The Group Room

[LittleCat]

Did all group rooms look the same?  In Dallas/Irving we had a large open room with no windows...I remember it being about the size of a basketball court...maybe bigger?  It had some sort of vinyl floor (was it white or gray?) and drywall/sheetrock white walls.  There was nothing on the walls except the 12 Steps written in blue, The Serenity Prayer...and something else I can't quite remember. (what was that?) Of course, the blue plastic chairs and a couple of tables in the back for Staff to use during raps.  ah yes...horrible flourescent lights.  nice.  :roll:

[dragonfly]

[Carmel]

I was at Irving too.  It was about the size of a B-Ball court.  I think the floor was a blueish-gray.  The guys side corner underneath the serenity prayer is where the walls were the most patched.  The back door opened out into the parking lot.  The used one half of the room for restraining kids, and the rest for the chairs.

[LittleCat]

"The guys side corner underneath the serenity prayer is where the walls were the most patched."

...do you remember the time (s?) that someone was thrown through the "front" wall under the Serenity Prayer and out through the window behind it? It was horrifying!  Group just carried on as if nothing had happened.  The guys side had a lot of drywall patches.  It seemed like the maintainence man was never surprised to see all the holes in the wall that he had to fix.  Unbelievable.

[Antigen]

A lot of these details carried right on through from the Seed intact. The 7 steps (not 12), the three signs, the flag, the chairs in rows w/ a wide aisle between guys and chicks (changed to guys and girls sometime between `80 and `82), the bar stools for staff. All of that came right from the Seed.

I turned to speak to God, About the world's despair; But to make bad matters worse, I found God wasn't there.
--Robert Frost, American poet

[starry-eyed pirate]

The group room in Springfield was huge. It's kinda difficult for me to estimate the size of the group.  There were so many kids.  I would estimate that when everyone was in group there were around 250 kids in group.  The group only took up about 1/3 of the room.

The serenity prayer was on the side wall above the girls side.  The 7 steps(which later became 12) were of course at the top of the front wall so we had to look at them all day.  The 5 criteria were also on the front wall, but in the corner in front of the guys side.  The straight symbol was up somewhere too but I can't quite remember where it was located.  

We also had a carpet room which was behind the group room, and that's where we had "executive raps".  There were no chairs in there, except for staff in the back.  We had to sit str8 up "indian" style. The carpet room was also used for parent raps on monday and friday nights.  I don't remember there bein' any signs on the walls of the carpet room except maybe that crazy straight insignia representing the black heart society(not sure about that).  There was a big ventillation fan in the one corner of the carpet room, in front of the girls side(like the ones behind the musical stage on "Sat. Night Live")and daylight would come in thru that. I remember there were times in that carpet room when I just stared at that fan and watched the blades slowly turn and I imagined what the day was like on the outside of the building.  Sometimes I could smell the fresh air comin' in from the outside especially in the spring.  You know ?? The smell of a clean and fresh spring day. I would imagine how nice it would be simply to be standing on the outside in the sunshine.  How nice it would be just to walk freely down the street, listening to the birdsongs and such, then I would be pulled back into the rap by the threat of some ruthless executive staff on a power trip. That place sucked.  

Peace to all the survivors.

[LittleCat]

Those barstools...gads... everytime I picture them I get all woozy.  They became some kind of evil symbol for me over the months I had there looking at them.  I remember how I used to watch Staff up there swinging from left to right, resting their elbow on the back of the barstool and gazing over Group as if this was the most normal thing in the world.  I remember thinking of those barstools as if they had some sort of magic power in them to render everything hopeless that happened in that room. I have seen a couple of videos of Straight, Inc. spinoffs and they have the same freaking barstools... exactly the same?!

[LittleCat]

In regards to the Carpet Room...We had a room like that in Dallas/Irving.  I can't remember what we called it.  It wasn't carpeted but it was a lot smaller than the Group Room.  We had Girls Rap in there and the parents met in there every week.  I don't remember if there was anything on the walls or not.  You mentioned having to sit up straight for Executive Rap...Executive rap was murder!  My back hurt so badly from sitting like that (no chairs) for such a long period of time... gads that was brutal.

[dragonfly]

[Froderik]

That type of floor is called Armstrong linoleum.

Our walls were beige I believe.

Straight Inc. was up there in RED

The prayer and slogans were in black I believe.

And of Course, the flag of our fatherland.

anyone remember what was on the wall other than the steps?

God I would love to make a movie and recreate that whole scene.

We need a wealthy donar to finance a documentary movie project.

and to see it happening now...some things just take awhile...

Folks say "where did the idea for the movie come from?"...I get this little jealous inflated ego thing because I pursued the idea a little after the memorial....got inspired by my "audio documentary" and wanted to start a movie...

I called Maia back then and a movie maker that Sammie told me about in Philly...but I let it go, I can barely work a polaroid camera and at the time I just figured it was a total pipe dream

it's been a long time coming and the idea belongs to everybody

 .  :tup: