Collect this post as an NFT.
I grew up in a small rural community in New Brunswick, Canada. Famed as "the geographical centre of New Brunswick". My parents ran a restaurant/gas bar/video rental business that they started the year after I was born.
I started working the take-out window when I was 12. And I continued working there over the years off and on until my Mother passed in 2011 and the business was sold.
Throughout high school I worked evenings and weekends practically all the time to save money for university. I got to serve a LOT of people! And people fascinated me.
One year a new teacher at the school moved into town. He bought a house and he had the most beautiful wife. I don't know where she came from or any details about her, I just remember every time she came and ordered, she was just so lovely. I couldn't stop admiring her, even with the constant bombardment of training saying, "Don't stare! It's rude!".
She had a glow about her. Her eyes were so kind. She could see me when most people only saw the mask. I liked her.
As with most small communities (well before facebook), it didn't take long for the snoops and gossip chains to zero in and try to "sus them out". Most of whom were friendly to your face and skilled vipers behind your back. And I was related to all of them! Lucky me.
The lady obviously thought they were welcome there. And it turned out she was a yoga practitioner. After a few months, she was encouraged to teach yoga by a few of her legit fans and she rented out space at the rec centre to give yoga classes once a week.
It was ALL the buzz!!! She had a packed class every week. "What is this yoga stuff?", I recall people asking. And I didn't know either, just seemed like exercise to me, but a whole lot easier than The 20-Minute Workout blaring on everyone's television at the time!
And then one day I heard a co-worker say, in a hushed and fearful tone "Yoga is of the devil..." I laughed and said, "What? How?" and there was no reason given, just fear of something different.
In under a month from that hushed statement, her classes were suddenly empty. When she came to the restaurant, nobody wanted to wait on her (except me), and another month after that (before the school year even came to an end), they sold their house and moved away. It was like it never happened.
Looking back on that, I'm not sure which local decided this woman needed to be made an example of, but I do know this: whoever it was called themselves a Christian and went to church somewhere and abused this position of "power" to destroy someone who was genuinely trying to give back to the community.
The church (or even the Lodge) is always the fastest route to destroy someone you're jealous of in rural communites, and I took note as an observer exactly how that played out. They took advantage of everyone's "fear of God" and won. There's a good chance the instigator even believed this themselves! Arrogant Ignorance (AI) is in abundance in places like this, especially back in pre-internet times.
Even now, the behaviour continues. They get on Facebook to creep and gather evidence to destroy, almost always using Jesus as a shield. But thankfully, that sword is getting duller and duller as more people do research themselves.
I doubt what happened to that beautiful lady in the 80's could happen again as successfully now, most people know what yoga is. But back then, it was a foreign concept that engendered fear. And that ignorance was manipulated into a weapon.
I wish I could remember her name so I could find her and thank her for shining her light on me and on this community. I would apologize on behalf of all my many hateful relatives for the pain they inflicted on her back then.
She didn't deserve that. She wasn't a witch. She was an angel.
An 80's Witch Hunt Finally got around to setting up paragraph! It works really nice, easy to use and figure out. This is my first post. Let me know what you think! Feedback is welcome. 💜 I have 3000 DEGEN remaining and will distribute it to replies later on today. https://paragraph.xyz/@joely.eth/an-80s-witch-hunt
great read, insta-subscribed, many such cases (Chaucer, Rabelais, BALZAC in The Music Man), and your distinctive voice came through well. I wonder, was content moderation in decentralized social communities on your mind when this story emerged out of your memories? thanks for writing
That's a great question, and yes, it probably was! But I was ignorant of that truth myself until you just said it and I reflected. Indeed the appeal of decentralized social communties has the capability to stop rewarding the bad behaviour from the few. A power shift, but it will likely take a long time.
750 $DEGEN
Awesome to hear! Please don’t hesitate to reach out if you have any feedback or feature requests on Paragraph
It's honestly quite insane to me to read that stuff. I'm lucky to don't have any context for stories like this.
You are fortunate indeed. That's just one story of soooo many for me. Maybe paragraph will be an outlet, to clear a lot of the remnant trash I was exposed to growing up? I don't wanna be a negative Nancy tho, so I'll try to bring some positivity to the stories I decide to tell. Thx for reading it! 🫶
750 $DEGEN
wow i bet it was a jealous wife or a few who didn't want their husbands seeing a beautiful happy woman in town
That's very likely the case. Could also have been one of the men who came onto her and her subsequent rejection stung a little too much. There were many of them around. I was a pretty girl, I knew who all the scumbags were because they tried it on me too. There's a reason my mother didn't want me going anywhere. 🫶
also I like your blog background colour - it sort of matches the lead-tin-yellow colour of our tarot keys
750 $DEGEN
Worked great in frame, lovely writing for a sad story. I hope she found a community that accepted her gifts.
I hope so too. I wonder if she ever considered there were at least one pair of eyes on her that admired her spirit?
Maybe she remembers the kind young lady who’s eyes lingered a little too long lmao 😂
750 $DEGEN
In a gripping story, @joely.eth reflects on their upbringing in a small Canadian town and shares an incident that left a deep impression. The arrival of a new teacher's wife, an angelic yoga practitioner, sparked curiosity, eventually met with fear and rejection due to ignorance and prejudice.