Div6
Crusader
Oh, sorry..it was this line:
"And then Jens Uhrskov arrives to tell me that he and I are going on Mission. A mission so confidential that there are no written mission orders, it is going to be verbal briefing only."
A small part of my story
- Thread starter Mick Wenlock
- Start date
Oh, sorry..it was this line:
"And then Jens Uhrskov arrives to tell me that he and I are going on Mission. A mission so confidential that there are no written mission orders, it is going to be verbal briefing only."
Mick Wenlock
Admin Emeritus (retired)
Ah.
But I didn't say I didn't know what the mission was or who had ordered it.
But t'would probably be "we're on a mission from dog" ....
everfree
Patron Meritorious
Yes, I believe it can. I have known some Scientologists who I deem to be wise who picked and chose what aspects of Scn to emphasize and what to de-emphasize and were thus able to make a good life for themselves and those around them, so extrapolating from that I know it's possible.
Whether that will actually come about or whether CofS will implode or be destroyed I can't say. I suspect that CofS as an entity is too corrupt so lacks the ability to honestly inspect itself and correct it's destructive aspects but it would suit me fine if they did so. Maybe the remnants of the implosion would be able to do better.
In any case, CofS in it's current form should never be allowed any real power in the world, it is far too toxic.
Mick Wenlock
Admin Emeritus (retired)
I am fairly sure the date was around October 1st 1984. I was due to go to Int the next morning when Jens Uhrskov snagged me while I was yakking with Ian Cunningham. He told me that we were going on mission. He showed me the authorization from WDC FSO and so I wandered off with Jens to a room on (IIRC) the fourth or fifth floor of big blue. It was an office, one table, two chairs a computer terminal and a phone.
I asked Jens for the mission orders and he told me that there was nothing in writing. We were going to be on our own.
He told me that the Church had just lost its appeal against the IRS ruling, that the case in Canada (which I knew nothing about of course) was going badly and it had been decided that an organization, parallel to the Church was going to be set up called the International Association of Scientologists. It would be totally separate from the cofs organizationally. He and I were going to help coordinate the selection and travel of delegates to some convention at St Hill and to set up to implement the new membership system in the cofs.
So he and I ended up coordinating the selection of "delegates" most of whom, of course, were the DSA's of their local org, arranging flights etc. Someone from the CMO) mess brought our food to us from the dining room - supposedly this was so that w would not be being visibly supported by the CofS - seemed logical at the time, seems like bloody nonsense now of course.
We had to come up with costs of an annual membership and a lifetime, I did a couple of surveys around PAC and we came up with $300 and $2,000 as the prices. On the 9th we got told that the convention had been held so now it was "public" knowledge and now we had to work on setting up the kick off events.
Man, was that a zoo. WE went into the ITO classrooms (I think it was the ITO) and extracted about 20 people to go to the orgs where the kick off events were going to be (New York, Flag, Copenhagen, Sydney, London LA, Milan - don't remember the rest) we had carte blanche on use of the phones - the phone bill musta been in the tens of thousands of dollars. WE were on the phones - continuously.
While we were doing that Dick Storey arrived, he was to get the IMU Regges from wherever he could and get them to LA. Ken Pirak, Vic Scelza, Darcy Hollingsworth, Carla North, Bridget Kelleher, Brian Fraser, Cliff Bowen, Bertie Van Hoecke to be the Tours Ops, I found out that I was now the I/C of this thing. I met Michael Parodi and his wife (Marlene, I think) who were going to be two of the four people who were going to administer the IAS record keeping. I found out later that this was located on the island of Cyprus.
Mike Rinder was Vicki Aznaran's Communicator back then - she told him to get me through the computer courses and Jesse Prince and Lyman Spurlock went and got someone from INCOMM to open up the courseroom at 2 am just for me.
I asked Jens for the mission orders and he told me that there was nothing in writing. We were going to be on our own.
He told me that the Church had just lost its appeal against the IRS ruling, that the case in Canada (which I knew nothing about of course) was going badly and it had been decided that an organization, parallel to the Church was going to be set up called the International Association of Scientologists. It would be totally separate from the cofs organizationally. He and I were going to help coordinate the selection and travel of delegates to some convention at St Hill and to set up to implement the new membership system in the cofs.
So he and I ended up coordinating the selection of "delegates" most of whom, of course, were the DSA's of their local org, arranging flights etc. Someone from the CMO) mess brought our food to us from the dining room - supposedly this was so that w would not be being visibly supported by the CofS - seemed logical at the time, seems like bloody nonsense now of course.
We had to come up with costs of an annual membership and a lifetime, I did a couple of surveys around PAC and we came up with $300 and $2,000 as the prices. On the 9th we got told that the convention had been held so now it was "public" knowledge and now we had to work on setting up the kick off events.
Man, was that a zoo. WE went into the ITO classrooms (I think it was the ITO) and extracted about 20 people to go to the orgs where the kick off events were going to be (New York, Flag, Copenhagen, Sydney, London LA, Milan - don't remember the rest) we had carte blanche on use of the phones - the phone bill musta been in the tens of thousands of dollars. WE were on the phones - continuously.
While we were doing that Dick Storey arrived, he was to get the IMU Regges from wherever he could and get them to LA. Ken Pirak, Vic Scelza, Darcy Hollingsworth, Carla North, Bridget Kelleher, Brian Fraser, Cliff Bowen, Bertie Van Hoecke to be the Tours Ops, I found out that I was now the I/C of this thing. I met Michael Parodi and his wife (Marlene, I think) who were going to be two of the four people who were going to administer the IAS record keeping. I found out later that this was located on the island of Cyprus.
Mike Rinder was Vicki Aznaran's Communicator back then - she told him to get me through the computer courses and Jesse Prince and Lyman Spurlock went and got someone from INCOMM to open up the courseroom at 2 am just for me.
Div6
Crusader
Lt James Byrne was on "Garrison Mission" in our org at that time. Cliff Bowen and Brian Fraser were well known to us all in the EUS. Because of my successful "track record" with Int events, I was made the local "event IC" for the IAS kickoff event. One of my "successful actions" with the public was to run very tight control on the call-in lines so that once they were confirmed, they were not called again, even for "re-confirm". Instituting this action generated a TON of goodwill at the local level. There were occasions when the apes with uniforms violated these agreements, and reaped much ill will as a consequence. But then, the smartest people I knew stayed light years away from the sea org mob mentality.
Anyway, the day of the event was a wind storm in our town, and it knocked out the phone lines from the Org for a few hours. The SO'ers were going Type 3 expanded, and assigning lower conditions left right and center (they were all in 'cover your ass" mode using "the condition you fail to assign becomes your own" as the justifier.) I laughed at them all, mad monkeys that they were.
Come event time everyone was (as usual) on pins and needles over the attendance...and as usual it was another "highest ever" attendance.
(The dirty secret about the 'highest evers' was that anything BEFORE 1982 didn't count.) None of the events in the late 80's, early 90's CAME CLOSE to the size of earlier, pre-DM events.
Thus was instituted the IAS sign up line. This "totally seperate" line was operated on and in the CoS, and still does to this day, with NO accounting for the money, where it goes or what it is ultimately used for.
Anyway, the day of the event was a wind storm in our town, and it knocked out the phone lines from the Org for a few hours. The SO'ers were going Type 3 expanded, and assigning lower conditions left right and center (they were all in 'cover your ass" mode using "the condition you fail to assign becomes your own" as the justifier.) I laughed at them all, mad monkeys that they were.
Come event time everyone was (as usual) on pins and needles over the attendance...and as usual it was another "highest ever" attendance.
(The dirty secret about the 'highest evers' was that anything BEFORE 1982 didn't count.) None of the events in the late 80's, early 90's CAME CLOSE to the size of earlier, pre-DM events.
Thus was instituted the IAS sign up line. This "totally seperate" line was operated on and in the CoS, and still does to this day, with NO accounting for the money, where it goes or what it is ultimately used for.
petraph33
Patron with Honors
What she said!!
Can't wait to hear more...... Amazing that is......
Just about around that time I started to help in the org to earn my first com-course..... But surely got made to understand the importance of the IAS within short order. Later on I found myself at Cont level running international events for the IAS and got first hand experience with this "seperate" group of people that would not even call the CMO "Sir".... 
Very interesting to get all this information from behind the scenes... can't wait to hear more ...
Petra
Dulloldfart
Squirrel Extraordinaire
...and got first hand experience with this "seperate" group of people that would not even call the CMO "Sir"....
For years I used to ridge at calling these arrogant little CMO teenies "Sir". Then one day I heard a tale from someone in an elevator who had observed Guillaume as ED Int say "After you, Sir" to some CMO youngster who had no rank or ethics presence and was just as surprised herself. After I heard that I stopped protesting the use of the word.
Paul
Mick Wenlock
Admin Emeritus (retired)
The events were held - I think that there were ten of them. The major one was, of course, the FLB event and we had a tape of all the pledges given at that event - including the Dennis Durbin and partners "we pledge a million" moment.
It was very hectic - people arriving from all over the place to be the tours regges for IAS, Achim Bendig from Stuttgart, Karin Berglund for Scandinavia, I don't remember who the girl was for the UK, can't remember the ANZO or Italy guys alas. We got some people for the IMU itself - Carol Titus who had the job of designing the membership cards and Impact magazine, Debbie Fraser who ended up as the Qual Sec, . Janet Light arrived and I was introduced to my new boss - for a while she and I got on very well. She told me that the IMU was moving to Clearwater. It took me months to realize that this was because her kids and hubby, David Light, were in Clearwater and there was no way a major reg of the FSO was going to move to LA.
We moved to CW at the end of November. not a very traumatic move as none of us had any big ties to LA or to PAC. We took over the ground floor of the WB and, as Janet Light was the biggest CMO fish in the pond, we got very good treatment. As we got settled we got more personnel - Jane Zimmatore and her husband Graham, Ewa Lanciai (formerly Ronnqvist), Chris LeGrow, Ray Fenech, Deac Finn and a couple of others whose names I can't bring to mind. We also ended up with someone that no-one wanted anything to do with - Reuvein Marcus. Talk about small world - Reuvein had been the Public Officer (Dist Sec) FSO back in 78 when I was D/CS6 and we had become pretty good friends drinking beer and playing bridge up on the mezzanine on Wednesday nights.
Janet sent me over to talk to Reuvein who was sitting in his berthing and muttering to himself most of the time... as I said we had gotten on well in the past so he was willing to talk to me and once we got past the "nobody understands me, nobody loves me" stage I got Reuvein to agree to reg for the IAS.
At this point there were a lot of things being thrown at us - those who still had HASI International Memberships for example were busy howling - to be frank, by the policy of course they were totally right. But I had a bit of a hard time understanding the way we were supposed to be doing things.
As I understood it when we started:
1) The Cofs faced imminent disaster in that we had lost the IRS case, the Canadian government was going to issue indictments after the Toronto raids and there was the very real danger that the international management of the Church would be indicted leaving the way for a takeover of the cofs. Including the reserves.
2) The IAS had been set up so that money coud be put into a totally separate organization that could then use those funds to support a scientology organization "from the outside"
The first part was exactly what I was told by VA, Yager and Guillaume at different times. It wasn't until much later that I realized the timeline actually did not support that assertion.
The idea of the IAS had been bruited around by a Danish lawyer (Jacobson I think was his name) who worked with Carl Heldt at NEPI many months before the IRS case was decided.
When we got to Clearwater Carol Titus and I had been hounded about getting hatted on "fundraising" and "membership organizations" - the paradigm being used was the NRA and Carol Titus joined the NRA so she would get all the literature and mailings and the magazine. We had to read several books on fund raising and Bertie and I had to come up with "levels" of donations, hence "Sponsor" and "Patron" both decided on at Bertie's desk. We figured we would get maybe five or maybe 10 Patrons. Boy were we wrong - and the "wog" fundraisers totally right!
I also had to fly back out to LA to ASI to meet with RVY because I had to write almost the entirety of Impact Magazine and he gave me the "instant hat" so to speak.
If you have any of the first 8 or so Impact Magazines - with the exception of the Hubbard articles and quotes - everything else was written by me.
It was very hectic - people arriving from all over the place to be the tours regges for IAS, Achim Bendig from Stuttgart, Karin Berglund for Scandinavia, I don't remember who the girl was for the UK, can't remember the ANZO or Italy guys alas. We got some people for the IMU itself - Carol Titus who had the job of designing the membership cards and Impact magazine, Debbie Fraser who ended up as the Qual Sec, . Janet Light arrived and I was introduced to my new boss - for a while she and I got on very well. She told me that the IMU was moving to Clearwater. It took me months to realize that this was because her kids and hubby, David Light, were in Clearwater and there was no way a major reg of the FSO was going to move to LA.
We moved to CW at the end of November. not a very traumatic move as none of us had any big ties to LA or to PAC. We took over the ground floor of the WB and, as Janet Light was the biggest CMO fish in the pond, we got very good treatment. As we got settled we got more personnel - Jane Zimmatore and her husband Graham, Ewa Lanciai (formerly Ronnqvist), Chris LeGrow, Ray Fenech, Deac Finn and a couple of others whose names I can't bring to mind. We also ended up with someone that no-one wanted anything to do with - Reuvein Marcus. Talk about small world - Reuvein had been the Public Officer (Dist Sec) FSO back in 78 when I was D/CS6 and we had become pretty good friends drinking beer and playing bridge up on the mezzanine on Wednesday nights.
Janet sent me over to talk to Reuvein who was sitting in his berthing and muttering to himself most of the time... as I said we had gotten on well in the past so he was willing to talk to me and once we got past the "nobody understands me, nobody loves me" stage I got Reuvein to agree to reg for the IAS.
At this point there were a lot of things being thrown at us - those who still had HASI International Memberships for example were busy howling - to be frank, by the policy of course they were totally right. But I had a bit of a hard time understanding the way we were supposed to be doing things.
As I understood it when we started:
1) The Cofs faced imminent disaster in that we had lost the IRS case, the Canadian government was going to issue indictments after the Toronto raids and there was the very real danger that the international management of the Church would be indicted leaving the way for a takeover of the cofs. Including the reserves.
2) The IAS had been set up so that money coud be put into a totally separate organization that could then use those funds to support a scientology organization "from the outside"
The first part was exactly what I was told by VA, Yager and Guillaume at different times. It wasn't until much later that I realized the timeline actually did not support that assertion.
The idea of the IAS had been bruited around by a Danish lawyer (Jacobson I think was his name) who worked with Carl Heldt at NEPI many months before the IRS case was decided.
When we got to Clearwater Carol Titus and I had been hounded about getting hatted on "fundraising" and "membership organizations" - the paradigm being used was the NRA and Carol Titus joined the NRA so she would get all the literature and mailings and the magazine. We had to read several books on fund raising and Bertie and I had to come up with "levels" of donations, hence "Sponsor" and "Patron" both decided on at Bertie's desk. We figured we would get maybe five or maybe 10 Patrons. Boy were we wrong - and the "wog" fundraisers totally right!
I also had to fly back out to LA to ASI to meet with RVY because I had to write almost the entirety of Impact Magazine and he gave me the "instant hat" so to speak.
If you have any of the first 8 or so Impact Magazines - with the exception of the Hubbard articles and quotes - everything else was written by me.
SchwimmelPuckel
Genuine Meatball
Hmm.. Danish Lawyer Jørgen Jacobsen? - He had a 'local monopoly' with courtcases against Scientology. He was my lawyer when I sued Scientology. I've always had a little nagging suspicion.. When I was in the GO I heard about 'our' enemies and SP's. - Thing is.. I don't recall Jørgen Jacobsen being talked about...
Carl Heldt was a scio and in the GO was he not? - Also at this time?
So.. Which side was Jacobsen and Heldt on?
With a little more work I'll figure out what NEPI is.. Not a Chatolic Dioscese i feel..
Div6
Crusader
At the Cl V org level, there had been in place an "IRS Audit" project for several years....instituted in late '80 or early '81, the idea was to do an audit of all the local church records and put them into a format whereby they could be presented to the IRS as "proof" that there was no inurement going on. (Inurement meaning that none of the $ was going to LRH personally. As we found out later, the $ WAS going to LRH personally, via the Religious Research Foundation....this was money that was regged OUTSIDE the US, so I guess upper managment figured THAT was OK.)
At any rate, we had several meetings with Monique Yingling (wog atty for CoS) preparing us as "board members" to go talk to the IRS ...they had us bring our W2's, etc showing that we made less than 5k per year. That meeting occurred in Yingling's office in late '82 or maybe early '83. It was a bit of a joke, as there was no autonomous power wielded by the local Boards of Directors....the required yearly meetings were held in all of 5 minutes and the required documents prepared in advance and signed so they could be filed.
I believe it was the outcome of this proceeding with the IRS that was one of the triggers for the launching of the IAS. John Stannard (at that time with the National PR Office in DC and Sylvia's husband) told us that the day AFTER the IAS was announced, the IRS came to him and told him that they (the IRS) would grant 501(c)3 tax exempt status to the IAS (which would mean the IAS would have to REPORT to the IRS). The implied significance was that the Gov't wanted CONTROL of Scn. They eventually got it, as outlined in the secret closing agreement, making DM a Tax Compliance Agent within the CoS.
There were also tales circulating at this time of EXTREME paranoia on DM's part....his car broken into, his being followed, etc.
At any rate, we had several meetings with Monique Yingling (wog atty for CoS) preparing us as "board members" to go talk to the IRS ...they had us bring our W2's, etc showing that we made less than 5k per year. That meeting occurred in Yingling's office in late '82 or maybe early '83. It was a bit of a joke, as there was no autonomous power wielded by the local Boards of Directors....the required yearly meetings were held in all of 5 minutes and the required documents prepared in advance and signed so they could be filed.
I believe it was the outcome of this proceeding with the IRS that was one of the triggers for the launching of the IAS. John Stannard (at that time with the National PR Office in DC and Sylvia's husband) told us that the day AFTER the IAS was announced, the IRS came to him and told him that they (the IRS) would grant 501(c)3 tax exempt status to the IAS (which would mean the IAS would have to REPORT to the IRS). The implied significance was that the Gov't wanted CONTROL of Scn. They eventually got it, as outlined in the secret closing agreement, making DM a Tax Compliance Agent within the CoS.
There were also tales circulating at this time of EXTREME paranoia on DM's part....his car broken into, his being followed, etc.
Mick Wenlock
Admin Emeritus (retired)
The Jacobsen I am talking about was not named Jorgen - I don't remember his first name, But he is a lawyer FOR the CofS.
NEPI is New Era Publications International and it is the "holding company" that is the majority shareholder in NEP.
Carl Heldt is most definitely still in AFAIK. Back in the late 70' s he was is GO DK (though he is Swedish) and then he transferred to OSA and then to NEPI.
He is an incredibly nice guy and was a good friend of my wife and I.
OHTEEATE
Silver Meritorious Patron
fun times, Mick
I was there at the FLB event, and my partners and I gave the first $50,000 that actually hit the bank account. We had our checkbook with us as we were there for a WISE arbitration! We later became one of the first ten Patrons of the IAS, in Impact issue #3. Mike Henderson, Gloria Neumeyer and Rick Bishop. Gloria and I are since declared and long gone from the IAS. Vic Scelza was my reg at AOLA and later on the Freewinds. His son was SO Recruitment Officer FSO in 2005, Sam Scelza, and recruited me into the SO(second hitch). One lesson I learned from that IAS history was not to bring your checkbook to big events...Mike,former Founding Patron with Honors, now Extortionist of the Church and Loving your story, Mick
I was there at the FLB event, and my partners and I gave the first $50,000 that actually hit the bank account. We had our checkbook with us as we were there for a WISE arbitration! We later became one of the first ten Patrons of the IAS, in Impact issue #3. Mike Henderson, Gloria Neumeyer and Rick Bishop. Gloria and I are since declared and long gone from the IAS. Vic Scelza was my reg at AOLA and later on the Freewinds. His son was SO Recruitment Officer FSO in 2005, Sam Scelza, and recruited me into the SO(second hitch). One lesson I learned from that IAS history was not to bring your checkbook to big events...Mike,former Founding Patron with Honors, now Extortionist of the Church and Loving your story, Mick
Voltaire's Child
Fool on the Hill
John used to go to every single IAS event the local org had. He loved the briefings.
He'd carefully not raise his hand when they'd try to get everyone to promise not to leave early.
Then, when it came time to pony up w/ the dough, J would make a check out for 50.00 with our address scratched out.
Every single time.
He'd carefully not raise his hand when they'd try to get everyone to promise not to leave early.
Then, when it came time to pony up w/ the dough, J would make a check out for 50.00 with our address scratched out.
Every single time.
Mick Wenlock
Admin Emeritus (retired)
Oh yes, thats right you guys were the FIRST serious IAS donors. Durbin and friends never did pony up the dough.
Mick Wenlock
Admin Emeritus (retired)
Time to bed this thread down and bring it up to the present.
I was IMU IC through the first year or so of its existence - probably the busiest time I had was Portland when DM decided that I would have to OK all CSWs to leave from the protest.
In october 1985 I was busted and started working in the Div 6 with Deac Finn setting up events, something I hated. I screwed up the set ups for Toronto and got RPFed - and was happy to go. I was twinned with Mike Kehrli, truly one of my greatest friends and by and large we did OK.
I was out of the RPF Christmas 1986 and found myself further out of favor by refusing to reg a Flag public at 2 in the morning on a Thursday. IN January I was told that my wife and I were being sent to the UK to be the UK Tour as our younger son could not come to the Freewinds. We arrived in the UK late January 87.
It was a miserable time, absolutely miserable. By August Nancy and I had decided we had to leave the SO. We went to see the CO CMO there - Karen Mathieson. She talked with Janet Light and they asked if moving back to Scandinavia might be better. So we decided to try that. Things got much better, Se3anwas back at school in Aalborg - and loving it. I was based back at AOSH EU and liking that and we were back in Copenhagen the city that my wife and I love the best in the world.
But there was something rotten in the state of Denmark ( I have always wanted to slip that quote in).
I was amazed to find - as I travelled around the orgs that they were half the size (in most cases) they had been in 1981. Even Stockholm and DKD were puny. The field was apathetic and not functioning. I started doing FSM rallies and workshops to try and get new people coming into the orgs and that was fairly successful but, of course, that was not regging money for the IAS.
Peculiarly Spain also fell under the control of the Scandinavian Tour. We decided to have a huge IAS even down there, Heber would be there, Janet Light and it would be a big deal.
It certainly was - we were sitting down at lunch on the first day when the federales rolled in and all of the foreigners and some of the locals - about 80 of us , ended up in the hoosegow. Heber was the main focus of the attention - and yeah I know he has come in for some shit on here and in other forums but I can tell you that in that jail in Madrid the man was marvellous. He was calm, quiet and steadfast. Sad that his courage was wasted on such a miserable cause.
Deac Finn and I were in one cell, and deac spent most of the time teaching me the Notre Dame fight song and the history of Notre Dame football. he did a great job because I still an Irish Football fan to this day.
At one point Deac and I got a little loud and when the guard told us to quieten down we got a little "defiant" which resulted in both of us being dragged to other cells (none too gently).
We all got questioned by some magistrate - for my questioning there was no translator into english so we had to make do in French.
After two days some of us were transferred to a an extradition center where we waited for two or three days along with a lot of south americans until we were suddenly dumped outside the door of the facility and had to take a taxi to the airport.
Champagne on the plane back..
When we got back to Scandinavia I started getting more info on what had happened to the field there - basically flag regges and fsms had been persuading people to take out huge (and I mean huge) loans for the L's "after all when you get done with the L's you'll have no problem paying off this paltry loan" they cosigned each others loans, lied about their income and so on. By the time we got there the Poniz scheme was collapsing and some of the people involved were losing their jobs and some were facing jail time.
I refused to reg people. I falsified the income stat and just worked on trying to get FSMs to get new people in. Then I wrote it all up to DM and sent it in via telex.
And got declared - again. 11 in the evening Nancy and I were out on the street - again. I had borrowed three hundred swedish kronor from an old friend who happened to be in the Nordland that night so N ancy and I could find a hotel.
2nd time around. Jesus H Christ you would think I would learn. But nooooo.
After a couple of days we had no money, nowhere to stay, no friends no family. Sean was away at school so he was OK, we had left Chris in the SO under the care of some friends. We ended up spending one night in a homeless shelter. It was an awful time.
We got tickets to go up and visit Sean (something parents were entitled to do under the Danish system) and we flew to Aalborg and stayed i a visitors cottage. The school offered to help us out for a couple of weeks and we stayed up there, called my wife's family in the US and borrowed a couple of hundred dollars from her sisters and gradually took out time to relax and to stop worrying.
We went back to Copenhagen, got jobs with SAS at one of the hotels and just started out on trying to get by.
WE eventually decided to go back to the US and we arrived in Denver on October 1st 1990. And now we live out in the country on the eastern plains.
If you want to see what we are up to- here is the link to our blog
:Our Blog
I was IMU IC through the first year or so of its existence - probably the busiest time I had was Portland when DM decided that I would have to OK all CSWs to leave from the protest.
In october 1985 I was busted and started working in the Div 6 with Deac Finn setting up events, something I hated. I screwed up the set ups for Toronto and got RPFed - and was happy to go. I was twinned with Mike Kehrli, truly one of my greatest friends and by and large we did OK.
I was out of the RPF Christmas 1986 and found myself further out of favor by refusing to reg a Flag public at 2 in the morning on a Thursday. IN January I was told that my wife and I were being sent to the UK to be the UK Tour as our younger son could not come to the Freewinds. We arrived in the UK late January 87.
It was a miserable time, absolutely miserable. By August Nancy and I had decided we had to leave the SO. We went to see the CO CMO there - Karen Mathieson. She talked with Janet Light and they asked if moving back to Scandinavia might be better. So we decided to try that. Things got much better, Se3anwas back at school in Aalborg - and loving it. I was based back at AOSH EU and liking that and we were back in Copenhagen the city that my wife and I love the best in the world.
But there was something rotten in the state of Denmark ( I have always wanted to slip that quote in).
I was amazed to find - as I travelled around the orgs that they were half the size (in most cases) they had been in 1981. Even Stockholm and DKD were puny. The field was apathetic and not functioning. I started doing FSM rallies and workshops to try and get new people coming into the orgs and that was fairly successful but, of course, that was not regging money for the IAS.
Peculiarly Spain also fell under the control of the Scandinavian Tour. We decided to have a huge IAS even down there, Heber would be there, Janet Light and it would be a big deal.
It certainly was - we were sitting down at lunch on the first day when the federales rolled in and all of the foreigners and some of the locals - about 80 of us , ended up in the hoosegow. Heber was the main focus of the attention - and yeah I know he has come in for some shit on here and in other forums but I can tell you that in that jail in Madrid the man was marvellous. He was calm, quiet and steadfast. Sad that his courage was wasted on such a miserable cause.
Deac Finn and I were in one cell, and deac spent most of the time teaching me the Notre Dame fight song and the history of Notre Dame football. he did a great job because I still an Irish Football fan to this day.
At one point Deac and I got a little loud and when the guard told us to quieten down we got a little "defiant" which resulted in both of us being dragged to other cells (none too gently).
We all got questioned by some magistrate - for my questioning there was no translator into english so we had to make do in French.
After two days some of us were transferred to a an extradition center where we waited for two or three days along with a lot of south americans until we were suddenly dumped outside the door of the facility and had to take a taxi to the airport.
Champagne on the plane back..
When we got back to Scandinavia I started getting more info on what had happened to the field there - basically flag regges and fsms had been persuading people to take out huge (and I mean huge) loans for the L's "after all when you get done with the L's you'll have no problem paying off this paltry loan" they cosigned each others loans, lied about their income and so on. By the time we got there the Poniz scheme was collapsing and some of the people involved were losing their jobs and some were facing jail time.
I refused to reg people. I falsified the income stat and just worked on trying to get FSMs to get new people in. Then I wrote it all up to DM and sent it in via telex.
And got declared - again. 11 in the evening Nancy and I were out on the street - again. I had borrowed three hundred swedish kronor from an old friend who happened to be in the Nordland that night so N ancy and I could find a hotel.
2nd time around. Jesus H Christ you would think I would learn. But nooooo.
After a couple of days we had no money, nowhere to stay, no friends no family. Sean was away at school so he was OK, we had left Chris in the SO under the care of some friends. We ended up spending one night in a homeless shelter. It was an awful time.
We got tickets to go up and visit Sean (something parents were entitled to do under the Danish system) and we flew to Aalborg and stayed i a visitors cottage. The school offered to help us out for a couple of weeks and we stayed up there, called my wife's family in the US and borrowed a couple of hundred dollars from her sisters and gradually took out time to relax and to stop worrying.
We went back to Copenhagen, got jobs with SAS at one of the hotels and just started out on trying to get by.
WE eventually decided to go back to the US and we arrived in Denver on October 1st 1990. And now we live out in the country on the eastern plains.
If you want to see what we are up to- here is the link to our blog
:Our Blog
WrongPlaceRightTime
Patron Meritorious
I'm chiming in a bit late here, but this quote describes the mindset that put my father into a state of severe unworthiness which resulted in his suicide.
Mick, this is a tragic tale beautifully written.
Div6
Crusader
That is known as a "death wish".
What were you expecting him to do? Send an obs mission?
All joking aside Mick, I have more appreciation for you as a fellow human being and wish you and yours the best in the future.
Free to shine
Shiny & Free
Mick, this is a tragic tale beautifully written.
I second that!
Behind every word lies so much more, yet your wonderful sense of humour is always there. You are an inspiration.
Similar threads
