COMING OUT OF THE TOWER'S SHADOW

 

BECOMING Mr. SNOW

The Autobiography of 

David DeLane Snow

Some childhood influences

(Humor of the Dick Van Dyke Show, realism from history watching Roots, reality of the Vet Nam Conflict playing out on TV, Science-Fiction of Star Trek and Star Wars gave a hopeful dream of the future and a spark of otherworldly adventures, and the ever real damage to my Mental DNA from the Watchtower's cultic Society, but I had great friends then too; these were just a few of the influences that developed my character). 

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After 1975's failed expectations, one namely: that the Great Day of Jehovah's wrath would come; came and went - my family fled the Watchtower Organization.  My mom and I stayed.  She faded out. Later I faded in my attendance as well.  With no one really "pushing" me to attend the meetings at home, I began to venture out of my shell.  My Junior High friends, like Mike Cope, (Pentecostal), Shannon Love (Atheists), Paul Means, Tony Cox and Troy Heine were all free thinkers. Science-Fiction fans was what tied us all together in bond; yes, we were Nerds before it was cool to be.  I was beyond sheltered in my thinking and these guys loved me, inspired me, and accepted me as I was.  They did not treat me as the Jehovah's Witness kid who "deserved to be persecuted" for being different.  I will forever hold them all in the highest of regard, and yes even love love them very much for their friendship at a time in my life when I needed mental nourishing the most.

   The wicked dangers of Dungeons and Dragons was mentioned in a Watchtower article.  So when Shannon introduced me to Michael Smith and Don Walker as "Dungeon Masters" you can only imagine the horrific terror I felt in my pounding chest! But things were different now; I was questioning things in the open; without fear of reprisal at home.  Courage began that day as I decided, since the family left the Watchtower Society's manipulations I had nothing to be forced back into.  I ventured onward to the mobile park with my junior high friends, to meet these two college guys and face my doom!  To say my entire life was to be placed on a road of fate would be an understatement of the highest order.