Going Out Into Service.

Within a couple years of us moving into Lawrence Heights, my mother became totally immersed in her newfound faith. So much so that she symbolized her dedication to her new God through baptism by immersion with other likeminded Witnesses.

I too was also becoming much more active in my mother’s new religion. With so many other Jehovah’s Witnesses living in the Jungle all of my new friends were also in the same boat. We were all living the JW way of life, not so much because we wanted to, but because we had to. We all went to the same Kingdom Hall and we were all enrolled as publishers. Being a publisher required each of us to perform a minimum of ten hours a month going door-to-door soliciting the Watchtower and Awake magazines.

The Jehovah’s Witnesses call this going out into service.

In order to get my required ten hours, it meant going out into service almost every Saturday and Sunday. My mother was dead set on each of her sons getting the minimum ten hours every single month and for most months I had more than ten hours. The main objective of door-to-door service is to seek out lost souls seeking direction and once they are found a weekly bible study would ensue. Eventually, the hope would be for them to also become a dedicated Jehovah’s Witness. Their life would now be spared from the forever impending Armageddon that the JW’s are always warning of.

Rinse and repeat over and over and over.

I myself spent hundreds of hours going door-to-door seeking out those lost souls. Lost souls exactly like my mother herself had been back in Montreal desperately looking for some direction and something to grasp on to.

Personally, I never found any.

Besides, what fuck’n person in their right mind was going to listen to a teenager standing on their doorstep warning of an impending Armageddon anyway? I can’t count how many times I had a door slammed in my face. Over the years it would literally be in the hundreds.

But there I was week after week, month after month, year after year knocking on doors. I never had any choice because my mother made me do it. I absolutely abhorred going out in service in my own neighborhood of Lawrence Heights. By far the hardest part of door-to-door service was knocking on the door of a classmate or someone you knew from school. There was no doubt that I was sure to be ridiculed the following week. I prayed while walking up to the door that nobody was home, but for the most part my prayers would fall on deaf ears.

And, without fail the following week at school I would hear something like “Mike showed up at my door wearing his suit with some old guy. He had bible magazines in his briefcase that he was trying to sell me. What a fuck'n loser.”

Or a reasonable facsimile.

Standing on a street corner with Watchtower in hand was another option towards achieving the required ten hours of monthly service. I hated standing on a street corner more than I hated knocking on doors. A group of us would usually hit a high traffic intersection on a busy Saturday morning. We would split into pairs and ideally there would be two of us on each of the four corners. We would be out there for hours greeting people who were coming and going while trying to get our literature into their hands.

Someone from my school would always see me on the corner and without fail the following week at school I would hear something like “Mike was standing on the corner wearing his suit with some old guy. He was selling his Watchtowers out of his briefcase. What a fuck'n loser.”

Or a reasonable facsimile.

By month's end I would always have my required minimum ten hours. There was a little slip I would fill out, sign and then deposit into a box at the back of the Kingdom Hall. If my hours ever began to slip, I am pretty sure I would have heard about it from one of the elders. No worries, I always wrote in ten hours even if I was short an hour or two.

I remember one weekend when I was ten or eleven years old the three of us went out into service up at our unassigned territory. Unassigned territories are remote locations that were not close to any Kingdom Halls. Therefore, no Witnesses would be regularly calling on them. Jehovah’s Witnesses believe that everyone must have the opportunity to accept Jehovah. They are a worldwide organization and will eventually knock on every door and attempt to save every soul on the planet.

That is their sole mission.

Our Kingdom Hall’s territory would be up at French River, a four hour drive north of Toronto. A group from our hall rented a few cabins and we all drove up on the Friday night. We literally spent two solid days on both the Saturday and Sunday blitzing the whole area going door-to-door. It would be late on the Sunday night before we got back home.

Even at such a young age that weekend was a reality check for me. I always thought the three of us were dirt poor, but money was even scarcer up there than it was living in the projects. I remember many of the mostly Aboriginal residents wanting to trade us apples, beads and baked goods for our Watchtower publications because they had no money. Most of the literature we just gave away to them for free if they promised to read them.

I will never forget the sheer poverty I witnessed on that weekend. Maybe we weren’t as dirt poor as I thought we were. No, we were still dirt poor and they were just a dirtier poor.

There were many Witnesses at our Kingdom Hall who were referred to as pioneers. The majority were housewives who did not work and had an abundance of free time on their hands. A pioneer is dedicated to completing a hundred hours of service each month. My mother on occasion had also been a pioneer and she always thought someday it would be nice for both me and my brother to experience pioneering.

She could be so delusional at times.

I knew in my heart even back in those early days there wasn’t a hope in hell I would ever be a pioneer. I also knew eventually I would no longer be a publisher either. But for now while I was living under my mother’s roof, I had to follow all her rules.

And going out into service for ten hours a month was just one of her many rules.

During all my years going to the Kingdom Hall I would see many new faces starting to attend our meetings. They were now studying the bible and just like my mother for the most part they were single mothers raising their kids. The Jehovah’s Witnesses are like a magnet to single mothers from broken marriages. In fact I can hardly recall off hand any two parent families who all became Jehovah’s Witnesses while I attended the Yorkdale congregation. There were indeed many two parent families at our hall who were JW’s, but they were already there before I arrived.

Because I was a publisher I was also now giving six minute bible talks at our Kingdom Hall. Bible talks were a form of public speaking; I would be given a bible passage that I had to explain in full detail within a six minute time frame. I would be told a couple months in advance of my impending talk and my mother was very diligent in making sure I was totally prepared. I would practically have my complete talk memorized by the time I had to speak.

Thursday night bible talks were on a rotating schedule and because our congregation was rather large, I only had to speak maybe twice a year. I actually never minded getting up on the little stage and talking through a microphone to the fifty plus in attendance on any given Thursday night. Those bible talks I credit even to this day for instilling in me the confidence that I would carry into and throughout my adult life.

Our Kingdom Hall was large it was located within the Canadian headquarters of the Watchtower Bible and Tract Society at 150 Bridgeland Ave. It was a very theater like atmosphere inside with cushioned theater chairs and the sloping floor was completely carpeted. There was also a piano at the front just off to the side. Every Thursday and Sunday our meetings would open and close with one of the hundred plus songs in the JW songbook. There was always an elderly 'sister' named Laura who would play the piano at all of our meetings.

We were part of a rather large congregation. If everyone in our congregation attended on any given Sunday, there would be close to eighty in attendance. There was always what my mother referred to as wholesome theocratic get togethers with our own kind and she was right. Back when I attended the Kingdom Hall I had so many great, fun times and I always had something to look forward to. Anything the three of us did always involved other 'brothers' and 'sisters' who attended our Kingdom Hall. With the exception of a friendly greeting when we saw them in the hallway, we literally had nothing to do with any of our thirty plus neighbors living in our apartment building.

My mother called them all 'worldlings'.

There was a nice elderly couple who also went to the same Yorkdale congregation. They were very supportive of my mother and always picked us up for the meetings. He was a very wealthy man who owned a printing company that published a weekly Toronto area community newspaper. He always drove a newer big maroon Lincoln Continental. I remember on many hot summer days just looking so forward to the ten minute drive to our Kingdom Hall that evening in his air conditioned car. We never had such a luxury as air conditioning living in our apartment on Flemington Rd. In fact I don’t ever recall even having a big circulating fan in that apartment all the years we lived there.

For some reason I never felt the least bit embarrassed getting in and out of that big Lincoln while dressed up wearing my tie and carrying my briefcase. The sight of a Lincoln pulling into our building's parking lot would be sure to draw the attention of our neighbors. However, our once a week book study meeting on Tuesday nights was a different story. Eventually, our weekly book study would be held at our apartment, but for the first few years it was held at another family’s townhouse up the road in the Jungle. It was just a five minute walk from our apartment so naturally we walked every week.

I fuck’n hated that walk with my mother and brother; I would always walk either far behind or far ahead. I did not want to be associated with them carrying their bibles so proudly in their hands while walking through the Jungle. I would carry my bible in a plastic bag or tuck it up inside my coat during the winter months hoping none of my classmates would see me.

I was only kidding myself.

Everybody who saw me knew exactly who I was, who I was with and where I was going. I was a Jehovah’s Witness walking with my mother and brother to the house up at the corner where some other JW’s lived. I wasn’t really bothered walking back home after book study because it would always be dark out.

Looking back on those early years from the 70's I still can’t believe just how much time I was spending living the Jehovah’s Witness way of life. Over ten hours a week I spent studying and preparing for meetings, attending meetings and going out into service. There was not a lot of free time, especially during the school year. Whatever free time I did have was always used as a bargaining chip for my mother and if I got out of line or failed to live up to her lofty expectations I would be grounded.

My mother was very strict with both of us. She was a single mother raising two boys in a housing project. The problem was everything with her was cut and dry, black or white; there was no grey area with my mother.

At first whenever my brother or me got out of line we got an old-fashioned spanking. I was never hit anywhere but on my ass and she never slapped me in the face with her bare hand or fist. I never remember being spanked while we lived at my grandmother's, but once we moved into our Jungle apartment punishment would now be part of the strict regime that I would be subjected to. As much as those spankings hurt, once they were done they were done. Grounding was a whole different story and after my mother discovered grounding as a way of punishment, the spankings stopped completely.

I fuck’n hated being grounded, yet as much as I hated it, it seemed like I was always grounded. There was no rhyme or reason to my mother’s grounding. She would not hesitate to ground either my brother or me for weeks at a time for even the smallest, minor infractions.

One of my mother’s rules was that we do not accept money ever from strangers or 'worldlings'.

I vividly remember one incident regarding my brother on a hot summer day while he was walking home from school. He was in grade one or two at the time. I guess one of his school friends had given him a nickel to buy a Mr. Freeze. I was already at home and I could see my brother from a distance walking home over the bridge with some of his school chums.

He was eating the Mr. Freeze.

He knew that he would have to have whatever he was eating finished by the time he got to our apartment. Otherwise he would evoke the wrath of our mother. When I looked again out my bedroom window he was walking through our parking lot alone with nothing in his hand. Once he got up to our apartment my mother knew right away he had eaten a blue Mr. Freeze because his mouth and lips were colored blue. When she questioned him about taking money from someone to buy a Mr. Freeze, my brother lied. Not realizing his lips were blue, he told my mother that he did not take any money and he did not eat a Mr. Freeze. My mother was furious that one he had lied and two he had taken money from someone he was forbidden to.

Without any hesitation, she grounded my brother for three weeks.

Three fuck’n weeks, I kid you not.

Once my mother grounded either my brother or me there would be no mercy, no reprieve for good behavior. Once we were sentenced it was carved in stone and our sentence would be served in full at 11 Flemington Road in cell #204.

No exceptions.

This was just one example of how out of touch my mother could be. What my brother did was minor; he took a nickel off another kid and bought a Mr. Freeze on a hot day. He then told a lie when he was questioned by my mother, most likely because he was in fear of her. Fear was exactly how our mother kept both of us in line. The fear of forever being grounded and missing out on the little things we enjoyed doing and looked forward to.

Even though it would take many years, I eventually would no longer live in fear of my mother. I quickly realized that if my teenage life was going to have any sense of normalcy, everything I did would have to be thought out and planned in advance.

I would need to have all my bases covered.

Batter up!