society. former priest. I can't remember his name.
Running right along the reception area was a short hall that lead directly into group. The sick room was there. I never saw anyone go there because they were sick though. Sick people were lined up along the back of the group in special rows that separated from the group by an extra 2 ft or so.They used it to force feed girls who refused to eat the slop they were serving. And it was used for medical exams. Very thorough ones.
If you passed the little sick room you walked through a door and out into the main room. The kitchen was off to the right.It was fancy but that didn't improve the quality of the food. It was still frozen pb&j for at least 25% of the group. Some of the other food to come out of there was nearly as vile. That chili with it's inch thick layer of nuclear orange grease floating on the top and little rubbery balls of something that was supposed to be meat. The chili did have one redeeming quality though-it HAD to be served with milk or the whole group would be puking up th acid in their stomachs. I earned the privilege of working in the kitchen once when I was on third phase. They used this huge stainless steel vat to make the Saturday Nigh Special. Leftover soup. It was basically a base of tomato soup with all the weks leftovers thrown in. And I mean ALL the leftovers. Hotdogs, mashed potato, lima beans, bologna, chili whatever. It all went in.
I remember an outside rap once. In a little clearing just off the parking lot. A guy got stung by a scorpion and that was the end of outside raps. All I could think about was whether he went to a hospital or not. If so then a scorpion bite was a ticket out and well worth the trouble in my mind. It would have been hard to bolt. The palmetto was so thick back there you'd just get nowhere fast and get hacked to bits doing it.
But as Tampa Survivor suggested, the most interesting thing about the Gandy Bldg in those days was the Good Doktor himself.
Dr Newton was working his way up then. Sarasota opened a month or so after I got there but none of the other groups had left yet.He was always at open meeting. He seemed to prefer rip raps to the more generalized raps. You could always count on him to participate in Friday night Open Meeting Review. He looked like the devil himself to me. Red faced, veins throbbing sweating and swearing. And if you caused any trouble outside of the building he took that VERY personally. I split twice. The first time I made home I ran after two weeks. Ten days late I split with my oldcomerand annother newcomer. We called HRS. Her parents pulled her but mine didn't. So I get put back into group. After open meeting I get stood up. The Dr told everyone how I had probably cost this girl her life. She'd end up DEADINSANEORINJAIL along with the other newcomer that split with us.How did I feel about ruining her life, her family's life? How did the group feel? You know how that goes. But he'd arranged a special treat for me. He got my diary from my parents. He had Shawn Arnot read it to the group. He paced around by the double doors while she read about how I'd lost my virginity to the 300 or so kids in group. Then the "druggie whore, ungrateful bitch little slut" name calling began.I started to laugh hysterically. I mean tears were streaming down my cheeks and I was doubled over with it. Of course this incensed the good Doc. Out of deep compassion and tough love he had me sent to clean the toilets and put on the PB& J again.
I had no idea Preston married Dawn. I didn't know Dawn but I remember Pierce and Preston and Dawn's sisters Robin and April. April's program was brutal as I recall. I think they cut off herhair at one point. I remember Doug dragging her kicking and screaming across the room by her hair.She and Lisa A could piss the Doc off like nobody else. Any idea what happened to her?
The way to see by faith is to shut the eye of reason.
--Benjamin Franklin, American Founding Father, author, and inventor
