by exwitless 16 Replies latest jw friends
My memorys of 31 years ago include a jw shindig a state park. Our hall had a goodly number of teenagers most had jobs. Several as I remember worked at a waffle house. My memorys of the shingig are that of Steak being the meal of the day, donated by one of the waffle house employes/jw teenagers. It's funny now because that same person is now an elder/sub circuit overseer.
Oh the things we don't talk about, then it's all okay!!!
When I was a witness I went to some enjoyable get togethers and drank and played cards and pictionary and other various games. We used to drink a lot at the get togethers. If I reflect back, I do miss that aspect of my life. But, I will never go back to it. You cant go back everything and everybody has changed.
I guess the lame level depended on who the host was. And maybe it's a cultural thing, but when we used to live in Puerto Rico, our get-togethers were "PARTIES" Good food, and plenty of music (lots of salsa and merengue to dance to). They would frown to playing "american" music- that was consider "risque", but we had fun. If the group at the party was close and not uptight the games were fun also. One of my favorites would be "War Heroes". You should try it sometime. You ask for some volunteers that don't know the game and blind fold them. Bring them in and start telling a story while the other guests watch. Basically you tell them that they will be meeting a "war heroe" or "an accident victim" that doesn't want to be seen because of the condition he's in after his ordeal. And then you start making up the details, the more graphic and disturbing, the better - things like open, oozing wounds, gauged eyes, etc. As you are telling the story you have the blind folded person "touch" the victim in the place where the injury is supposed to be. The fun starts because ahead of time you prepare things for the people to stick their fingers in, sticky, slimy, thick-liquid, etc. Use your imagination. Then you see the power of suggestion- people would freak out when they touched the stuff. It was a huge laugh seeing the reactions. But when I moved to the states, every party was lame!!! Boring with games like what's being mentioned before, no dancing, just people sitting around talking and eating.
I guess the lame level depended on who the host was.
And maybe it's a cultural thing, but when we used to live in Puerto Rico, our get-togethers were "PARTIES"
Good food, and plenty of music (lots of salsa and merengue to dance to). They would frown to playing "american" music- that was consider "risque", but we had fun.
If the group at the party was close and not uptight the games were fun also. One of my favorites would be "War Heroes". You should try it sometime. You ask for some volunteers that don't know the game and blind fold them. Bring them in and start telling a story while the other guests watch. Basically you tell them that they will be meeting a "war heroe" or "an accident victim" that doesn't want to be seen because of the condition he's in after his ordeal. And then you start making up the details, the more graphic and disturbing, the better - things like open, oozing wounds, gauged eyes, etc. As you are telling the story you have the blind folded person "touch" the victim in the place where the injury is supposed to be.
The fun starts because ahead of time you prepare things for the people to stick their fingers in, sticky, slimy, thick-liquid, etc. Use your imagination.
Then you see the power of suggestion- people would freak out when they touched the stuff. It was a huge laugh seeing the reactions.
But when I moved to the states, every party was lame!!! Boring with games like what's being mentioned before, no dancing, just people sitting around talking and eating.
When I was a kid, we had fun congregation get togethers. At that time schools in our area would allow you to rent the gym/cafeteria. We would have a pot-luck dinner and there would be people playing basketball in the gym, kids dancing to music, and maybe some tennis outside (if the school had tennis courts. Congregation picnics were fun, too. But, then they cracked down on big gatherings and then the smaller get togethers at people's homes could be lame.....people would talk later if you had music or it was too loud or you watched a 'bad' movie or basically just had fun. I did have a bunch I ran with when I lived in Indianapolis and we would play cards or board games....and NOT Bible ones. The Eurchre parties were a blast. I do miss the good old days sometimes.
I'm sorry, but I can't really remember any lame ones. We didn't play lame bible games. I can remember going out to a park with everyone. We'd say the prayer, eat fried chiken and potato salad and then we'd all play.
Get togethers at peoples' houses were pretty cool too. We'd play football or other games. It was never all religion all the time.
Once we had one for the kids where we played more standard games like potato sack races, three-legged races, etc. but that's about as lame as it got.
SirNose-Well put. That's just what it was like. There was no real conversation going on. It was all about how spiritually strong and happy you could pass yourself off to be. I can't imagine going to a gathering of non-JWs and someone pulling out the Bible Sharades game!!! Or starting a conversation like, "Wasn't the latest Watchtower great? I just never get tired of reading about how this Wicked System of Things is so very Wicked!" ... Puke!
Yes, and seeing as how an upcoming Borgtower study will be on how to have Elder-Approved Gatherings, I'm sure even the better gatherings might be forced to become even more of a farce. Everything has to be micromanaged...
