Plowing Up the Field
PLOWING UP the FIELD
The secret is out! It seems that on Dec. 5, LAST YEAR, there was an Eastern Conference held in Washington, D.C., attended by such stellar worthies as Dr. Bill Young, Ralph Swanson, Sylvan Stein, Carole Yeager, Dick Ferg, Al and Mary Kozak, the Road Show crowd, Perry Miller, Len Hamilton, Lyle Sudrow, Esther Matthews, S. Philip Bennett, and Maxine Bassman. Agreement to give free auditing to other auditors who requested it seems to have been the ONE idea that got past the veto stage. Maybe we got the news late because they think we, too, are in the KNOWING band ... Herbert Druker, who's been Airman-ing at Carswell Air Force Base, Tex., for Lo! these many moons, has been transferred back to New York. And since this is close to Herb's old home, it somewhat offsets the bad weather he'll run into and the fact he had to miss the Second Mid-West Conference...
Martha Courtis reports they so enjoyed their Florida vacation that they're making arrangements to move down there in a year or so. Ann Arbor, Mich., won't be quite the same without the Courtises ... And while we're on the subject of Florida, visitors to Saint Clem's Florida Pearly Gates during the holiday season include Winnie and David Westlake; Dr. Robert and Mary Wilhelm and daughters, Kathy and Chris, of Chicago; Refa and Kenneth Postel of Detroit; Connie Godfrey of New York; and Johnny Braden of Norfolk, Va.... Duane Leazenby has moved into a house trailer at North Highlands, Calif., and that makes us neighbors. We've been living on a wheeled-foundation for more than nine years, now...
Bessie McIlvaine of Fort Worth delayed sending in her ABERREE subscription a long time, hoping to write and tell us how much she, too, liked fried mush. And that reminds us: when we were guests of Pearl and Carroll Hennick in their new Phoenix home during the Congress, one of the surprises they'd cooked up for us was fried mush. Which was a Hennick initiation into the delicacy, but now they swear they're converts ... And to Marjorie Sapp of Atlanta, Ga., who has named her most "retiring" goldfish "Alphia" because he/it is a "rather rakish appearing critter that retires under a lily pad and refuses,to come unless oatmeal is provided", try coaxing him/it out with mush, and see if he's deserving of the name...
A late January visitor to The ABERREE office was Charley Bartleson of San Antonio, who was in Enid to check on whether the students at Vance Air Base had worn the soles off their shoes from dragging their feet while test-flying the two-engined planes. Whether he sold the Air Base any shoes or not, we don't know, but he did sell us on how badly he needed Infinite Card No. 39... And another Infinite, A.L. Kitselman of Reno, Nev., was sent Card No 41 just a day or two after his 41st birthday. Of course, he didn't ask for No. 41, and we didn't know it was his 41st birthday -- but "infinity" is a pretty potent piece of "space"...
And while on the subject of that "divorce capital", "Judge" (No. 41) Kitselman has offered -- for $888.88 -- to teach anyone ALL that Hubbard knows, and in knowing, he says, the "student" will find himself free to become famous, rich, and a leader of men. All that's needed is 10 days of free time, a ticket to Reno, and the $888.88, of course. (More details in the next issue; this one's crowded.)... Jerry Knowlton says that about mid-March, they'll have a new B.Scn. (Baby Scientologist) around their Chicago apartment, and we hope he/she is as good a one as his/her father... A. E. Van Vogt has moved the Hubbard Dianetic Center in Hollywood to a "quieter location". They're now at 7089 Hawthorne Avenue...
Jim Welgos says he hopes Alabama eventually will give him permission to issue students of his "Lessons in Living" the degree of "Nexologist" -- but he's giving himself six years to change his plans. Also, to graduate students who can pass a test by demonstrating "such things as control of weather, fire walking, gravity, light, etc." we wonder if he also can teach the Publisher to get up and light the fire on cold mornings cheerfully... And then there are those who objected to our saying the CECS was a lot of "b.s. (Barrett-Steves)" on the grounds that Steves had his job first. O.K., turn the letters around, we don't care.
Apparently, the vocabulary pertinent to Scientology puzzles a few of our readers. So, in a spirit of revenge or rodomontage, C.F. Evans of Enid wished on us the word "serendipity". Two weeks and 17 dictionaries later, we discovered it meant having the gift of finding valuable things not sought for. Which isn't us.... Dr. John Galusha, of Pueblo, Colo. -- still "on vacation" from the HASI -- is processing in Wickenberg, Ariz... On her way home to Cairo, Ill., our first preclear (1952), Joyce Cantwell, stopped to see if her first auditor really does have the horns they told her in Phoenix that he has. Her son, Bob, was with her.
