Navigating My Way Into Adulthood.

My last year of high school would finally see me begin my long awaited departure from the Kingdom Hall and the Yorkdale congregation. I had worked as a vendor selling concessions during the Blue Jays inaugural season in 1977 and I missed a lot of meetings that summer. Whenever the Jays played a weekend series at home and if the weather was good, I would work all four games. I would be missing both the Thursday and Sunday meetings as well I would not be going out into service.

God, how I loved those Blue Jays homestands.

Working at the ballpark was a real eye opener for me and I realized during that summer that there was so much I was missing out on. I was now earning my own pocket money and I was slowly and gradually beginning to taste freedom. The freedom from both my fanatical mother and her controlling religion.

It tasted great.

Although, I still had to tread cautiously as I was still living under my mother’s roof. There were still rules I had to obey and I was in no position to be out on my own.

Remember, I was only earning peanuts selling peanuts.

I was now just sporadically going to the meetings, but I was no longer going out into service or giving bible talks. I was now just associating with my one Witness friend who like me also began pulling away from the Kingdom Hall. It was as if a switch had been flipped inside both of our heads at the same time and together we were both turning off the JW way of life.

At the few meetings I did attend, many friends now considered me a bad influence and were not so eager to be seen in my company. All of their self-righteous my shit doesn’t stink attitude only concealed the hypocrisy within their own lives. Sure, they were all nice to me when they saw me, but they wanted nothing to do with me outside of the Kingdom Hall.

I was now an outcast, a rebel and as one friends mother told me that summer from the hit Van Halen single I was running with the devil. Some of the elders began to look down on me with disdain. Many times my mother told me how the elders always said that they always knew where they stood with me.

"Mike never pulls any punches and he always speaks exactly what is on his mind," they had told her.

They knew with the exception of a few that I didn’t like them. Sadly this could not be said for most of my two faced, goody-two-shoes Witness friends within our congregation.

So where are they all now?

Just like me they have all left the Jehovah’s Witnesses and the Kingdom Hall. We are all now the 'worldlings' that our parents always forbid us ever to associate with while growing up.

The Witnesses publish many bible study aids; I know this to be a fact because I myself was forced to study so many of them. Too many in fact. Back in 1976 the Witnesses published a little red hardcover book titled 'Your Youth Getting the Best of It'. The 192 page book was written to help teenagers navigate their way into adulthood. At the time I too was a sixteen year old teenager also preparing to navigate my way into adulthood.

However, I would be doing it my own way.

In a last ditch effort to save my lost soul, my mother asked if I would have a book study with a 'brother' from our hall. I think she assumed that by me not having a father figure in our home, it was a contributing factor as to why I had lost my way. Meanwhile my younger brother was eagerly grasping onto everything that the Jehovah’s Witnesses had to offer. So much so that he like many other teenagers in our congregation would be dedicating his life through baptism to his God Jehovah. And like me, my brother also had no father figure in our home.

Go figure.

Anyways, I guess to make my mother happy I agreed to the book study. Dave was a 'brother' who was in his mid-twenties and was an exemplary role model as to what my mother could only have dreamt I would someday become. If there was a poster boy as to what my mother’s idea of a perfect 'brother' was, it would be Dave.

Dave would now be my once a week father figure. I liked Dave, he was a good guy and he was not as fanatical or righteous as some of my mother’s other exemplary role models. Dave had not grown up a Jehovah’s Witness. Instead, he was a high school athlete heading to University on a football scholarship. Many believed someday Dave would play professional football in the CFL. Just like my mother, it would be a knock on the door that would forever change Dave’s life. Both Dave and his mother began a bible study with the Witnesses and soon after Dave would be forgoing his scholastic sports scholarship and any potential football career. Both he and his mom would also be dedicating their lives to Jehovah.

Dave’s story always reminded me of the Tom Edur story.

Who’s Tom Edur?

Back in the 70's, Tom Edur was a professional hockey player who played a couple seasons in the world’s greatest hockey league the NHL. Prior to that Tom had played three seasons in the world’s second greatest hockey league the WHA. In 1979 Tom passed up the opportunity to be teammates with Wayne Gretzky and the Edmonton Oilers after being selected twelfth overall in the expansion draft.

Why?

Tom had given up his professional hockey career to become a Jehovah’s Witness. I kid you not. Tom gave up playing pro hockey in a league that I dreamt every day of playing in. Just to become part of a religion that I dreamt every day getting the hell out of.

If I recall there were well over twenty chapters in the Youth book. Dave and I agreed we would have a one hour bible study every week alone together at my apartment. Each week we would be thoroughly studying and discussing one chapter. I immediately realized I was making a six month commitment which I really didn’t want to do. Each week Dave would also share his own high school experiences while growing up and attempt to give me a heads up of what I could expect going forward also.

Yeah right.

There was absolutely not a snowball’s chance in hell this wimp from the projects would ever encounter anything close to what a popular high school football quarterback would have encountered.

I fuck’n wish I had.

I will never forget the week we studied the chapter dealing with masturbation. Dave explained how giving in to the urge to masturbate was a sign of weakness. And how habitually masturbating was sure to lead to other sexual sins like fornication and homosexuality.

The chapter also explained in great detail the things young people could do to help them shun any urge to pleasure themselves sexually. Teenagers wanting to serve Jehovah were urged to not spend too much time touching their private parts while bathing or showering as this could lead to arousal. They were also urged to wear loose fitting clothes as tight clothing could possibly cause friction leading to pleasurable feelings, arousal and the urge to masturbate.

Oh well I guess its purgatory for me now.

I don’t think Dave and I ever finished studying the Youth book. I will give him credit; he gave it a valiant try and did his best to get me back on the straight and narrow. But I was no longer interested in anything to do with the Watchtower Bible and Tract Society or any of their myopic publications. I was no longer interested in anything to do with the Jehovah’s Witnesses and in the summer of 1978 I stopped attending the Kingdom Hall altogether. At first I remember it was very bittersweet because I had shared so many good times with so many of the friendships that I had developed over the years. It would all now be ending and there would be no more good times and no more friendships.

I was now a 'worldling' in the truest sense of the word.

Should I ever have a change of heart my mother assured me that I would always be welcomed back into the congregation with open arms. But, like everything else it would only be on Jehovah’s terms.

So basically it was either shape up or ship out.

I knew my mother was upset when I finally left, but for years she had to have seen the writing on the wall. I had written it very clearly and it was very legible. My mother diligently planted the seeds of her faith in both my brother and me. For almost a decade she persisted every day in watering those seeds hoping they would someday take root in both of us. In the end only half of her crop would bear any fruit. That fruit being a dedicated God fearing Jehovah’s Witness like herself.

Going forward I would now be planting my own seeds.

In the big picture my mother should have been happy because she was batting .500. As time passed most parents in the Yorkdale congregation would end up striking out completely.

And all their goody-two-shoes kid's shit would end up stinking just like mine.