JW Study Meeting #26

Today I had the opportunity to see both Uriah and Shem again. I had my laptop--newly repaired--open during the meeting for a change because I was downloading a few more podcasts on iTunes. I had also just finished downloading all of Charles T. Russell's and Joseph F. Rutherford's works onto my external hard drive, so I had the chance to show Uriah and Shem some of the files I've got--old things from Russell and Rutherford, and somewhere I even found a copy of the Bethel Rules and Regulations from 1931. When I showed them the compilation of Russell's comments organized by verse, Uriah commented that he knows a guy, a true Russellite, who'd really love that. (Jehovah's Witnesses are occasionally referred to as "Russelites" because of their alleged adherence to Charles T. Russell's doctrines. The appellation was far more common during the earlier years of the movement.) Apparently some JW in the area became very, very attached to Russell, to the point where he'd reject anything that couldn't be substantiated from Russell's writings. He was disfellowshipped a couple decades ago. He now lives in a Gothic-style house where he has a picture of Russell above an altar adorned with candles. Creepy. Heh, as Uriah said, 'If you're going to follow a man, why not pick Walt Disney and at least make it fun?'

We spent quite a bit of time discussing computers. Shem gave me a tip as to how to fix our desktop, on which the Internet had stopped working (and, sure enough, that took care of it), and also recommended a few free anti-virus programs. We'd been using McAfee here, and Uriah mentioned that he used to use that, and it said he had no viruses; as soon as he switched to Avast, it found the 180+ lurking viruses on his computer, and after a week of cleaning it out, his computer started working fine. Perhaps later this week I'll get around to downloading Avast; I'm not even sure if my laptop currently has anti-virus software at all.

About 40 or so minutes into the meeting, my friend Meghan arrived, and she and I first took to the task of translating some German for Uriah. He'd recently sold a cracked antique pipe on eBay for $43. It had an image of two German soldiers on it and text that loosely translates to something like, "We hold firmly and loyally together and fear God like nothing else in this world." (I've seen the first part of the German quote used as the title for a 1929 film, and the latter as a slogan on a poster of Otto von Bismarck, so my estimation is that perhaps the pipe dated from the Second Reich.) For the remainder of the time, we mostly discussed my annoying neighbors and my family's bad tenants a few years back. See, I have some new neighbors whose yard is connected to mine, and they've had this habit of letting their dog use our yard as a bathroom. Now, they were far from ignorant of this. They sat there watching, even arguing over who'd have to come clean it up, and finally they got into the habit of just mushing it down into the lawn. Heh... so we gathered it all, hung it on their back doorknob in a bag, and left a note promising to leave it somewhere less desirable next time if they didn't get their act together. So far, they've kept doggie tied up in the yard whenever they're outside.

As for those tenants, we rented out the house we used to live in to some real sleazebags. Imagine: a multiplicity of pets who defecated all over the carpets. Infants running naked in the streets. Letting all and sundry move in with them. Storing all garbage in the shed and basement instead of having it properly disposed of. Leaving plates of dried-up food everywhere. Floors littered with cigarette butts. An upstair room painted in psychedelic patterns. (Actually, we kinda came to like that one...) Fist-holes in the wall. It nearly ended up condemned. Oh, and since several consecutive tenants decided they were above paying rent, we ended up $10,000 in the hole. Yeeeeah... fun times. Anyway, Uriah had a fairly similar situation of his own, and had to take his tenant to court three times before finally getting rid of her.

At any rate, we never actually got around to cracking a book open, so that'll have to be reserved for next Saturday. Uriah also didn't have any new publications for me, because it's the inventory time of year, but he's going to try to e-mail me a copy of the inventory sheet.