I love reading your stories. You fill in gaps for me and the names drift like gentle wisps of cloud through my memory, most not quite coming into focus.
Funny about Herbie and the nails. He always scared me, thundering into the telex room with reams of numbers to be sent mysterious places right this INSTANT. I still check and double check numbers to this day.
I remember Hazel too, I always liked her. I wonder if she will ever read your story?
And royalty Lexie, far up in the stratosphere.
Yeah.
Thanks, I'll possibly get even better at this with practice.
I'm still trying to find you in my memory. By the telex room you mean you worked in the Manor (GOWW) or in External Comm?
Yes, Herbie liked to project a frightening image to everyone but his own team. Even Sibersky didn't find him a pushover. While I was on EPF winter 1972, Herbie had assigned Danger to all Treasury/Finance in the Saint Hill area (going insolvent). They were all put into one Treasury Division (including old Lew Stanley who had been Treasury Aide UKLO - a bogged AO case who just kept doping off all day while writing.) Into this Treasury he just demanded the top 4 IQ scores on the EPF, without us completing Product Zero. In fact I had got stuck for weeks on the first line of the first checksheet, well on the word 'Hubbard'. The supervisor told me I musn't go past any word I didn't FULLY understand. Also if I didn't fully understand any word in the definition...then if that didn't work . break the difficult word down to its roots. Well, in my acid-addled hippy head I had set myself an incredibly high Hidden Standard for what was meant by 'fully understanding' that would have impressed an Oxford professor. So I'd be doping off after reading "Hubbard Communications Office Pol.." then I'd be fast asleep till the Sup (Eddy Marynowicz - ANOTHER Glaswegian) heard the snoring.
So I've got 2 long chains starting from 'Hub' and 'Bard'.
The Hub is the centre around which things revolve.
The Bard is the wise old poet/teacher. See?
So the word means something like 'Poet of the Centre', See?
So they figure I'm not really complete on my HAS Course, since I'm not actually doing 2 hours blinkless TRO without going off on trips or into the blackout zone! Anyway, Herbie just grabs me, my brother Alistair, my friend Margaret and a gorgeous girl called Carol who later married John Collins, Lyn's son and fills up the Treasury org board. Bugger our SO training - Herbie hates the Sea Org. Now our official seniors in AOSHUK and Flag have to direct all orders through Herbie! He's treating us all like proteges, with that twinkle in the eye that I'm sure LRH would have used on DM. He would lecture us nightly, on the tightest, meanest penny-pinching Treasury Policies LRH ever wrote, and how the crazy SO execs had been losing money, wasting money, banking postulate checks, etc....and how we were gonna stop it ever happening again. We're getting full tech-time, pay and liberties when the rest of the crew don't. He keeps going over the Bolivar and explaining repeatedly how you must push power to power. This is what he's always doing for Ron and MSH and it's what he wants us to do for him. I wasn't scared of him but for years me, my brother and the Division would go running to him directly for help when SO seniors reckoned Treasury was 'suppressive...running can't have and stops'. He may even have got me out of an early RPF assignment from Sibersky, as I really was doing a rather stellar job on post and sorting out a massive heap of confused and inaccurate accounts records into the orderly system laid down by the 'Centre-Poet'!
Prior to our assignment. Heather Grafton had been trying to run the whole Income Department herself from the Cashier's Office, with old Lew snoozing down in the Monkey Room, not very useful for running up the hill with the account folder of some new arrival. Herbie found that she was taking in most of the GI. He put two new girls in to quickly train up as Cashier then got CO AOSH to put Hazel on as Chief Registrar. I remember him giving us all a lecture about he and LRH (or maybe just Herbie) had done an investigation in some org into mysterious fluctuations in GI and found eventually that it was how many buttons the Registrar left open on her blouse! Flirtation, even subliminal, was seen to be useful in pushing up the GI. This turned out to be so true that a young American girl (I also fancied, and actually failed to pick up the hankie when it was dropped) Amy Youngman - who had proved pretty useless as Recruiter - was put in as Trainee Reg, changing her name to Aimee to give her prospects something to dream about. To cap it off, Peter Morgan was put in as the charming smoothie with his Irish brogue - for the female prospects. So these reges would sit and ply their prospects with coffee and cigarettes while working out the best possible package for their special friend. Anyway GI went steadily up and as I recall 1973 was a good year all round. Lots of parties, I can always remember Santana booming out over the patch beside the swimming pool, one fine Summer evening when everything seemed hunky dory.
Crikey, what if Hazel does read what I wrote? Do you think I should edit it? I really did like her a lot, although our posts often pushed us into conflict. For ages I shared the same mess as Aimee, Hazel and her lovely daughter Peta, who liked me a lot.
I'm thinking you weren't Sea Org in those days? Do you know what a 'Mess President' is?
Oh yes, this reminiscing is really doing me a power of good. I HAVE had a great life! I'm really delighted with this situation where we're finally sharing all this information. Back then I couldn't believe others didn't see the absurdities creeping in. Now it seems nearly all of us did.
You know one possible reason for the incredible stat push and deprivation towards staff members? Ron told Herbie (or so Herbie said) he wanted enough reserves to keep all of Scientology running for 2 full years without taking a single cent income!
Anyway, thanks for the encouragement, FreetoShine!
Your own story was the first I read on ESMB, I think. With all the stuff that's come back to me since then, it's worth reading again
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