Cedu Documentary

Thank you Bill, Rob H., Ed for your insightful input. (Bill you are totally on top of it! Rob H. you were there as well and know the truth. Ed thank you for your concern and understanding of the horrors even though you were lucky enough to have not been in attendance.) Also, Liam thank you so much for taking the large amount of time and energy to devote to the illumination of this particular place of abuse and torment. Your documentary is long overdue. There is nothing better than bringing this crap to life and getting it off of our chest in order to free ourselves of its debilitating hooks. For so long no one has understood, and how could they. The Dan Earle’s and Mel Wasserman’s of this cult have spun Walt Disney rhetoric to teachers, health professional and parents, to name but a few, for what can only be termed a nightmare in Duetchland to the children who were subjected to their vision of what it means to lead a successful life.

Once again, the truth shall set you free.

Chris
First new student at RMA 1982-1984

A Dan Earle experiential education episode:

In November of 1982, roughly two months after having arrived at CEDU/RMA, the 15 to 20 students in attendance were told to assemble at the farm for an impromptu experiential. The whether was very cold. Northern Idaho. 20 degrees. At that time what later became the dorm known as Walden were Dan and Carmen’s electrified residence with hot running water. In the desolate field outside their residence there was a bucket filled with plumbing pipes about 12 inches in length. Dan informed us that we needed to really go for broke and not question the process of what we were doing. He then told us to remove our gloves and select a pipe from the bucket. He told us to clasp the freezing pipe in our bare hands. The pipe was very cold and my hands quickly became numb and turned red, a stinging sensation ran from the palm of my hands down to the tips of my fingers.

When I tried to sit the metal pipe down on the ground because the pain was unbearable Dan and Carmen yelled at me and the other students who were experiencing extreme discomfort. This went on for another ten minutes. People were crying, yelling, some even refusing to “go for broke.”

Finally we were told to put the pipes on the ground. There was a wash bin filled with freezing water, filled prior to our experiential assembly and sitting outside Dan and Carmen’s house.

We were told to submerge our frozen hands in the water. It was funny but the cold water felt warm against my skin compared to the cold metal of the pipe combined with the chilling wind. They had us soak our hands for about five minutes.

We were all very uncomfortable. It was late afternoon. Dusk turning to night in the cold Northern Idaho autumn. I felt like I had frostbite in the tips of my fingers. My hands, along with the rest of the student’s hands, were numb and blue.

We were told not to give into negative thinking. To go for broke. We were very uncomfortable. Then Dan told us to remove our submerged hands from the chilling water and unbutton our coats. This was difficult because my fingers were frozen. I removed my coat and then we were told to take off our flannel shirts and long underwear down to our T-shirts.

We were then instructed to lay down on the cold ground. Dan once again reiterated that we were to keep in mind that this was a growth experience, that we needed to stay focused and not engage in negative thinking. We lay on the ground shivering for about ten minutes, all the while being admonished for wanting to give up and resist the experiential education we were receiving.

My body became numb and weak. Some people cursed and tried to go inside. Dan and Carmen told the people who were being resistive they were copping out, not even trying to trust what was happening.

At the end of five to ten minutes, we were told to grab our jackets and gloves and go into the duplex and sit on the ground in a semicircle. I was blue. My hands and fingers hurt and stung badly as they thawed. We were all shivering profusely. The warmth inside the room made our skin ache. Our teeth chattered.

Inside Dan and Carmen’s living room there was macrame hanging on the walls. Some potted plants. A golden retriever named Ishi spread out comfortably on the carpet. The room was very nicely appointed.

The only furniture in the room were two overstuffed chairs in which Dan and Carmen presided. All of us sat strewn around the floor at their feet. They sipped hot tea from mugs and said nothing for the first few minutes of our thawing.

Then the dialog began. It was angry and confrontational. Dan Earle began talking about how easily we all gave up, how we were unable to remain focused, how we were easily given over to negativity and let this thinking affect
every aspect of our lives.

Someone complained that we were being brainwashed. Dan answered with his usual canned response, “Your brain could use some washing!”

From there it all broke down into a confrontational blur. Carmen could match Dan for loudness and intensity. She sat on the edge of her chair and spewed invective:
“Each and everyone of you shit on your innerchild child everyday! You cover him with lies and mistrust when all he wanted to do is play and have fun. That little boy or girl had no sense of mistrust, but look at how you mistrust this exercise. You do this everyday to yourself and everyone around you….” etc.

Perhaps this is what Dan was referring to in his eulogy to Mel:

“The development and application of an ‘emotional growth curriculum’ based on the sequence of a child’s development created an opportunity for adolescents to review their past in developmental stages and complete missed tasks, thus leading them to a solid sense of self.”

Chris
First new student at RMA 1982-1984

In the fall of 1982 during the one impromptu propheet that Mel Wasserman facilitated along with Dan and Carmen Earle an interesting incident involving my grandfather occurred.

I didn’t find this out until after the Mel Wasserman propheet, but I wondered why, as all of us did, the Bonners Ferry police department had arrived in the early afternoon in the middle of the propheet and was snooping around the property.

Apparently, at some time before noon while we were being yelled at, and were being encouraged to yell at empty chairs of our parents to let the invisible specter of our parents know how much we hated them, my grandfather from Baton Rouge, Louisiana arrived in his truck to visit me. He was very into hunting and he had lived in Alberta, Canada for a number of years in the 70′s after retiring.

My grandfather was perhaps the only person who ever stood up to the RMA/Cedu double speak while I was in attendance at the school.

He was a no nonsense person. From a different generation. Not hip or even remotely confused by the hollow lingo of California pop psychology

He told me years later, he passed away a few years ago, that he arrived at the gates of the property to RMA in his truck. He had been in Canada for two months hunting moose and he had their carcasses strapped over the roof of his camper shell wrapped in packing to prevent the meat from spoiling.

My grandfather said upon arriving at the gate of the school he found the gate shut and blocked with big rocks so that no one could enter the property. He said he rolled some of the rocks away and nudged the gate open with the bumper of the truck.

I had no idea that my grandfather was on the property.

The staff noticed the intruding vehicle driving up the long road to the lodge and sent down 450-pound Neal Wesson, who had been one of the Little Rascals back in the early to mid 30′s and had worked for Mel since the early 70′s, to deal with the situation.

My grandfather told me, after the fact, “Some big fat guy came down and told me that you were in a very special experience and that if I bothered you right then it would disturb the growth you were experiencing and might negatively impact the very special experience you were having. He told me I could come back the next day and see you. I said, ‘That’s my grandson in there, and I just came all the way from Louisiana and I’ve got moose on the truck that are going to go bad. I came way out of my way to see my grandson and you better let me see him.’”

My grandfather told me that the fat man then told him that it was impossible, so my grandfather told him that he had a shotgun in the truck and that if they harmed one hair on my head he would blow his head off.

At this point, still unbeknown to me, Neal went upstairs where we were engaged in our propheet and pulled Dan Earle and Mel Wasserman to the side and explained to them the situation.

The way my grandfather told it, “The first one didn’t work, so after I scared him, he went inside and got this real slick talking fellow (Dan Earle). He thought he was real smooth and was a little more convincing. He told me I could come back tomorrow, said something again about a real special experience. I, once again, told him that I had only a short amount of time, that I couldn’t wait until the next day. But he refused to let me see you.

“I didn’t know what to do. I’d never heard of a place that would deny a family member access to their grandchild. So I drove into Bonners Ferry and went directly to the sheriffs and explained to them that there was this place in the woods, not far from town, that was keeping my grandson from seeing me. I told them they were doing something strange and I could hear loud music coming out of the building and the sound of people crying. I told them that I was worried about the welfare of my grandson and I asked them if they had any information about this place Rocky Mountain Academy.

“They told me that they had never heard of it before. They said they had no idea that there was a boarding school for troubled children operating near Bonners Ferry. They said this was the first they had been told of its existence.”

My grandfather said he gave them the location and told them he thought it was some kind of a cult. The sheriffs promised they would immediately go and check into the place.

I could see through the large windows that overlooked the main lodge when multiple police cars arrived on the property. Mel called Dan over and in hushed tones said something. Dan and Carmen went downstairs and talked with the police.

We were told that we could take a two hour brake and were instructed to be polite to the police if they said anything to us and told to remember we weren’t allowed to discuss the experience we were going through with anyone who had not sat in it with us. Mel quickly ran through a generalized speech about the police and how some of us had old tapes regarding our dealings with them and that we needed to refrain from any conversation with them that was anything other than polite because the police were no longer our enemies. Then Mel disappeared through the back door down to his residence not to reappear again until some four hours later when the propheet was over and the cops were gone.

In the meantime, the deputy sheriffs made their way all over campus accompanied by a very congenial Dan and Carmen Earle (everywhere, that is, except for Mel’s residence).

I was smoking a cigarette on the porch and at one point they passed me and Dan said, “Here’s one of our students” and I smiled and introduced myself. I was a bit taken aback by the police’s suspicious demeanor, but I figured it didn’t have anything to do with me.

In fact the tour took so long, the smoothing over of the edges, that the propheet was cut short.

That day we were never told why the police were there.

It wasn’t until the next day that I was informed by Dan Earle that my grandfather had been on the campus the previous day and had been the cause of all the police activity due to his complaint at the sheriffs department. Dan made it seem as though it was really no big deal, and told me that my grandfather was just older and his generation just didn’t understand the kind of beautiful experience we were going through.

I was shocked and sad. I couldn’t believe I missed my grandfather, that he had been tricked by the spin doctors at RMA. I secretly wondered what would have happened if he would have seen me, and, sadly, I fantasized for many months after that he might return and take me away from that horrible place.

But it didn’t stop there.

The sheriffs department must have felt something strange was happening in the woods near Bonners Ferry, Idaho. They returned the next evening and had a look around the school again.

In fact they returned nearly every week for a month, and even ate dinner with us on several occasions, until Dan and Carmen finally convinced them that what was happening was not odd or out of the ordinary.

After that, the staff always laughed and told the house the funny story of when my grandfather had gotten them in hot water with the local authorities.
Dan Earle said my grandfather was responsible for initiating there public relations campaign with the Bonners Ferry Sheriffs Department.

For years after I graduated from RMA my grandfather would have me tell the story to family members, many of whom felt he had overstepped his bounds. He would say, “You know your grandfather loves you. I went right to the sheriffs and told them those people wouldn’t let me see my grandson and something wasn’t right and they had never even heard of that place before.”

This was in the fall of 1982 during the first few months of RMA’s opening.

It sure would be interesting to see that police report.

Chris Sims
RMA 82-84

“Billy Jack,” the strangely horrible 1971 independent film starring ex-marine turned independent filmmaker Tom Laughlin, was a very integral part of the program at CEDU/RMA. I watched it no less than eight times in the two years I was in attendance at the school from 1982 to 1984.

Whereas “The Prophet” by Kahil Gabran was the bible of CEDU/RMA, “Billy Jack” was its adopted celluloid representation of its dogma much the same as Eisenstien’s silent classic “Intolerence” was to the Russian communist revolution or Leni Refinstahl’s cinematic masterpiece “Triumph of the Will” was to the Nazi Party. The only difference was that the two Russian and German tyrannies actually produced the two startlingly brilliant films themselves whereas CEDU/RMA merely lifted their propaganda piece from a shoddy B movie.

It wasn’t enough to just watch the crappy film. We actually had to have a house meeting every time before it was shown and listen to different staffers testimonials as to the deep meaning the film represented to themselves as well as the important historical aspects it represented in regards to the origins of CEDU.

I remember Dan Earle giving an impassioned speech, replete with tears in his eyes, about how shocked he was the first time he saw the film because as he put it “It was almost like they had made a documentary about CEDU. It was really unbelievable that someone who knew nothing about CEDU was able to make a film about a similar place without having even heard about the school before. Many people are on the same page with CEDU. This proves that you don’t necessarily have to have gone to CEDU to be in touch with the deeper meanings of life, which of course are really the deeper universal meanings known since the dawn of time to people who know themselves.”

The song “One Tin Soldier,” the film’s opening theme performed by Coven (a group which interestingly enough prior to their having performed the opening title to “Billy Jack” had put out one other album featuring the three members on the cover in black and red robes entitled “Witchcraft Destroys Minds and Reaps Souls”) was also a very important propheet song which popped up in numerous propheets. It was played over and over again as a musical accompaniment to our misery in understanding how poorly we were living our lives prior to arriving at the for-profit promised land of CEDU/RMA.

During Christmas of 1981, roughly seven months prior to being sent to CEDU/RMA, I remember being in Hattiesburg, Mississippi for the annual extended family get together. After the large turkey dinner, as was the tradition, all of the relatives gathered in my great aunt’s large living room to let their dinners settle and see if there was something interesting on television to watch collectively. For some reason “Billy Jack,” hardly a yuletide film, was on TV. Someone turned it on and everyone was mesmerized.

My family was comprised of four uncles who were lawyers, my father, who was a chemical engineers, etc., and myself, a fifteen-year-old teenager.

The film was so bad that it was fascinating. My dad and uncles were roaring at the absurdity of its plot line and the poor amateurish quality of the acting. It was kind of like the “Rocky Horror Picture Show.” Every time Jean from the Freedom School, Billy Jack’s girlfriend, would appear on the screen someone in the room would inevitably blurt out “Put some makeup on!” There were numerous impressions and jabs made at the flat acting and poorly delivered lines of the film. One scene, when Jean from the Freedom School narrates Billy Jack’s spiritual path of enlightenment, was particularly memorable: “Billy will be bit by a rattlesnake. If he lives he will be a blood brother to a rattlesnake. If he does not he will be dead.” The flatly delivered lines are followed by an abrupt jump cut of the sun rising with Billy Jack in the foreground wearing an indian head dress holding the rattlesnake in both hands above his head to accompanying dramatic music. I remember someone in my family commenting, “Well, I guess that means he’s a blood brother to a rattlesnake,” and we all laughed until tears ran down our cheeks. The movie was so bad that the participation with my family at Christmas watching it collectively, happily poking fun at it’s shoddiness, marks it as one of the fondest memories I’ve ever had of viewing a film.

But it wasn’t just that the movie was so bad that made it so good. It was, as one of my relatives put it, that it represented the burned out flaky, self important culture of the late 60′s/early 70′s hippie culture and the burgeoning Me Generation that everyone outside of California hated about California, even though the film took place near an indian reservation in Arizona.

(Of course at that time I had no idea the importance this would serve during the next few years of my life.)

I often wonder now when thinking about “Billy Jack.” What it was about the film that so captured the attention of Mel Wasserman and the staff at CEDU. Which characters in the film did the various staff identify with? Did Mel Wasserman see himself as a male version of Jean from the Freedom School? Did Dan Earle cast himself in the role of Billy Jack stridently defending the image and sanctity of CEDU from outside evildoers? Neither the property of CEDU nor RMA were situated on an indian reservation, and most, if not all of the staff, with the exception of Carmen Earle, were white. Similarly CEDU/RMA were certainly not Freedom Schools in name or action. They restricted and made unacceptable almost every freedom imaginable. So what was it about “Billy Jack” that made those in charge of CEDU and RMA see themselves reflected in the characters and plot of the film?

Maybe it was the idea of some outside evil entity, i.e. parents, euphemistically slaughtering the students inner childs prior to our having arrived at CEDU/RMA, that bore in the minds of the staff a resembelance to the evil townspeople slaughtering wild mustangs in the film’s opening credits? Perhaps when Billy Jack was forced to take action against the townspeople who harassed the children as they tried to buy ice cream Mel and his staff saw all of the difficulty they had in selling themselves to the small towns near the remote locations where they had chosen to locate their cults? Who knows for sure? Maybe it was just a cathartic release seeing Billy Jack physically subdue the townspeople in such a way that Mel and Dan and the other staff would have secretly like to have done themselves if the law would have allowed?

I remember during one of my last viewings of the film, a few months prior to my graduating. The whole house assembled for the semi-quarterly viewing of “Billy Jack.” It started with the usual accompanying propagandizing speech by Dan Earle with the standard references of its importance to CEDU/RMA from a historical perspective.
When they showed the film though the desired effect was lost. All of the students in the house laughed and made comments. Once again the film was so bad it was good.

The staff that were supervising nervously tried to subdue us. But it was no use. After all, it was just a movie. From the opening to the end everyone joined in ridiculing the silly film. It was just as fun as it was in Hattiesburg, Mississippi a few years earlier all over again.

After the movie was over, a staff member approached me and three or four older students. He tried to tell us that we were out of line. He said this was a very important film to him. He suggested we were laughing at him and everything the school stood for when we laughed at “Billy Jack.” I remember telling him, “It’s only a movie, Bob. For chrissakes.” And he responded, “Maybe to you it’s only a movie.”

I have to admit upon arriving at CEDU, for the two weeks I was there,prior to driving in a caravan to Bonners Ferry to start RMA, my first impression of the school was that it reminded me of “Billy Jack.” In fact years later one of my friends back home used to always say “I can’t understand why your parents sent you to that Billy Jack school.”

I guess in the final synopsis I was just confused as to why my parents had turned me over to such a horrible B movie version of the world and had allowed its fans to be in control of my life for two years.

I thought they knew that movie sucked.

Chris
CEDU/RMA 82-84

After spending a year at RMA, I received my dating privileges.

Michael Parr, the original teenage bounty hunter (meaning a grown man who hunts teenagers of the rich), who later opened his own for profit child behavior modification school in Colorado, only to have it shut down by the authorities for physically abusing the kids, captured my future girlfriend for $10,000 from a crash pad in San Francisco and plopped her down on a couch in Northern Idaho just as she was crashing on speed.

I was vacuuming the floor in the main lodge of the building when I first saw her. There were only 12 students at RMA. It had been in operation for two months. Only three out of the 12 were girls. The prospects for romance were slim. You had to be there a year in order to receive your dating privileges.

The teenage bounty hunter had bought her to the school sometime in the middle of the previous night. I remember immediately being drawn to her. She was completely oblivious to her surroundings, sleeping soundly. Her hair was blue. It stuck out stiffly in all directions from an application of gelatin. Black mascara ran down her cheeks. But I think it was what was written on her sneaker that really attracted me to her–”Glom, glom, glom, glom, conglomerate” all the way around her shoe ending in a frowning smiley face. As I vacuumed around her sleeping form passed out on the couch, it was this statement, coupled with her punk rock aesthetic that drew me to her.
A day later when I repeated my chore, she was still sleeping on the couch in the living room. But then she started stirring and finally awoke. She sat up from her slumber like some methed-out version of Nosferatu, and asked me “Where the fuck am I?”
“In Northern Idaho.”
“Where?”
“Bonners Ferry, Idaho.”
“What?”
“15 miles from the border of Canada.”
“What the fuck am I doing in fucking Idaho?”

I explained to her that Michael Parr had bought her there from San Francisco. She fell back to sleep.

It was sort of like love at first sight. The possibilities for companionship were slim. But still there was some hope. It was nearly a year before I was granted the right to touch her with the blessing of staff approval.

At that time Carmen Earle was in charge of all dating. Any and everything to do with dating privileges went through her.

Once I had made a decision during my first months of being at RMA to follow their agreements no matter the difficulty those agreements placed upon my personal autonomy, I was given a lot of freedom and responsibility within those restrictive constraints: I was a dorm head. I was in charge of ordering all of the commissary items for the student store. I was the leader of a work crew. I was in charge of Saturday night entertainment. All of these responsible actions, combined with me having sat through the last of the seven propheets, Imagine, led to the final reward of me being allowed to request the possibility of receiving my dating privileges.

Luckily my prospective girlfriend had taken a similar path of responsibility, and since we were both into punk rock music, which we couldn’t talk about, we shared a mutual flowering attraction for one another.

I remember trying to gain an audience with Carmen to discuss my request to be allowed to date. It was difficult. She was very busy. It took me nearly a week of pestering her. Then finally she agreed to meet with me on a Sunday afternoon.

I was 17 at the time and my prospective love interest was 16. You could actually receive your fucking privileges, but you both had to be eighteen. I knew that was out of the question. Besides when it came to dating privileges, it was just like anything at RMA, you had to slowly obtain each level of the privilege, which if you handled appropriately, would lead to another level of the privilege which summarily would build one on top of the other gaining in scope and freedom. But I knew that we would never receive our fucking privileges. She was too young. When we graduated she would only be 17.

There were four levels to the dating scene at RMA: kissing privileges, breast touching privileges, heavy petting privileges, fucking privileges. Each one could only be granted after close review and scrutiny by Carmen Earle. (If you did not stick with the program and tried to jump from one privilege to the other without first getting permission you would lose your dating privileges forever and wind up doing a full time.)

When I finally met with Carmen, a 45-year-old woman with a fiery temperament, it was very awkward and difficult to explain my request. I remember saying, “Carmen, you know, I feel like I have grown so much during the last year at RMA. I mean, so many doors are opening for me. I’ve gotten in touch with so many feelings. I’ve taken on lots of responsibility. I’m learning new things about myself everyday. Can I have my dating privileges?” Then I quickly told her the name of the girl I was interested in dating.

Carmen looked out of the window, put two fingers to her lips, and paused a moment in deep reflection. Then finally she said, “Yes, Chris, I think you a ready for your dating privileges.”

I was elated. Finally after a year, a year of habitual masturbation and total abstinence, I was going to be allowed to grope the object of my desire.

Carmen told me she was going to talk with my perspective girlfriend and see if she felt the same way about me. But first she told me the agreements surrounding being granted my dating privileges. “You must make sure you run a very clean program. Don’t cut corners. Only engage in dating privileges that you have been approved for. In your case that is kissing. At first you may only kiss. You must not go any further than kissing until you receive further approval. Is that understood?”

I eagerly nodded in agreement. Kissing seemed worlds beyond the general isolation of Western Family Lotion and the palm of my hand.

“Secondly, and perhaps most importantly, you must leave the property to go on your date. No dating must ever be done on campus. That is very important. You don’t want one of the younger students stumbling over you on your date while you are kissing. You would make them very jealous. You are one of only four people at RMA who have their dating privileges. If you are caught on campus dating, your privileges will be taken away forever.

“Thirdly you are not allowed to discuss your dating privileges with anyone other than the person you are dating and me. Do I make myself clear?”

I told her that I understood completely the importance and need for discretion.

She asked when I was thinking about going on my first date. I told her I wanted to go see a movie with my prospective girlfriend the following Saturday.

She spoke with the girl. Everything was in place. We went into Bonners Ferry to see the film “Footloose.”

I don’t remember the movie. Just lots of impassioned kissing in the squeaky seats. We left the movie early and continued kissing next to a dumpster by the theater exit. After a while we moved down a side street and kissed more. Then there was more kissing near some railroad tracks. Then back to the secluded space between the dumpster and the exit of the movie theater for yet a little more kissing.

Soon it was three hours later and we had to return to RMA. I was in love, and very frustrated.

A couple of weeks passed, and a few more dates. It was the same each time. We ended up next to the dumpster, etc. The problem was the whole experience was totally frustrating, and we had nowhere to go.

Still, I was determined to reach the next level of groping. Once again, I began soliciting Carmen for an interview. She agreed to speak with me later that day.

It was the same thing all over again. Except this time she debriefed me on the dates, how they were going, and any problems I might be having. I informed her everything was going extremely well. I let her know that I was totally in control of my hormones. I said, that despite the extreme desire to go further, we had remained in agreement and had only kissed. Then I launched into a general overview of my performance at RMA again, my positive experiences, achievements and contributions. Then I ended my assessment abruptly and asked “Can I have my breast touching privileges?” My cheeks were flushed. My heart beat quickly.

Carmen paused and leaned back in her chair. She seemed to be thinking deeply, turning my request over in her mind, as she looked out of the second floor window down onto a field of students sawing wood. “Chris,” she finally said,”it is true, you have grown a great deal. You have stayed in agreement and been a real leader around RMA. You participate actively in raps and prophets. You are doing fantastically well. You are a dorm head and organize Saturday entertainment. Yes, Chris, you can have your breast touching privileges.”

I was elated! Things seemed to be going very well. I couldn’t have been happier. I really was doing well! Now, I had moved onto the next level! I could stay in agreement and touch breasts!

Of course, Carmen had to first speak with my companion and ask her if she wanted her breasts touched. She had to debrief her on the current state of our dating and make certain that we were all on the same page.

I had already discussed my plan with my love interest prior to my latest meeting with Carmine. We both were in agreement that we wanted this. We both felt mature enough to handle this situation. We were almost adults. After all, this is one of the things that young people in love approaching adulthood did together.

As I left the office Carmen noticed the girl I was dating having a conversation in the dinning room area of the main lodge and she called her into the office to discuss the matter with her.

I hung around for a minute talking about the weather with the cook Kindra. I could see Carmen’s hands moving animatedly through the window of the office. She seemed to be saying quite a lot. I hoped the girl that I was dating wouldn’t blow it. I hoped she would just say whatever they wanted to hear so I could fondle her breasts in and around Bonners Ferry, Idaho.

But the suspense was killing me. It was taking too long. So I finally went outside and took a walk down to the pond and waited for my girlfriend (this was our designated meeting spot).

About thirty minutes passed. It seemed like three years. Then finally she came running down from the path to the pond. I could tell by the elated way she was running that our request had been granted: l could touch her breasts. We both embraced joyously.

I said, “She said yes? Right?” She nodded in agreement and then we hugged again.

It was Monday. The dating usually occurred on the weekends. That was four days away. I didn’t want to seem too eager, but I also didn’t want to wait that long either. We had our privileges and we wanted to use them as quickly as possible. I remember trying to come up with a reason to go into town mid-week. But alas I was not able to fabricate a reason and had to wait until the following weekend to implement my concession.

In the meantime I was falling more and more deeply in love with my girlfriend. It was the only form of escapism in the otherwise dreary reality of daily life at RMA. We constantly found opportunities to meet with one another and go on walks, but we didn’t dare “date” on campus due to not wanting to have anything jeopardize the small amount of freedom we were enjoying.

To my surprise I received approval for a mid-week bike ride off of the property with my girlfriend. We were excused from Wednesday raps, which afforded a few hours to explore our sensual desires before dinner.

At the appointed time we rode our bikes off of the property, pretty much just outside the gates of the school. We hid our bikes under some branches and leaves, then hiked a quarter of a mile into the woods where we feverishly fell upon each other.

It was better than I imagined it would be. I touched, pinched, jiggled, and kneaded my girlfriend’s breasts with wild abandon. We kissed and rolled around on the ground. Then there was more groping. Then there was more kissing. We were covered in dirt and leaves.

Three hours passed in what seemed like five minutes. We made sure to follow the agreements, doing nothing more than we were allowed. Then it was time to go back and I helped her put her bra back on. We dusted each other off, smoothed out the rough edges, then found our bikes and peddled back up the road to RMA.

On Friday and Saturday we went to see movies. Our love was really blossoming. We watched about one minute of the movies then left through the emergency exit to our favorite spot next to the dumpster. We moved around to the usual various rendezvous exploring our love.

This went on for two weeks.

But then I was feeling very frustrated. Like I said earlier, due to our age differential, I knew we would never get our fucking privileges, and this in and of itself was very frustrating, but even more frustrating than that was that the wall of exploration was not being pushed forward with what at first seemed like a privilege: breast touching. At first it had been fantastically fun and exciting. I thought about them all the time. They seemed to dominate my young imagination: their pendulous sway was fantastic. But very quickly admiration turned to provocation and we both agreed that we needed more. We needed to go to the next level. We were ready.

Four weeks had lapsed since we first received our dating privileges. Now I had to return to Carmine again and try to convince her that we deserved to have our heavy petting privileges. (We both agreed we needed the release that this privilege would provide.)

I was dreading speaking with her. I was beginning to feel like a pervert. Was my carnal appetite too rapacious? Would it be possible to ask for my heavy petting privileges without seeming lecherous and overly horny? I was scared, but me and my girlfriend discussed it and decided that it was an important level of growth and development we both had to experience together in order to move that much closer to becoming responsible, well adjusted adults.

The next day I waited around for Carmine to get out of a staff meeting. I stood around the office looking busy, ordering supplies for the commissary, waiting for her to emerge so I could schedule a meeting with her. Finally a little bit before lunch she came out of her office, walking briskly in the opposite direction of me. I could have sworn she was avoiding me. But I followed her and told her I needed to speak with her when she had the time. I wanted to reach the next plateau. I was feeling very bold.

“What is it?” she asked.
“It’ll only take a minute.”
“Can it wait until later?”
“I promise it’s quick.”
“You’re sure it can’t wait?”
“Two minutes.”

We made our way to her office. Very quickly, I once again reviewed my past achievements, then, despite my sudden embarrassment, I blurted it out, “Can we have our heavy petting privileges?”

“And this couldn’t wait, Chris?” I knew I was in trouble.
“I didn’t think it was a big deal.”
“Chris, you are doing wonderfully, but you’re moving too fast.”
“It’s been a month.”
“First you get your kissing privilege, then two weeks later you get your breast touching privileges. This is unprecedented.”
“I’m just asking because I wasn’t aware that there was a fixed time for any of these privileges.”
“I understand. There is nothing written in stone about dating privileges because it is up to the discretion of the staff member in charge.”
“How long do you think is an acceptable amount of time to wait to ask for my heavy petting privileges?”
“That is uncertain. You are very young.”
“I’m 17 and very responsible.”
“She’s very young.”
“16,” I said. “That’s about the age that things of this sort happen isn’t it?”
“You are going too fast.”
“I think we’re both ready for this,” I pleaded.
“Why don’t we just keep things the way they are now?”
“Maybe in a month or two?” I pressed.
“Chris, I don’t know if I ever see you getting your heavy petting privileges.”
“I mean I can understand we are both under 18 and we can’t…”
“This is the end of this discussion. You are lucky to be able to kiss and touch breasts. Don’t press the issue. Most people at RMA can only touch themselves.”
“Sure.”

There were more dates. It was all the same. More kissing. More touching. A little dry humping in and around Bonners Ferry. But there was no cathartic release. There was no satisfaction. Each time there was just more fodder for my fantasies that led to more and more self groping.

The bad thing was my maturity level for handling this relationship within the restrictive confines of RMA was very low. I never broke the agreements. I always stopped just short of heavy petting. And the more frustrated I became, the more I perceived frustration as love.

My outlook on the future of my relationship was somewhere in the clouds. I imagined myself living with my girlfriend for the rest of our lives.

But then there was this trip to Europe. There were 6 students chosen to go. Me and my girlfriend were amongst the chosen few. It was 4 weeks in Europe. Everyone was very excited. But unfortunately my father refused to pay any more money beyond tuition for this extracurricular activity. My spot was forfeited to another student and I had to stay behind.

Apparently my girlfriend fell for my replacement while overseas. It was bound to happen: Paris, Berlin, Rome. I knew it before it even happened. I didn’t stand a chance.

When they returned from Europe, my girlfriend and I were finished. I was devastated.

I remember sitting up in the living room of the old lodge ordering supplies for the student store with my best friend and coworker. At that time all of the girl’s dorms were underneath the living room on the backside of the building.
You could hear the muffled sounds of voices coming up from the floorboards beneath our feet.

Much to my chagrin, I could hear the voices of my girlfriend and her new boyfriend spilling through the floorboards. It was clearly audible.

They were not following the agreements.

Boy, I sure felt like an idiot for having followed the rules so closely.

Two weeks later I graduated.

Interesting that CEDU really stood for Charles E. Dederich University, after the founder of Synanon. We were always told that it stood for “You are what you do, not what you say you do.” The acronym CEDU, according to false legend of reinvented folklore, was painted on the mail box of the school by some hippie kid who loved the school for saving him from a lifetime of addiction. At least this is what Dan and Carmen Earle and Mel Wassermen were putting forth as the orgins of the name. I guess by 1982 they were already embarrassed, or afraid to have any association with the hero of their program.

Also, Johnny that was compelling information, about Mr. Diamonds son. Talk about the Twilight Zone.

Chris

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