Nope….missed it. Thanks Mom and Dad….I could have been living in Colorado City with 8 wives and 34 children…..or in Salt Lake City with 1 wife and 34 children. But it was not to be.

I went through religions like popcorn when I was growing up….tried them all. Even the ones on the backs of matchbooks and in the advertisements of Popular Science. Thought I was going to Hell for touching myself and thinking impure thoughts of Janie Simpson. My Catholic friends didn’t help me out either. They were so guilt ridden they could barely pass water without the Padre’s say so. I confided to them I discovered a very novel way of entertaining myself and they said I was going to Hell! Why? They had no idea….something about spreading seeds outside of a woman’s womb. I was a kid not a farmer! Women were still a few years down the road. Wasn’t there a loophole? Nope.

So one summer two dapper young men wearing ties and sweating in the summer heat entered my little backwater town looking for souls to save and 10% of future earnings. I had a paper route….how many candles would that buy? Their names were Elder Pelicai and Elder Peck and they were very cordial young men. I first met them at the local park while we were playing football and they wanted to join us. Hell no these guys looked like college players. We looked like paperboys that live on lizards. But they insisted.

They said they would pick teams and play against each other. Great. I guess we knew who was going to play quarterback…..and they did. Of course they weren’t out to beat us they were out to build our confidence by intentionally missing tackles and gaslighting us into their belief system. Cool as long as I score two touchdowns you can tell me whatever you want and they did.

After the game they said they were going to be in town for only a short time so we better decide quick if we wanted to live in eternal love or a small town in Death Valley. Something like that. I wanted to play ball…quit talking! But they didn’t.

They convinced my friend Pat’s parents to host their indoctrination ….er…prayer group. We were all given a brand new white tee shirt from Sears with the initials LDS stenciled on them. No high tech embroidery….just spray paint and some stencils. Cool.

We were all given a copy of the Book Of Mormon….Joesph Smith’s masterwork taken from gold tablets that would have required a fork lift to carry…but that didn’t dissuade Joe. He muscled up and took them to his home where he would interpret the tablets behind a blanket he hung on a rope to his wife that served him water between writing cramps. When people asked him to show them the tablets that weigh several hundred pounds old Joe said that an angel named Moroni….love that name….came and took them away. Nothing to see here…. Carry on….and they did….right into my little town.

Now of course neither of the Elders told us that story….I mean they wanted recruits not deserters. Every time we would read a chapter or memorize something from the book they would spray paint a symbol in a different color on our shirt. A square. Triangle. Circle and I think a star. If you completed the course you ended up looking like a Mason on acid. But that was cool because they were going to take us camping.

It was fantastic. Camping. I loved it. Sign me up. I will swallow any fable if you let me pitch my tent next to a stream twice each summer! I wanted to be a Mormon! I already had the haircut. Suit and tie were hanging in a store downtown that reeked of mothballs but they had a nice tweed number that would fit me perfectly because once I got approval from my parents they were going to take all of us to the Oakland Temple!

I rode my Stingray bike home with the approval slip in my back pocket already thinking how dapper I was going to look in that new suit. Anything for camping. I threw the bike on the lawn….ran inside the house and slammed the door behind me. My parents told me to settle down. I pulled the paper out of my pocket and thrust it in my parents faces. Sign it….I demanded. My parents looked at each other and read the paper. It took them much longer than necessary so I knew they were formulating a reason to say no. Yes takes seconds. No takes forever.

My Dad looked at me and said he would think about it! No! I needed an answer….NOW! Ok…than the answer is no. But why? Because you are too young. What….to young to go camping? I can pee by myself…what is the problem? No Wolf…..the Temple will have to wait. You need to make that decision on your own later in life.

What a crock! Reasoning doesn’t work on a temperamental 12 year old. Hey but I was their slave. Mowing the damn lawn and the neighbor’s lawn and their neighbor’s lawn with a crappy Western Auto mower with a crank on the top! Screw this!

I went to my room and dreamed of golden temples until about 6 years later when Buddha came into my life for a year or two. But there weren’t any camping trips to hold my attention so I move on…… ; )

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jkkFL
Guest

Wolf,
I am female. I had no idea boys were Really as bad as Mom said they were!
Now, I eagerly await part two. (The part where you tell us our parents were right, and what you had to do to recover from all that sinning at such a young age..)

Smiley
Keeping you in my prayers!

Abbyrose86
Member

What a great story. I was raised Catholic…and I can relate to the guilt thing of your Catholic friends! I still have it, even though I left the religion ALONG time ago…the guilt thing is ALWAYS there!

I never had any interaction with any Mormons, but we get a lot of Jehovah Witness recruiters at our door…I don’t answer. That way I don’t have to listen to them OR feel guilty for closing the door in their faces.

It works for me! 🙂

BigDogMom
Member
BigDogMom

Morning Abby, with the JW’s, I usually unless the beast, an 85 lb. dog frothing at the mouth because someone dared to knock on the door works like a charm…they skip my house now.

Abbyrose86
Member

Morning BDM….dogs are wonderful deterrent for those we don’t want out our homes, aren’t they?!

I like it! 🙂

BigDogMom
Member
BigDogMom

@Abby-What I find fascinating is that my dog(s) know exactly who to bark and growl at, why only at the JW’s or when the young Mormon men that come around? Why not the Pizza man or the kids asking for donations for their Pop Warner Football league?

Animals know instinctively when they feel threatened, to me it shows that what these religions offer is not very healthy for anyone.

Abbyrose86
Member

I know exactly what you mean BDM…I’m a firm believer that if my DOG doesn’t like you or trust you, I’m listening to her!

jkkFL
Guest

@Wolf- ya might not want to drop in on BDM without calling!
She says the beast ‘knows’ bad people 🙂

AlphaBitch
Member
AlphaBitch

Hey Abby: I used to do the same. Now I like to open the door, listen to them for a minute or two, and then tell them: “Sorry, but i believe in Jesus.” And then I shut the door. It confuses them terribly, and only wastes a few minutes of my time!

Kalima
Admin

Catholics come door to door in the U.S. AB, I’ve never heard of this in any other country or in my time in Europe and the U.K. That’s not the usual thing we do, and it’s a first for me. We believe in Jesus no mistake about it.

AlphaBitch
Member
AlphaBitch

Can’t edit – needed to. I do that because they also believe in Jesus. It’s not that I think they don’t, or that I think of myself as a typical Christian. I’m not. I’m pretty open minded and embracing of ALL beliefs – great on ya, if it floats your boat. I just don’t like anyone telling me how or what to believe. Period.

Thefoxislaur
Member
Thefoxislaur

Hi Wolf,

Bad Catholic girl here. When I was in second grade I had to receive the sacrament of confession before I could receive communion. Think about it, how many sins can a sweet innocent 8 year old girl like me be guilty of? Somehow I knew this was a bogus way to spend 20-30 minutes on a beautiful Saturday afternoon. I decided to stir things up a bit, I always confessed I had impure thoughts for two years or so until my parents made us stop going to confession. I’m sure Father Fr….knew it was me after awhile. I am from a family of ten kids, how can you not get impure thoughts when you finally find out how babies are made?:))

PocketWatch
Member

Hi, Foxxy… “… bad Catholic girl…” Is there any other kind? I spent 8 years in a Catholic grade school… so I know.

😈

Kalima
Admin

Yes, I was a good girl, still am. 🙂 I left Catholic school when I was nine and we moved to another country, the schools were all full in the U.K. and I couldn’t get in. That’s my excuse and I’m sticking to it. 🙂

PocketWatch
Member

Kali – Ahhhhh…. well you left too young to be corrupted by us bad bad boys!

Kalima
Admin

I did a lot of catching up later. 😉

Redemption Song II
Guest
Redemption Song II

Very, very good mommy and daddy for saying, “No.” (When the scout master said that I needn’t go to camp with my first grader, my reply was, “Of course I do.” And that was the end of that.)

BigDogMom
Member
BigDogMom

Great story Wolf, eight wives would have been a big hassle anyway… 🙂

(Stories like this make me glad that all that happened to me growing up was the liberal UCC summer camp, siting around the camp fire singing Dylan songs,cleaning the trails and seeing who could be more hip at 13 yrs. old!)

PocketWatch
Member

I had a girlfriend for a short time when I was about 20 who had a method that was somewhat unique for getting these guys to stop ringing her doorbell…

She’d wear a scarf that was … um… diaphanous… tied around her as a halter top and some short-short-short-shorts and nothing else when she answered the door.

They literally ran away. I didn’t.

Thefoxislaur
Member
Thefoxislaur

Ha, LOL! Question, during your years in Catholic grade school, how many times were you pulled aside and given the talk about entering the seminary? I remember when my brother Denny AKA (Dennis the Menace) and he was always in trouble would come home and share that at the dinner table. My older sibs just laughed while my Mom and Dad had to suppress all emotions. I know my Dad was trying so hard to hold the laughter in. Hell, Denny had girl friends starting in Kindergarten, he never let up. By the time I was in 7th grade and the last year I had a nun for a teacher, Sr. Yvonne never posed the convent question to me. She was too busy calling my parents and warning them I was a prostitute in the making, being a cheerleader that could do the splits, what other path was I destined for?

PocketWatch
Member

fox – LOL!

Did you wear patent leather shoes? Just askin’ !!!!! Smiley

Actually, I thought about being a priest or maybe a Benedictine monk for a long while. Even spoke with my folks about it. My mom, thank all the gods, told me to wait until I was out of HS before deciding.

Smiley

LisaDi9
Member
LisaDi9

PW
I had to wear Patent Leather shoes
why do you ask?

PocketWatch
Member

Lisa – That old myth among us boys about the toes of patent leather shoes acting like a mirror and you could see up a girl’s dress…. never heard that one? LOL The nuns used to frown on girls wearing patent leather shoes..

We were a nasty-minded bunch of little Catholics!

LisaDi9
Member
LisaDi9

I hated my patent leather shoes…
they pinched my toes.
I never knew that…good to know…

LisaDi9
Member
LisaDi9

Did you not think…watching these “dapper men” that something must of been ‘UP”

I finally broke the code…they have stopped ringing my door bell….something about witch craft and their respective tenders……
I have to go……my daily brew has to be refreshed…..

BTW: Great story…very funny…keep it up Wolf

ScottyBob
Member
ScottyBob

I could tell you some holy rolling stories that would blow your mind.

ParadisePlacebo74
Member
ParadisePlacebo74

Great story, and well written. I sometimes imagine what it would be like to magically travel back, like in Dickens’ A Christmas Carol, and observe the events of my past with my adult mind. How much of what was going on around me did I miss? How much of it do I remember correctly? How many times did a seemingly unimportant event completely change my path in life? Of course, I’ll never know. I don’t have children (so far), but it’s at those moments of reflection that I begin to understand what must be going through a parent’s mind everytime they offer up that ever-so-heartbreaking “no”.

2ndClassCitizenPundit
Member

The Episcopalians sent me to summer camp once.

That’s where I learned about marijuana, masturbation, and what girls really want.

LisaDi9
Member
LisaDi9

BWWWWWWAAAAAAAHAHAHAHAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

oldpol2
Member
oldpol2

Hiya Wolf, I enjoyed that. It brought back many memories. My dad was mormon and my mom a lutheran.I attended those and many other churches over the years. I am very spiritual but don’t believe in religions but , I never found one that promised me camping.

coveark
Member
coveark

I can certainly relate. Neat story, Thanks.