I knew Quinn Tauffer in the SO pretty well. Before he became associated with his current building post. There was a lot to like about him: very extroverted and outgoing, and he had a real love of mechanical things and construction. I am not entirely certain, but pretty sure that he came into the SO at about 12 years old. This was at the Los Angeles base: "PAC".
There were two ranches for SO kids that were close to Los Angeles. One was the Int Ranch, Castile Canyon, out close to Palm Springs and the other was for the kids from PAC. This was called Bouquet Canyon or Canyon Oaks Ranch, out near Palmdale.
People in PAC never heard anything about the conditions at the Int ranch, but looking at the website about it now, it appears to have been a dude ranch compared to the PAC ranch. The PAC ranch had about 250 kids at its peak and would typically have less than a dozen adult personnel assigned to it. My son went there from the time he was about 6 until he was brought to ASHO at about the age of 14.
We were all routed out of the SO when he turned 15 when he and a several other youngsters were considered walking time bombs for the church. The parents of the other kids remained in the SO as their minor children were released to non-SO families in the Los Angeles field. My wife and I were routed out of the SO with our son (as we were in the RPF and considered to be only a notch or two above pond scum) and the other kids' parents (actively on post and still considered valuable) were kept in and convinced that they should have their kids given to public Scientologists as their guardians. These kids were our son's old friends from the ranch. When they heard that we were out, they "blew" the homes of these non-SO families and came to live with us instead. For about two years we housed as many as 13 children of SO members, doing our best to keep them busy and out of serious trouble.
There was some common denominators of these children.
1. They cared A LOT about each other. They grew up with each other and with very little contact with anyone else: not their parents, not other children; just each other. (As the PAC ranch was a two to three hour drive from PAC, and the only time a parent could spend with them was during the Sunday morning you were supposed to be cleaning your berthing, most parents were very rarely able to see their kids, even in the best of circumstances it was much less often than once a week, and then only for an hour or so.)
2. At least for the first couple of years at least after they left, they all had a difficult time getting along with others outside of their group. (I have heard that most of them have pretty much gotten over that since.) Another was that they were all almost completely uneducated. None of them could decently read or write; none of them knew anything about history, math, etc.)
3. They also had incredibly poor at-the-dinner-table manners. They did not know how to hold on to utensils and many of them would eat with their hands, even things like casseroles. I think that this is because they grew up eating at tables with just each other to model their behavior. There was no adult at the table with them showing them how it's done. Might sound minor, but it would really result in some shocked looks when we would go out to eat together!
4. They knew very little of current popular culture, other than that they were current on pop music (they had radio available to them, but TV was banned) and some were pretty decent skateboarders.
5. They also completely completely completely (more than any group of people I have ever encountered) rebelled against adult authority (not all in all a bad thing!)
But the thing that I want to point out about this in regards to Quinn is that the PAC ranch totally sucked at teaching their kids anything, beyond hauling things around, minor construction skills and doing para-military drills (like standing at attention and marching around and all the phoney SO/Naval stuff designed to indoctrinate you into being controlled.)
Perhaps the Int Ranchers fared better. At their site, the "alumni" there say that everyone got personal attention. I think that it was a lot better staffed there.
But Quinn's poor grammar is a product of the understaffed and overwhelmed PAC ranch, I think. (I am not entirely sure that Quinn was ever at the ranch. I think that one of the people in the Alumni video on their site is Quinn's brother, so maybe Quinn had bee an Int Rancher.) There was also a school program at PAC for the minors who were recruited from the ranch to come to PAC to be on staff, ostensibly to get them caught up on their schooling, that was also a complete failure at teaching anyone anything. Perhaps Quinn might have attempted that.
But it is very unlikely that Quinn as any school education at all beyond about the 6th grade. Looking at it in that wise, his letter is something he could be proud of. At least, with some effort on the part of the reader, it's intelligible.
the above is a reply to Tony Oertega's Sunday Funnies regarding Quinn Topher's mailer to other scions looking for more fundraising money original link
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