### Apollo BBS Archive - March 1, 1990

    Message: 63603
    Author: Jeff Beck
    Category: Chit Chat
    Subject: Twenty-five
    Date: 03/01/90  Time: 01:30:15

    As one abcedarian to another, I feel duty bound to inform you that the Roman
    alphabet -- or rather, our modern adaptation of it -- contains twenty-six
    letters.  This is equal to thirteen times two, or twelve times two plus two:
    perhaps more interestingly, it is also the smallest non-palindromic number
    whose square is palindromic:
    26^2 = 676

    Additionally, twenty-six is equal to the sum of the digits of its cube:
    26^3 = 17576

    I hope you have found this message edifying, rather than stultifying.

    Be seeing you,
    Jeff B.

    (Hey, if it's good enough for Patrick McGoohan...)

    Message: 63604
    Author: Larry Michaels   *  This is me.
    Category: Chit Chat
    Subject: Zak & Dean
    Date: 03/01/90  Time: 02:16:01

    Consider the religious conversion of Duffey Strode, a North Carolina
    schoolboy who has been suspended several times for disrupting school
    activities by shouting hateful, abusive, religious comments at people.  A
    Washington Post article revealed how this boy was introduced to his
    inhumane faith:

    His father, David Strode, came home from work one day when the boy was five
    years old, and described the horrors of "hell" in graphic, terrifying
    terms.  He then told his son, "You are a sinner and you are going hell."
    (The Strode's religion teaches that God is going to punish people for the
    imperfections that God himself created.  The fact that this makes no sense
    never seems to dawn on them.)

    David Strode describes the subsequent conversion of his son in these
    terms:  "Man, those tears begun to run (sic) and he looked at me and he
    said, 'Daddy, I don't want to go to hell.'  I said, 'I know somebody who
    will get you out of hell and his name is Jesus Christ.'"  The young boy who
    had been scared out of his wits said, "Daddy, I want to be saved."

    He does need to be saved, for sure -- not from the imaginary deep-fat fryer
    of "hell", but from his father and the howling hobgoblins of medieval
    superstition.

    My point of this is when the kid turns 18 his father will no longer be
    responsible for the actions of Duffey.  Yet his father is the individual
    that warped his mind, possibly for the rest of his
    But who warped David, the father's mind?  The father's parents most
    likely had a hand (and belt) in it.  Who is GUILTY?  Everyone of us is
    guilty of something, we are an illiterate race of animals who think just
    the opposite is true.

    What is the solution?  It will work itself out in good time but not until
    people realize that the great dividers are race, language and creed.
    Religion, even in the same Order, causes the most separation within a
    so-called united land.

    If there were a loving Father-God wouldn't an intelligent person realize
    that the only thing necessary for successful life is to have a good time and
    get along with all?  It seems so.  But the masses somehow believe that it
    is necessary to worship it, all the while believing that all religions are
    founded in fiction except, of course, the one that they may happen to
    believe in.

    Be prepared to spend the remainder of this life with the majority being
    mental defectives.  Unless of course something really good happens.

    Message: 63607
    Author: Sananat Birnbach
    Category: Chit Chat
    Subject: Toxic Parents
    Date: 03/01/90  Time: 04:41:47

    "THEY NEVER LET ME FORGET HOW I DISGRACED THEM"

    Sandy, 28, a striking brunette who seemed to "have it all," was seriously
    depressed when she first came to see me.  She told me that she was unhappy
    with everything in her life.  She had been a floral designer for several
    years at a prestigious shop.  She had always dreamed of opening her own
    business, but she was convinced that she wasn't smart enough to succeed.
    She was terrified of failure.
         Sandy had also been trying to get pregnant for more than two years,
    with no success.  As we talked, I began to see that her inability to get
    pregnant was causing her to feel strong resentment toward her husband and
    inadequate in their relationship, despite the fact that he sounded genuinely
    understanding and loving.  A recent conversation with her mother had
    aggravated the issue:

         This whole pregnancy has become a real obsession with me.  When I had
    lunch with my mom I told her how disappointed I was.  She said to me, "I'll
    bet it's that abortion you had.  The Lord works in mysterious ways."  I
    haven't been able to stop crying since.  She never lets me forget.

    I asked her about the abortion.  After some initial hesitancy, she told me
    the story:

    It happened when I was in high school.  My parents were very, very strict
    Catholics, so I went to parochial school.  I developed early, and by the
    time I was twelve, I was five-foot-six, weighed one hundred thirty pounds,
    and wore a 36-C bra.  Boys started paying attention to me, and I really like
    it.  It drove my dad crazy.  The first time he caught me kissing a boy
    good-night, he called me a whore so loud that the whole neighborhood heard.
    It was downhill from there.  Every time I went out with a boy, Dad told me I
    was going to hell.  He never let up.  I figured I was damned anyway, so when
    I was fifteen I slept with this guy.  Just my luck, I got pregnant.  When my
    folks found out, they went nuts.  Then I told them I wanted an abortion;
    they totally lost it.  They must have screamed at me about "mortal sin" a
    thousand times.  If I wasn't going to hell already, they were sure this
    would clinch it.  The only way I could get them to sign a consent was to
    threaten to kill myself.

    I asked Sandy how things went for her after the abortion.  She slumped down
    in her chair with a dejected look that made my heart ache.

    "Talk about a fall from grace.  I mean, Dad made me feel horrible enough
    before, but now I felt like I didn't even have a right to exist.  The more
    ashamed I felt, the harder I tried to make things right.

    "I wanted to turn back the clock, get back the love I had when I was little.
     But they never miss a chance to bring it up.  They're like a broken record
    about what I did and how I disgraced them.  I can't blame them.  I should've
    never done what I did--I mean, they had such high moral expectations for me.
     Now I just want to make it up to them for hurting them so bad with my sins.
    So I do anything they want me to do.  It drives my husband crazy.  He and I
    get in these huge fights about it.  But I can't help it.  I just want them
    to forgive me."

    As I listened to this lovely young woman, I was very touched by the
    suffering her parents' behavior had caused her and by how much she needed to
    deny their responsibility for that suffering.  She seemed almost desperate
    to convince me that she was to blame for all that happened to her.  Sandy's
    self-blame was compunded by her parents' unyielding religious beliefs.  I
    knew I had my work cut out for me if Sandy was to see how genuinely cruel
    and emotionally abusive her parents had been to her.  I decided this was not
    a time to be nonjudgmental.

    SUSAN:  You know something?  I'm really angry for that young girl.  I think
    your parents were awful to you.  I think they misused your religion to punish
    you.  I don't think you deserved any of it.
    SANDY:  I committed two mortal sins!
    SUSAN:  Look, you were just a kid.  Maybe you made some mistakes, but you
    don't have to keep paying for them forever.  Even the Church lets you atone
    and get on with your life.  If your parents were as good as you say they
    are, they would have shown some compassion for you.
    SANDY:  They were trying to save my soul.  If they didn't love me so much,
    they wouldn't care.
    SUSAN:  Let's look at this from a different perspective.  What if you hadn't
    had that abortion?  And you had a little girl.  She'd be about sixteen now,
    right?

    Sandy nodded, trying to figure out where I was headed.

    SUSAN:  Suppose she got pregnant?  Would you treat her like your parents
    treated you?
    SANDY:  Not in a million years!

    Sandy realized the implications of what she'd said.

    SUSAN:  You'd be more loving.  And your prents should have been more loving.
    That's their failure, not yours.

    Sandy had spent half her life constructing an elaborate wall of defense.
    Such defensive walls are all too common among adult children of toxic
    parents.  They can be made of a variety of psychological blocks, but the mot
    common, the primary material in Sandy's wall, is a particularly obstinate
    brick called "denial."

    "AREN'T I SUPPOSED TO BE RESPONSIBLE FOR THE WAY I AM?"

    By now you may be thinking, "Wait a minute, Susan.  Almost all the other
    books and experts say I can't blame anybody else for my problems."
         Baloney.  Your parents are accountable for what they did.  Of course,
    you are responsible for your adult life, but that life was largely shaped by
    experiences over which you had no control.  The fact is:

    YOU ARE -NOT- RESPONSIBLE FOR WHAT WAS DONE TO YOU AS A DEFENSELESS CHILD!

    YOU -ARE- RESPONSIBLE FOR TAKING POSITIVE STEPS TO DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT
    NOW!

    Message: 63612
    Author: $ Paul Savage
    Category: Chit Chat
    Subject: Yellow Front
    Date: 03/01/90  Time: 05:38:01

     According to the business section of yesterday's Repulsive, Y.F. is not
    shutting down completely. THey have filed a plan under chapter 11, and
    intend to reduce from 140 some stores to 44. (Or a number in that vicinity.)
    They plan to keep their valley stores, apparently, although with the high
    rate of competition here, and with Wal-Mart planning at least two stores in
    the Phoenix area, I can't imagine why.
     As you said Cliff, who will miss them, really?

    Message: 63613
    Author: $ James Hawley
    Category: Answer!
    Subject: Last
    Date: 03/01/90  Time: 10:10:38

    I haven't shopped at YF in over 6 years.  Though my brother did work in
    their warehouse (Checker is part of the same company, or it was.).

    Message: 63614
    Author: $ Apollo SYSOP
    Category: Chit Chat
    Subject: Yellow Front
    Date: 03/01/90  Time: 11:55:13

            Well, if they plan to keep their Valley stores...   The two Yellow
    Fronts on Bell and 43rd Ave and Bell and 19th Ave have signs  "OUT OF
    BUSINESS" and are indeed, very closed!   I do believe there is a Yellow
    Front store on Camelback that all remaining goods are being transfered too.
    And... 40% off EVERYTHING!

    Message: 63615
    Author: $ Apollo SYSOP
    Category: Apollo Trivia
    Subject: New Modem
    Date: 03/01/90  Time: 15:00:01

            Online 03/01/90 @ 3:pm

    300/1200/2400 baud...

    The new Prometheus has an external power supply and consists of very few IC
    chips on a rather small board.

    Let's FLY......

    *=* the 'Mighty' Apollo SYSOP *=*

    Message: 63616
    Author: $ Zak Woodruff
    Category: Chit Chat
    Subject: Jeff Beck
    Date: 03/01/90  Time: 16:38:42

         Do you have some sort of mathemetician's book about unusual properties
    of numbers (RE: 26), or are you simply an idiot savant?

    Message: 63617
    Author: $ Apollo SYSOP
    Category: Apollo Trivia
    Subject: Modem tests
    Date: 03/01/90  Time: 17:27:54

            I have been logging in heavily the last two hours testing the modem
    response.  So far, excellent!   And it is also very cool compared to its
    older brother who is now tied to MY personal AT computer.  The 1200 I had on
    the AT is now on my Sanyo 555 system.

            By the way, this new modem for the BBS is sponsored by Hawley
    Locksmithing, the Low Cost Mobile Locksmith.  If you have lock troubles by
    golly, call Hawley!  277-9595   Fast mobile phone service.
    GM Tilt Column Repair/Automotive/Commercial/Residential.........

    Listed in the Yellow Pages and Apollo's  cmd in ain menu!

    *=* the 'Mighty' Apollo SYSOP *=**=* the 'Mighty' Apollo SYSOP *=*

    Message: 63618
    Author: Mike Carter
    Category: Joke
    Subject: last
    Date: 03/01/90  Time: 19:31:55

    Last before last...

    "Let's FLY" ??????

    When you run a Telebit Trailblazer you can then claim speed.

    Message: 63619
    Author: Mike Carter
    Category: Answer!
    Subject: Cliff
    Date: 03/01/90  Time: 19:36:05

    Since our phone number was "trashed" with the printout, it musn't
    be that important for you to keep friends (?) phone numbers.
    Well, I guess I'll have to just mosey over and remind you one of
    these days.
    Well, off to work with me..

            -Mike

    Message: 63620
    Author: $ Apollo SYSOP
    Category: Chit Chat
    Subject: last on Mike
    Date: 03/01/90  Time: 19:48:37

            Let's Fly, was not ment to mean SPEED.....  It was ment the new
    modem was ready to play the game.... Speaking of SPEED...  I see you log in
    at a slow 1200?   Try a faster program and... 2400 baud...

            I somehow knew you would slam my tossing out of an old printout. It
    was replaced by a new one and I gave it no thought that I needed numbers
    that were on it.  After I ripped it up into thousands of pieces and tossed
    it, then I remembered. I lost a few other numbers I would have liked to
    keep, so don't feel pregnant!

            Sure, visit me Mike...  I would like that VERY much!  Have a beer
    and talk old times....  (Or Pepsi)   Maybe I will even give you a 9mm demo
    bullet! ha ha ha ha

    Cliff   *=* the SysOp that cares *=*

    Message: 63622
    Author: Jeff Beck
    Category: Answer!
    Subject: Zak/idiot savant
    Date: 03/01/90  Time: 20:49:29

    Evidently not, but rather, a lusus naturae.  Ignotum per ignotius.

    Message: 63623
    Author: $ Daryl Westfall
    Category: Joke
    Subject:  ^^^^
    Date: 03/01/90  Time: 22:19:46

    What do you get when you cross an insomniac, an agnostic, and a dyslexic?

    Someone who stays up all night wondering if there really is a dog.

    Message: 63624
    Author: $ Daryl Westfall
    Category: Joke
    Subject: Talent
    Date: 03/01/90  Time: 22:24:44

    "Musically, we are more talented than any Bob Dylan...than Paul McCartney.
    Mick Jagger, his lines are not clear. He don't know how he should produce
    a sound. I'm the new modern rock and roll. I'm the new Elvis."

                              - Rob Pilatus of MILLI VANILLI

    [Don't laugh too hard now, I think he's serious.]

    Message: 63625
    Author: $ Apollo SYSOP
    Category: Apollo Trivia
    Subject: FAILURE!!!!
    Date: 03/01/90  Time: 22:57:27

            The new modem bit the big one.....  well, they always say this
    electronic stuff will either fail in the first few hours of life, or live
    forever.   The backup is back on line till the new modem is REPLACED!

    Believe me, Hawley's Locksmithing is better then the modem he supplied me.

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