Vumba,
it was 1968; I was a high school senior in an upper middle income public school; my girl friend,
a member of my social group, and a friend long before we became entwined, was married and a student teacher at my high school. I would go to my first period speech and philosophy class. She would teach her first period art class. Then the two of us would leave together.
This is what I looked like:
This is what she looked like:
In mid April, about twenty of our friends, including me, got ourselves into Scientology.
Some of us 40 years later:
In June, after school was out, Charlie Rush helped me, and we moved her out of the apartment that she had shared with her husband. Her bottom line was that I loved her all the time, he didn't.
My girl friend did not get involved with Sci. I have to say that after some time, I got a bit weird. She continued her life, but moved to LA. As she was about to come back north, to me, she got pregnant, and decided to marry him.
The night prior to their wedding, a lot of us stayed at their house on Douglas St. next to Elysian Park, just over the hill from Dodger Stadium. I hooked up with the groom's sister.
This is the two of us at the wedding:
She moved in with me, and got involved with Scientology. A few years later, she joined the Sea Org, where she still is.
This is her daughter ( a current SO member):
Beautiful, like her mother, although I digress.
Some years later, after having worked for a year in a Sci center (before missions), having done Clear and some OT, I was on the briefing course in La La Land. The first girl in this story, now married to the second guy, and with two kids meets me at the La Brea Tar Pits in another fateful April. It was raining, and we walked around and my dog walked around. We ended up kissing in the downstairs garage for the May Company. She went back to Nor Cal, and we wrote steamy notes to one another with occasional phone calls thrown in. She had never done Sci, but had done EST. We ended up moving in together. Her husband took care of the kids for a few months.
We broke up again, but not with any big upset, just two people, who didn't know what they were doing. Still friends.
I ended up, within a year, hooking up with my wife of the last 30 plus years, Another married woman at that time. But a class Vlll, married to a class Vlll. The oldest kid was also a class Vlll. For the next two years, we lived together, and had the kids from their marriage and his previous marriage, and his girl friend's marriage plus several foster kids. I went from being single to having 5 or 6 kids to take care of. And in that first year of living together, we both independently of the other, decided to leave the Co$ - That was 1976. Actually, we never even talked about leaving the Co$, not because we were withholding our dissatisfactions, but because the writing was all over the wall. It was the obvious thing to do. We were in complete sync without any discussion.
The person most traumatized by our leaving the Co$, was her husband. He had a very successful mission and was feeling his oats as a Scientologist. I have to say, we didn't give a fuck. After about two years of living together, she divorced him, and we got married.
Around 1980, long before the big Mission Holders' massacres, he had also left. He sold his mission, and walked away unhappy with the way things went in the Co$.
Somewhere around 1995, my wife and I were on the outs, and I, once again hooked up with the girl that I started this narrative with. And once again, we lived together for some months. We have never even as much as kissed, when one of us wasn't married.
We're still friends.
My wife and I got back together.
Relationships, for me, are important. Friendship, through thick and thin, is what I value most. Whether a girl friend was a Scio or not, was never a consideration. What is important is shared values.
This is our family. Our family is what we value.
This is our youngest son:
)
