Thanks for connecting me to so many lost friends from a different time. But
now there is so much I need to know about people who touched my life in ways
I've never shared.

I had no idea that COBU effected so much or that there was such a bond, I
though it was just me! What happened to Skip O'Neill, Patty Daniels, Timmy
C, George Stazak, Diane Lamonica, Chris Hirtler and his violin, the old
timers. Are they out there?

It all started on the night of September 19th 1974. It was raining and very
cold for that time of year when we (Mike Simpson and I) walk up the steps and
rang the bell to the big white house on Lincoln Street in Worcester,
Massachusetts.

Everyone was there! Bobbie Wipple, Skip O'Neill and Pam, Patty Daniels, Sid
Tooman, Steve Levin, Frank Isabel, George Stazak, Diane Lamonica, Rick
Laverdure, Mike Pappie, and Sweet Debbie, Steve's Wife.

I never looked back, I was fifteen years old with nowhere to go and they took
me in and gave me a home. Skip was a father to me, we did so much together
and the fun we had with his broken down cars. At sixteen I became the
fellowship leader of the Somerville fellowship house.

After three great years of the New England Center, Stewart screwed it all up
by playing around with Gail. I'll never forget the night I overheard Stewart
tell Skip that the next day at the Big Meeting in NJ (the place with the
round stage that KISS just played at) when he brings up his relationship with
Gail, that Skip should stand up and defend what Stewart was doing. Skip
couldn't and didn't do it. Stewart got Dave something from NY Center to come
to his rescue but everybody knew that if Skip didn't sign on, it was all
over.

Soon everything started to change, somehow we all lost hope, we were just
like all the other cults with the crazy leader.  Then NEW YORK and loft life!

I was living in a fellowship apartment on 46th and 9th, Stewart felt I was to
spirited and rebellious so he instructed ------------------ to discipline me each
night with a strip of wood from a pallet, across my back.
I had no where to go so I just took it for several week while I hid my
paychecks.

I came home from work one night and told ---------- that I just came from Jay Street
and Stewart wanted me to move in with Bobbie Wipple who was coming back for
the tenth time. I packed a bag and flew down the street, Paul figured it out
and came after me. Just before he could get his hands on me I closed the door
to the cab and headed to Port Authority Bus Station.

I ran into my buddy Mike Simpson who was coming back from backsliding in Ohio
on his was back to COBU. I couldn't tell him I was leaving who knows what he
would have done to redeem himself. I gave him a dollar to buy a coke and
headed up the ramp. I bought a ticket for the first bus to New England, but I
had a two hour wait. I hid under the buses and watched the red buttons
running through the bus station.

Finally, my bus boarded and just as we began to back out they found me! I
yelled and screamed and the driver finally got them to leave the bus. I was
heading home, my dreams shattered, everyone I knew, I left behind.

Who would ever understand!

 it's time to go back. It's time!

Thanks
Joseph!