Wow. It was 45 years ago yesterday that I was baptized a JW. Back when you weren't baptized to an organization.
I was 11. Went to a circuit assembly in Massachusetts with another JW family (Circuit MA #3 at the time), and honest to god, we stayed at The Pioneer Motel!
Baptized in a makeshift pool built in a half constructed, unheated Kingdom Hall - at the end of October. As you can imagine, it was COLD!
The family I went with, the parents are dead. They'd been like my own mom and dad at times. The youngest son, probably 8 then, is now an elder in his mid-50s in my old congregation. He came to my house a few years ago, with the CO, to try to get me to DF myself.
When he sees me, he still says hi. I remember his dad giving him a spanking because he was crying one night when we were supposed to be asleep in a VW bus while camping at a Circuit Assembly in the early 60s. We were so small, we could sleep crosswise in a VW bus!!
I was the best man at his wedding, and he was in mine a few years earlier. When his dad died, and then when his mom was dying, they were living in Florida. Even though I was no longer attending meetings, his mom called me and we talked both times. She'd been like a mom to me, and as hard assed as I was, I cried in both conversations. I remember her feeding me great German food when I was 19 and living on $5 a week for food, and his dad teaching me about graphic design and a love of books, passions he'd had before he became a Witness, and they were simply the children of German immigrants trying to escape the ravages of WW II while making a new life in New York City.
People wonder sometimes why someone can't just leave the Witnesses and never look back. For a lot of us, it's just not that simple. There is so much of our history wrapped up in that experience.
S4