I think the best memory lately has been getting a phone call telling you that the meeting has been cancelled.
I was not born in, but I have noticed a definite trend. During the late 1980s and early 1990s, there would be occasional events. Sometimes, a pavilion in the park would be rented and we would play sports and other things, with music (albeit bland) playing. There were quite a few gatherings arranged by families during that period.
Then, about 1994 or 1995, I noticed the change. No longer were there any picnics or gatherings of that nature. The activities following sessions of the Grand Boasting Session gradually ground to a halt. It was now all about sitting in the car, finding a place to eat (in your suit, with your badge of embarrassment still on), and then finding your room for the night.
With the late 1990s, they have noticed that people are using the Internet as a substitute for physical gatherings. And, they go and crack down on that. They cite the apostates that could infiltrate those sites (which could in fact happen, but more likely someone that joins the site could later turn apostate). And now they are totally cracking down, citing MySpace and Internet Bible study groups as being particularly bad.
Now, the typical witless lifestyle consists of little more than boasting sessions set at regular intervals through the week. Field circus dominates the in-between space. Studying for talks, preparing for the boasting sessions, and that weekly "Bible" study dominate. Gone are recreational trips to camping or hiking, sports, being able to play a game that does not have those damn Watchtower trivia cards, or just plain making a Christmas snowman. Notably, all this banning of entertainment has been going on since the beginning of the 1980s.
And, I think it's going to get even worse. It is only a matter of time before they take the last pockets of normal life away. You might see coffee being banned. You might see them enact and enforce strict guidelines about breaks, and demand strict accounts about how each 15 minutes in field circus was spent. They might even do away with breaks altogether. They might also start enforcing having everyone getting up at 5:30 in the morning, no matter what, to be at the Kingdumb Hell for street work and finishing at 1:00 AM or later the next morning with letter writing. All free time will be totally scoured out of the lives of the witlesses. All that will be left is constant, high pressure salesmanship. I am just waiting to see Kool-Aid articles or letters to this effect, or hounder-hounder visits cracking down, or Grand Boasting Sessions where they do away with those nuggets of normalcy.
