Is it true? John Denver asks any Witnesses to leave his concert!

by Witness 007 49 Replies latest jw experiences

• 

  LisaRose

  Snopes.com had a section on the John Denver/JW/Johny Carson legend and reports it as false. There are other versions with other performers and other groups of people, but the JW version seems the most common. I think if it had actually happened it would have made the news. I was around at the time and remember hearing it and thinking it was silly, as most urban legends are. People sometimes forget what actually happened and falsely remember the legend as having actually happened. Memory is not unchangeable. My husband and I gave a car to my son a year ago. They said we never gave them the title and we were puzzled, we both remember giving it to them. I even seemed to recall the color of the pink slip. What really happened is we couldn't find the title gave them a paperless title transfer doc, not the actual title. Apparently we forgot that, and that memory was altered and merged with an earlier memory of when we received the pink slip four years earlier.

  I have been told many urban legends by people who swear it recently happened to a friend. I know that cannot be true as I heard a different version of the legend years before. That is why eye witness testimony is almost useless. After a robbery, you could ask ten people and get ten different descriptions of the suspect. At best you could find some detail that most agree on. If those ten people then discuss it among themselves, all the stories will change to be more like whoever is the most sure of their story. The others will then be convinced that they remember that detail and it will become part of their "memory". They will be convinced it actually happened and will be offended if you doubt them.
• 

  Apognophos

  Yes, I have noticed this sort of effect in myself. A simple example would be seeing a movie and afterward thinking, "This is what they should have done in that scene." Much later, I actually remember the scene the way I wanted it to go. It's only being able to remember that I'd had a thought about "what they should have done" that allows me to figure out what has happened when I discover a disrepancy between a movie and my memory of it.

  I've also discovered the occasional fictitious memory that was implanted in my head by a dream where I experienced or read some imaginary information and accidentally "learned" it as fact. Since dreams are based on what we learn and experience while conscious, it's entirely possible that someone could (1) hear a story from a friend, then (2) dream it happening before their very eyes, then (3) remember it afterward as "fact".
• 

  Anne Marie 1925

  I only just now discovered that this question regarding John Denver asking any JWs to leave his concert was on the internet...
  
  First of all, this is no "Urban Legend." I remember that this did, indeed, happen at least once....
  
  In 1977 I was staying with a JW sister during the summer convention in San Francisco. During the visit, the subject of John Denver's music came up.
  
  The JW sister told me that she also loved John Denver's music and that she and a group of sisters had purchased tickets to attend one of his concerts together. She told me that just after he was introduced to the audience, and before he began the show, he asked if there were any Jehovah's Witnesses in the audience; that if there were any Jehovah's Witnesses in the audience, he wanted them to leave, "Because I hate Jehovah's Witnesses!" she said that he said.
  
  I was very surprised that John Denver, such a kind and gentle man, should say such a thing, so I asked this JW sister what she did, then; did she leave? "Why should I??" she exclaimed indignantly, "I paid for my ticket!!" and I left it at that...
  
  All these years, when I remember this incident, I wonder what could have happened that John Denver would come to hate Jehovah's Witnesses...did they cost him a relationship?? The loss of a loved one?? Did a loved one bleed to death because they believed in the Watchtower's Blood Doctrine? So I thought I'd Google the question, and this thread came up. Again, John Denver telling Jehovah's Witnesses to leave his concert is NOT an "Urban Legend."
  
  Thank you
• 

  ttdtt

  NO!!!!
• 

  tepidpoultry

  I spent a lot of time tracking the Johnny Carson story, the reason being that a rather straight laced elder told me that he himself saw this show on TV, after going over NBC logs I have concluded that said elder was deluded and/or a liar (not the first that I have known) If you care to redeem this fellow with non anecdotal information, I am listening,

  :0)
• 

  tepidpoultry

  I know another elder who goes around telling all the Jeopardy/NWT bunk, This nonsense made my decision to exit a lot easier as I think that the believability of leadership is rather important in those to whom I entrust my life,

  :0)
• 

  TTWSYF

  I've heard reports of brothers and sisters selling their homes to devote full time to the correct and rightous teachings of the Watchtower and Tract Society. Certainly, this is a great way to spend the short remaining time here before Jehovah ends this evil system of things......

  Oh, wait, wrong rumor
• 

  krismalone

  Yes it is true! John Denver being kicked out of the Johnny Carson show.

  I clearly remember the night I saw that episode. It was the same night that a smurf starting walking out of the Kingdom Hall and cussing.

  On his way out of the Kingdom Hall, a pioneer sister tried to stop the smurf to place a magazine and count her time. When he flipped her off, the pioneer sister said she wasn't afraid as she was the same person that knocked on the door of a serial killer and he didn't harm her because she had 2 angels protecting her. Since this smurf was causing a disruption of the meeting, an elder approached the talking, walking smurf leaving the kingdom hall and offered him a bible study. This elder told the smurf that JW's have the truth because the gameshow Jeopardy had a question about who is the smartest man on earth an the answer was Fred Franz. The same elder also told him about another episode of jeopardy where the question was what is the best bible translation on earth? And the answer was of course the New World Translation. Upon seeing that the smurf didn't want to stay for the rest of the meeting, the elder made an announcement that the smurf is no longer allowed to enter the KH for being mentally diseased and anyone seeing those cartoons will be df.

  Everyone lived happily ever after except the smurf of course for rejecting the truth.
• 

  tepidpoultry

  That was a fine outline brother HOWEVER I will want to huddle after the meeting where I will council you on being a miserable human being (much like John Denver R.I.Lake of Fire (we think) :)
• 

  sparky1

  In the mid-'70's I was a Bethelite at Watchtower Farms. A friend of mine and I drove down to Baltimore in my 1969 Chrysler Newport coupe to attend a John Denver concert. I can't speak for anyone else, but at the concert that I attended, John Denver never said any such thing.