It's seems the Greece thread was being taken over by Barstow talk. I don't want to hijack it further so I'll start a new thread. I also grew up in Barstow. I remember it having 2 big wards and a Spanish branch. And the Barstow stake having thriving wards in Lucerne valley and Big Bear. It was fun to grow up there. There were lots of activities for youth, fun road show a thriving scout program. Now I can't imagine what it's like for the poor kids forced to go to church today.

Anyways I returned to the area a couple of weeks ago for a funeral of a long time well known member of the church in Barstow. The funeral actually took place at the stake center in Apple Valley. I saw quite a few long time Barstow members and their kids and grandkids. I noticed many of the the kids and grandkids appeared to be no longer active members. Many were surprising that they left. But I guess it's just typical of what's happening to the church all over.

Wow. Yes, you must have gone to the funeral of B.E. A very beloved member of the ward and friend of the family for many years.

My parents and a brother still live in Barstow and are active. But my nieces and nephews sure don't have the ward we had. The roadshow competitions in the stake were fierce but we had the secret weapon of The Honey Bears. Girls Camp was the best. I was so bummed when my own daughters were old enough to go to camp and they hated it so much. It was nothing like what they'd heard about from me. Just indoctrination in the woods.

Sometimes I get clicking on people and their connections on Facebook and it always surprises me when I can tell that people who I grew up with in Barstow, or their kids are not active and maybe not even members of the church anymore. Although the majority of them probably are. I always think no one could surprise me, as far as people who leave the church. But occassionally I'll hear about ones who actually do surprise me. But then, I know that it surprised a number of people that I left. Yup. Just typical of what's happening all over the church.

There were two Miss Barstow's that I'm aware of that were Mormon about 32 to 35 years ago. One was the daughter of a Bishop and the other was in a family with a single mom. Would one of those be the one you are referring to. If so, I dated one of them. Perhaps I dodged a bullet or maybe I'm the cause of her current orientation.

I don't want to out her without her permission... With the posting of the list, it would have been easy to ID her.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 10/20/2016 11:17PM by elderolddog.

Yes, I'm thinking of the one whose father was a bishop. I really liked that family and the girl who was Miss Barstow ended up with really bad Crohn's disease a few years into her marriage. When my own daughter was diagnosed in her high school years and struggling badly with it, my mother put the two of them together and former pagent winner really gave my daughter a lot of support and good advice.

But I don't know anything about either of them leaving the church.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 10/21/2016 11:32AM by NormaRae.

Question: Was there a member of the church in Barstow who about 25-30 years ago won Miss Barstow and then later came out as Lesbian?

Hmmmm. Not sure. I've been gone 42 years and only hear what my parents tell me. I'm sure my mom would not tell me that one.

Well now I really feel badly for hijacking the thread. It was a good thread. I apologize to the OP.

Who is this really?



Hmmmmm?

Just a man born and raised near Barstow.

A positive approach needs to be taken on what its like to grow up in the church now.

1. We no longer have all that stressful speculation about exaltation like we used to have. Before we'd have to live through dreams of grandeur of having worlds without number and treasures ad nauseum in heaven. We now understand thanks to the prophetic wisdom of GBH that its all more a couplet than anything and that we really don't know that much about the hereafter. Thus we're focused on a mortality of cheerful loyalty.

2. We no longer have all that stressful wonderment over the last days, returning to Missouri, and getting ready for the year 2000 era and the Second Coming. The stress over talking about it ad nauseum isn't there any more. The Second Coming will come when it will. Rather than focus on a Second Coming we can focus on giving the church a second helping of tithing to build up the Lord's warchest of bank accounts.

3. The youth have many more opportunities to do direct service in the Kingdom. When most of you were in YW/YM you didn't get to do the awesome chapel cleaning assignments as often. The church had janitors. But now the youth are so blessed to be able to clean the Lord's toilets.

4. The youth get to look forward to going to the temple and being able to do more projects there like cleaning the sacred toilets. In the past they had more temple janitors but Heavenly Father was so wise to cut back on such wasteful expenses.

5. A lot of members used to choke on doctrinal meat in the past and this could get contentious. But now we just have plenty of skim milk to keep the gospel more streamlined and easy to absorb.

6. Those pesky Ward budgets used to put all sorts of timewasting activities in there that made us lose focus of the most important things. Now we focus on having more meetings and great sermons to get us spiritually motivated to be more obedient.

7. Those pesky academic people used to create contention with all their deep mysteries. But now we have a better narrow curriculum to make sure we only have to worry about the questions the Brethren want us to worry about. We get to think and learn inside a safe bubble with strong boundaries to protect us from Satan.

8. So much time has now passed since the church's financial statements reports have been released that the risk of contention over such matters is diminishing. We really don't have time to worry about such things anyway as we are so joyously busy in trying to keep up on all the added responsibilities.

9. In the past the members would stress out over what to do in retirement or how to divide up their estates to their heirs. But now thanks to the wise guidance of the Brethren the retirees are replacing church office workers to help cut down on the Lord's administrative expenses and since the church gets all the inheritance that stress is gone.

Isn't this marvelous :)

Here you, all the past Barstow Queens.

http://imperialimage.org/Barstow_PastQueens.html

Looking at the list there is one other Mormon girl that made Miss Barstow about 15 years ago. Another girl was mad that she won and was doing mean things to her so she and a couple of friends toilet papered the mean girl's house. The mean girl's father was a hiway patrolman and got her arrested for felony vandalism and her crown was taken away. Jay Leno actually interviewed her on his show and gave her a scholarship in the amount that was taken from her. It gave Leno a chance to make fun of Barstow which really isn't that difficult. Jay Leno also has a one of a kind hotrod that cost more than half a million dollars that was built by an LDS (sort of) guy that grew up in Barstow.

On my way to barstow I would always stop at the giant thermometer and have greek food.

The Mad Greek.

We stopped to get the strawberry milkshake.

My wife hates Baker with a white hot passion.

Something to do with filthy Subway truck stop bathrooms.

So... filthy lady truck drivers...?

The giant thermometer is at Baker, on the way to Barstow from LV, just to clear things up for the potentially confused.

It is said about Baker that they have a giant magnetic machine that causes cars to break down and/or run out of gas, so you have to pull in and get your car repaired at fantastically pumped up prices.

If you can ever avoid it, do not stop at Baker. 'Course, there ain't no place else to stop.

AND, when you're in Baker don't forget to stop at the alien store (Alien Fresh Jerky). It's fun to get pics with the aliens out front.

All I know about Barstow, is that it's on the edge of the desert, and where the drugs began to take hold...

Yes, Jay Leno always referred to it as "Meth Capital of the World." Johnny Carson called it "Gateway to Daggett."

Crossing from I-5 over to Barstow is the worst piece of road in America. I'm having to do it again in a few weeks and am just dreading it....

Oh, the first part, over the Tehachapis, is fun and senior! But, yeah, the part from Mojave, thru Boron, then over the train tracks just before Kramer Junction and then on into Barstow, yeah...

At least it's not the middle of summer.

Yeah. Tehachipis is beautiful. The rest makes me want to take drugs, it's so gawd awful. And you're always behind slow drivers with one lane each way. Bakersfield seems like an oasis but only in comparison.