Fornits
Treatment Abuse, Behavior Modification, Thought Reform => The Seed Discussion Forum => Topic started by: marcwordsmith on September 12, 2005, 04:02:00 AM
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I remember the chorus and the first verse.
The Seed indeed is all you need
to stay off the junk and the pills and the weed
you come each day from ten to ten
and if you screw up then you start again
faith love and honesty will prevail
and if you can't dig it you go to jail
old friends and phone calls you can't make
and if you do, your leg I'll break
But there was a second verse too, right? How did it go?
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I think like Hermans Hermits "2nd verse same as the 1st"
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I cant remember the rest either...
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Junkies and freaks throughout the land
Join our family hand in hand
Working together from morning till night
To help the loser see the light.
The mind is not a vessel to be filled but a fire to be kindled.
-- Plutarch
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Antigen,
You never cease to amaze me. I was around for 30 some odd years and couldn't remember it. You got it going on girl. Do you dance while you sing also?
Have you been to the movies lately and seen what they have done to the "Coca Cola" Song. It's now sort of contemporary rap. I guess I'm getting old.
Oh well :grin:
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No way, Ginger. That just doesn't ring a bell. I was sure if I saw it I'd recognize it. Then again, maybe they didn't sing that verse while I was there. "To help the loser see the light"? I'm sure I'd remember it.
Hey let's make up our own verses! I'll go first.
For every druggie still at large
We'll scoop them all up and we'll show who's in charge
We'll make you admit that you're all full of shit
If you cry and you scream we don't care one bit
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or
for every whiner that?s full of shit,
cares not for family or self one bit,
we?ll give them hope and make them well,
and all naysayers can go to hell!
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Ding...Ging it rang my bell!
Also anon, I don't specifically remember that, but I sure remember saying "and go to hell" with a rising cresendo!
Yep, you both got it going on.
:grin:
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right you are greg, i don't believe the rising cresendo was originally intended, but an excellent idea. :nworthy:
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Now thats just fucking creepy.... that song is just... wow... what the hell, it even says that dont care if the person screams... :scared:
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Here's mine:
"And former Seedlings will bitch and moan,
By posting on Fornits will begin to atone.
And some will love it and some will hate,
But to be joined together, that is their fate!"
OK, it's lame, but do you see the healthy medium I'm trying to maintain here?
Ginger, I remember your verse!
Walter
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nice balance, my friend.
Actually now you've got it going on.
Go Walter Go Walter Go Walter :grin:
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What the hell are green sleeves anyway? :roll:
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Marc that song was always that way since at least 1972. The only thing that changed was 10 to 10 changed to 10 for 10.
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Ginger is correct. The song was modified at least once when the hours changed from 10 til 10 into 10 'for' 10. (hours) We sang the verse she mentioned in 76 / 77. The verse you mentioned also contains the phrase 'Can't dig it'...probably a holdover from the early days when such talk was acceptable. By my own time there 'dig it' would be considered evidence of being full of it and trying to act or sound cool, etc. Of course Art's 'That's a gas' was ok. :lol: Then there's the whole leg-breaking thing. Not a good PR point when allegations of physical abuse began to surface.
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I wonder if anyone remembers a guy, I think his name was John and I think he was from Boston. I remember coming in to open meeting seeing him standing on the side of group, wondering how in the world he could have graduated so quickly. He'd just arrived within the past couple of weeks. It turned out he was standing because he was unable to sit because of the way the cast on his leg was done.
That cast stayed on for ever! And I used to always look at him and make a mental note whenever we sang that line about "your leg'll break" (or, alternately, "your leg I'll break") Somehow, I got the impression that the guy's leg got broken during a take down when he tried to split.
Anybody remember that?
Oh, and did you guys also sing "I Am Straight" to the tune of Helen Ready's "I Am Woman"? I always thought that line about having been "down there on the floor" was particularly ironic.
What is a committee? A group of the unwilling, picked from the unfit, to do the unnecessary.
-- Richard Harkness, The New York Times, 1960
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John M, from Boston, was a staff member at the seed 1971, he left in 1972, returning to Boston for awhile to see family, etc., returned sometime later on his own, after he had broken his leg in Boston.
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"I am seedling here me roar..in numbers too big to ignore"
::puke:: ::puke:: ::puke:: ::puke:: ::puke:: ::puke:: ::puke::
Yep, we did~!
:grin:
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I always thought it was a little blonde haired girl that stuck her foot out at the open meeting "with an evil look in her eye" that tripped John M. I think she was eating a peanut
butter & Jelly sandwich. :grin:
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I remember some of the group and staff members(Renee,Rick,Libby,Charley Oats I think) singing the seed song on national tv when Art was interviewed by the Today Show back in '70 possibly '71.I actually have it on cassette!Art did quote a rather high success rate.From where I sat and what I saw and heard in the meetings there was no way the numbers could match the persons achieving absolute sobriety.Too many of us were still evolving as youth to commit to an ideal that told us we were to struggle for something so adult in concept.That was not a kids' formula.Some of us couldn't grasp the concept because we hadn't reached the point where it would be a necessity to strive for clarity only due to the high energy of youth itself leading us goofily and smiling as our bodies and metabolisms unfolded into our personal futures.The numbers couldn't match for that reality;but we sang the song gleefully because what we COULD understand was that tiny joy in doing just that- as the event intersected the need to voice something that was chosen to represent something intelligible by the authority there.Hence the only way to feel a part of such an alien concept was to parrot it in the most acceptable manner,and a little song and dance appeased the 'gods'and then we were all acceptably absorbed and appreciated even if we didn't understand.
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Rather confusing post Tom...but I think I get it!
welcome again. I am looking forward to your participation here, I believe we all may have something to learn from you.
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On 2005-09-13 13:20:00, Ft. Lauderdale wrote:
"What the hell are green sleeves anyway? :roll: "
That's what you get when you don't have a hankie
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The joy I experienced in singing had everything to do with the fact that when we were singing we weren't rapping. Never got told off for my song suggestion.
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I did not go to one of these programs, but came across this site and remember a nice guy in my high school who went away to a program called Seed. I remember he came back to school the following year and he would not talk to me. It was devastating to me. He tried to infer that I was a druggie for the simple reason I did not go to this program. Could what I am describing be typical of Seed. Were the kids not allowed to interact with other kids once out of the program? Just curious. This was back in the early 70's.
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Welcome anon. Yeah, that sounds about right. Was he the only seedling you ever heard of? Did he ever shake it off? What did you and your friends make of it at the time?
In war, the stronger overcomes the weaker. In business, the stronger imparts strength to the weaker.
--Frederic Bastiat
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On 2005-10-12 19:20:00, Anonymous wrote:
"... I remember he came back to school the following year and he would not talk to me. It was devastating to me. He tried to infer that I was a druggie for the simple reason I did not go to this program. Could what I am describing be typical of Seed...."
Oh yeah. That's the dogma alright. I'm sure your friend was, inside, just as confused by his behavior as you were. Sorry you had to experience that kind of rejection. But please understand, it was just as horrible, if not worse, on the other side of the equation.
For a seed kid going back to his or her old school, especially where there were no other seed kids around, no one could have possibly been good enough, honest enough or "straight" enough to be a friend of a seedling.
Weighing the choice of keeping everyone away by whatever means necessary to remain "straight" in the druggie world of high school against getting sent back to the seed for talking to someone...that choice was fairly simple and excrutiatingly painful at the same time.
Some would say it is a weak person's way out, and maybe they are right. I erred on the side of NOT getting sent back just like your friend did. Meaning I treated people who did me absolutely no harm as though they were "bad" people. It made a lonely life for me, of that you can be sure.
Sad to say, but your friend was most likely a pretty lonely guy till he got out of it. Hopefully he has reconciled his experience as best he could. [ This Message was edited by: Stripe on 2005-10-13 19:16 ][ This Message was edited by: Stripe on 2005-10-13 19:16 ]
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No one was good enough, no one.
When I went back to school I talked to one girl for about two weeks. She was a new student that I approached to inform that there were lots of druggies at our school so she should be careful.
This poor new girl was my friend for several weeks and would have continued to be despite the fact that it caused her to be ostracized by many kids but as the weeks passed I got more and more anxious-- sure I would get in trouble for talking to this girl at school. Finally one day she came to school wearing a black denim jumper.
I don't know about the Florida seed but in the cleveland seed black clothing was highly frowned upon and denim was only worn by druggies. I gave her the I can't talk to you anymore unless you go to the seed and get straight speach that day.
In retrospect, although I know I really hurt her feelings, her new life at school must have improved without me. I couldn't share, laugh, talk about boys, problems at home. I was incapable of having a normal 8th grade conversation let alone friendship. I just spouted seed dogma at her and was so rigid you'd think I shit marble. In short, I am sorry I hurt her feelings but the affection I remember her with makes me think she was better off without me.
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"I just spouted seed dogma at her and was so rigid you'd think I shit marble."
That's a funny quote!
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It's shameful, what we put ourselves through and what we put our peers through under the guise of being "straight".
I'm guessing that maturity would have made the real world process much easier. Too bad I didn't have what I needed to successfully integrate myself back into society. Whose fault? I don't know. I guess that depends on the tool, doesn't it?
Oh well, spills happen even inthe best of homes and families....
[ This Message was edited by: Stripe on 2005-10-14 13:07 ]
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It was my junior year, 1976, I was new at the school and and to my knowledge there were only 5 of us from the Seed. Only once did I ever tell someone I couldn't talk to him because he hadn't been in the Seed. To this day, I remember the look on his face. I felt absolutely awful and never said it again to anyone.
By the time I graduated from Dixie in l977, there were only 3 of us and we all pretty much went our separate ways. I joined a few clubs, made a few friends and even went on a senior trip to Europe, and had a wonderful time.
Somewhere along the line and pretty quickly, I figured out that I had to live in the real world, and so I adapted. It serves me well, even today, to be able to adapt to the situations I find myself in. And I've made some wonderful friends along the way that I wouldn't trade for anything in the world.
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It took me until about my second year in college right around 1977 to realize that I had to communicate with, share & listen to others in order to grow and become more of a whole person.
I credit going to SPJC (now SPC) with helping me "grow up" I took a number of humanites, writing and communications classes where we worked in groups. I began to realize, slowly, that just because someone was different did not mean there were a bad person, and finally just because a person had adddictions and may have been still struggling with drugs and alcohol did not make them evil. I was married to a functional alcoholic for 22 years and just because I had been sober for that last 14 of them did not mean I cared any less for her, just meant I could not change her...
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Wow, Chris, you went to SPJC? When? In around `80 - `82 sometime, Miller Newton started sending Straight staffers and proteges to SPJC. I don't know what kind of messed up things they were teaching or how much of the messed up ideas that showed up in group came from there, but I do suspect some significant influence coming out of that nexus. In around `99 or `00 sometime, we found out that Virgil Newton was actually teaching classes there. A couple of his good old friends from Straight took a binder full of lawsuit docs, newspaper articles and other juicy bits to the personnel dept. Within a week, he'd been let go.
I wonder what's sort of psychology and humanities doctrin they're teaching there now?
I didn't intend for this to take on a political tone, I'm just here for the drugs.
--First Lady, Nancy Reagan at a Just Say No rally
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"Wow, Chris, you went to SPJC? When? "
I went to SPJC from 75 - 77 & then transferred to Emory U to finish a 4 year degree. I took most of my classes at the Clearwater campus, yeah seems stupid now looking at it, I lived 5 minutes away in Pasadena and used to drive US-19 (the "killer" highway) to Clearwater 5 days a week for classes. but the last 1/2 year in 77 I changed my focus to a get a general "associate in Arts" degree so I wound up going my last 6-8 mos in St Pete with just a few classes in Clearwater. Looking back on one of the creative writing classes I had the proff took "an interest" and even had me over to his house to discuss my writing and I had shared that I had been in the Seed... Now looking back on this years later it is obvious to me he was gay & interested but I was so naive or dare I say "innocent" at the time that he did not make a pass... and I did not realize it at the time. The other class I remember in particular was a communicatons class where we worked in groups and had to give "presentations" on short subjects in front of the class, one of the classes they videotaped our presentations and how we reacted to each other working in groups. I remember that was such a shock for me to see myself "outside of myself", I learned a lot from that class. We had a nutty "survivalist" professor for Anthropology (although that is kind of an oxi-moron eh...) and this guy had us convinced the world was coming to an end in the next two years, the Apocalypse was near and we would be canibals eating each other to survive, this and that all the guys should be having sex with multiple partners and never get married because it was "against the natural laws of survival" He was great, if you wer able to take it with a grain of salt. The Humanities proff I remember was a huge guy (I mean big, large, you know whatever the PC term is these days) and he had an extremely humourous take on the studies of chaucer, and the other classics I seem to remember him being overly focused on the sexual nature & content and the more "base" aspects of human behavior, you know farting, belching, puking etc...
"I wonder what's sort of psychology and humanities doctrine they're teaching there now?"
I hope something with more meaning that's for sure....
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I was also at SPJC from 77-79, ended up leaving 1 semester shy of graduation, because I got married and was working full time and aggravated with the head of the program. My business math teacher and I became friends and I ended up volunteering for years with her as a Girl Scout Leader. I was the youngest leader in St. Pete at l9. Funny through my scouting adventure with her, I met a future boss that I ended up working with for 3 years at a fundraiser car wash. Adapting to real life and making it work for me.
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In around `99 or `00 sometime, we found out that Virgil Newton was actually teaching classes there. A couple of his good old friends from Straight took a binder full of lawsuit docs, newspaper articles and other juicy bits to the personnel dept. Within a week, he'd been let go.
DAMN! I missed it! I graduated in mid '97 and went off to FU... I mean UF :smile: ), A cursory glance at the public records shows there was a mortgage handed from Kim to George Felos (Mike Schiavos Attorney) in 1993 - probably siblings.
Just my $0.02 - but it seemed pretty normal to me.
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The seed indeed is all you need,
To stay off the pot, and the pills, and the weed,
We come each day from 10 to 10,
And if we screw up, we start again.
Junkies and Freaks throughout the land,
Join our family hand in hand,
Working together from morning to night,
To help the losers see the light.
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Back in my day every night ended with Jingle Bells because (and someone had to scream this at the top of their lungs) EVERY DAY WE STRAIGHT IS JUST LIKE CHRISTMAS - or something close to that...
Funny thing is - Jingle Bells was written for Thanksgiving, not Christmas! :wave:
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And a big welcome to you, Cheryl!
Tell us a little about your time in the seed. It seems like you were involved quite a long time.
:wave:
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I went in because I was a young teenager smoking pot and taking some pills. I have to admit that I had a bit of an attitude problem and I was NOT going to be pushed into doing something I didn't want to do - at least for a while. I took about twice the usual time to move from one phase to the next, like my 14 days turned into about 30ish. I actually couldn't wait to go back to school!
Because Cooper City had so many seed kids, a lot of them the people that I knew before the Seed, we all kept each other "straight" (fear was a great motivator) but independent of each other, we all kinda went back to our old ways during the summer between 10th & 11th grade (1974) so most of our inhibitions about each other mostly evaporated.
I never saw or heard of any physical abuse and I was surprised to read about on this forum, but I've got to admit I was not shocked by it. Mental abuse, well - that is pretty much a given wasn't it? I never realized until now how much I've forgotten about the place and my time there. I barely remember anyone except my circle of friends and those are rather sketchy as well. A girl named Suzy lived with my family for six months or so and aside from her having red hair; I really don't remember anything else about her. I'll never know how my time there changed me, but I do have problems dealing with unpleasantries as I tend to shut down rather than confront them - God knows at the Seed, you eventually learned how to fly under the radar or learned to deal with the consequences.
This Straight, Inc. place reminds me of what happened at Abu Gharib prison. I am sure that they started out with the best of intentions ? to get kids off drugs, but when there isn?t anyone willing or able to stand up when the line is crossed, well that line keeps getting further and further away. I consider myself ?lucky? that I was in and out of the Seed before things really went south, and those nut-job do-gooders got involved.
When I think back on really how young I was when I was getting stoned on a daily basis and then I consider my nieces and (step)grandchildren current age, I am pretty well amazed. I have nieces that range in age from 12 to 16, my granddaughter is 13 and my grandson is 12. I would NOT be happy to think any of them doing drugs even though I thought I was well old enough to handle whatever came my way back then. I do not blame my parents in anyway for putting me in there because they were doing what they thought best for my future, and in light of what society was at that time that smoking pot was the first step on the slippery slope to becoming a junkie. Dragnet was not long out of production in 1972 and that is where most of my parent?s generation got their information from.
Funnily enough though, I may not remember much of the people and events from way back when ? I do remember that an oz was $20. and I bought my ciggies for $0.50 a pack out of the machine back then!
See ya,