What do you remember about the Conventions? (page 5)

Kinjiro

I remember playing "Absai" in a King David drama and playing an austere elder that mistreated a spiritual 'orphan'..got my ass chewed in the drama by the CO... guess that never happened in real life huh?

I also remember the times when they actually made full cooked meals...scrubbing the pots and cleaning the food mess... also remember cleaning toilet after toilet after toilet...

I also remember never feeling anything special when a new pamphlet or book came out... everybody would cheer and applause and I would just stand there..will there be something new this time?

but above all I remember asking myself..'what the hell am I doing here'? more and more and more... till I realized the answer...NOTHING!

I like the post about ex-cons looking back at prison... although some posts I read here make me think about the movie "The Shawshank Redemption" ... some have spent so many years in that now that they are out they actually dont KNOW what to do with their time and freedom... some wish they were back so the loneliness ends... so sad... BUT NOT ME... as Lynard Skynard so succintly put it..AM AS FREE AS A BIRD NOW AND THIS BIRD YOU'LL NEVER TAME!

Be free, I am ... I am finally at peace... I wish you the same.

babygirl75

Wearing new dresses & shoes and getting together with my girlfriends and scoping out for boys!!!!!!!!!! During the session, writing notes back & forth to each other and looking around the auditorium and trying to find where the boys you like are sitting. Then counting down time for lunch to go find the boys and talk.

breakingfree

When I was a kid in the 80s and early 90s I remember conventions at Warwick Farm Racecourse, Sydney. We used to have to walk for like a km from where we parked the car to get to the grandstands. But I didn't mind cause it was a nice walk. Come to think of it, isn't it pretty ironic that the JWs hired a racecourse and would thereby be supporting the gambling industry? Be a bit of extra temptation for the reformed gambler with many of the odds boards left out in view and even a few horses traning on the track (which were fun to watch during boring talks). Apart from the talks mostly boring me senseless while I ticked of all mentions of 'Jesus' 'Jehovah' 'Satan' and 'Paradise', I enjoyed walking around the grandstands and associated racecourse buildings, it was a lovely place. There was icecream floats in the summer and we mostly sat in a/c comfort upstairs behind glass to watch the sessions, or you watch the tv screens. The book room was vast in those days and I used to like going in there and seeing all the brand new multicoloured books... I just liked the smell of new books. So I have pretty fond memories of the session breaks at Warwick Farm, the sessions were still incredibly boring to me as a child and I ticked each talk off gleefully in a countdown towards the next break. I also liked those assemblies because the family we stayed with were cool, I loved going to their house.

As I got older I just sat there angry about most of the crap coming from the platform. There are no more asseblies at Warwick Farm, maybe they thought it was getting a bit hypocritical?

lancelink

I remember at the circuit assembly, held in Janesville, WI, many of the witnesses stayed at the Midway Motor Lodge several miles away. There was a group of MS's from crystal lake who would bring alcohol and leave their hotel door "unlocked" Well, many of the younger JW's( under 18) would go in, get a drink get out and hit the pool. I found it amazing that nobody ever got in trouble from that. I never was a drinker until my parents started to study with the witnesses, all of a sudden all these spiritual / mature individuals were telling me to start drinking ,, heavily. The po's kids, were the worst, they started me drinking, ( 16 yrs old) and we graduated into smoking, then pot. When the pills started to appear I ditched the group, Anyway, everyone from that group is gone, faded or DF'ed . This organization showed me how 2 faced so called "mature" members could be, although I tried doing the whole religion thing according to the rules, I never really could overlook the hypocrite's from the early days.

Reefton Jack

I agree with the posters who describe the WTS as not being child-friendly.
THAT is what I remember about the conventions, and no, I don't miss the things!

I am only thankful that my father woke up to that from day one, and resisted the pressure that his JW mother put on him to raise his children (two sisters and me) "In the Truth."
Unfortunately, I had to find out the hard way the the JWs are not family friendly, and dragged my children along to the full JW Indoctrination Program, including the conventions.
That is still something that I feel bad about.

Jack.

Mickey mouse

Shooting a sneaky peek at the apostates standing outside with banners as my parents tried to whisk us past whispering "don't look, they're the evil slave"! Most of them looked like JK666's avatar. It was the late 70's/early 80's.

Mickey.

RubaDub

I clearly get flashbacks to the horrible SAS disease that I would get every summer.

The SAS (Stadium Ass Syndrome) would attack my butt by the end of the first day of the assembly and affect me for the rest of the weekend. With the disease, the butt actually takes the form of the seat.

And to make it worse, we were often assigned to Vet Stadium in Philadelphia. A hell-hole if you could ever believe it. The surface/ground level was about 25 feet below the street level which held the heat, no breezes down low.

On top of that, it had Astroturf which just holds more heat. I know at least one brother died there on the field during a demonstration because of the intense heat.

Rub a Dub

aquagirl

Ours were usualy in High Schools.Hanging out in the locker rooms w/my girlfriends,and laughing.The dramas were pretty cool,too{pre mtv days}.The food was bad...It was cool to see other kids my age that were witnesses too...I hated the grilling on the way home in the car tho,so i would have to listen a bit to pick up a few points.luckily i can think on my feet and could always make up some generic 'praise be' phrasiology that would satisfy my dad...new clothes,new shoes{ouch}.getting up early to take care of the animals{we had a farm} so theyd be ok till evening..It was good family time,and I do have a fondness for it.of course I was under 12,when most things outside of the home were quite magical...

What do you remember about the Conventions?

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