Wow! Now I'm piqued. Who are you? Don't worry, I don't bite anymore, even people who call me McNutty, McNutButt, whatever.
I'm glad you stayed away. It sucked for me as a kid, of course. It was like the iron curtain coming down. Lots of other kids had fucked up families. That was not a death kiss. But The Seed was! I envied all of you who's parents were too sane to fall for that. And I deeply admired and apreciated those who passed on the chance to join in on all the teasing. Thanks for that.
I don't know anything about lakewood, though. I'm the only one of us who ever lived on the Gulf, and that was only for as long as it took me to get free of Straight.
We never were wealthy, buddy. Don't know where you got the idea that we were. My grandfather had some cash, but he wasn't handing it out to anyone. He got it the old fashioned way; by kissing wealthy asses. As far as I know, most of what he left to my mom went to The Seed, Straight and, finally, the Billy Graham Crusade.
I suppose you should be extremely proud and happy for Thom's sobriety. It's cause for celebration every couple of years, as that's about how often he suddenly figures out how to use the tools good old Art gave him. And that's also about as often as I talk to any of my family any more. Thanks for the advice, but I'm way ahead of you on that one.
The old man mellowed out quite a bit as he got older. He passed on back in early `97, though, so he hasn't been laughing about anything much lately. Good old Crazy Mac. I miss him so much. He was the sanest of all my family, I think. And trust me, you'd cuss like a deranged Popeye too if you had to walk in his shoes. Oh, and he quit being crazy back around `83 when he shamed the post office into giving him his job back on national TV. From then on, he was known as merely eccentric Mac. :lol:
Finally, I don't care about what happened 30 years ago except to tell the story because it's still going on today. Those sadistic lunatics who started this cult get millions in public funding to make the whole world as much like being in the Program as they can. I'm glad you dodged that bullet 30 years ago. But your kids aren't getting off so easy. Just peek into who's setting up those 1-800-BEA-SNITCH hotlines, DARE programs, neighborhood watch, area drug taskforces, drug courts, piss testing everywhere you turn, private prisons and prison industries, etc. It's these same clowns. That's the story that really needs to be told.
What is ominous is the ease with which some people go from saying that
they don't like something to saying that the government should forbid it. When you go down that road, don't expect freedom to survive very long.
--Thomas Sowell