Anyone recall asemblies actually being fun? (page 5)

tim hooper

Ha ha! I know that Randy is a man's name in the US. Whereas being randy in the UK means that one is in a high state of sexual excitement.

Bungi Bill

They never, ever, were my idea of fun!

Bill.

KateWild

Well I was a zealous JW, and loved the program. I listened to every talk with intensity and absorbed it all.

This only lasted a short time until I was removed from being a pioneer, then all the CD set in. I noticed all the talks were hypocritical. But I still kept going for years thinking Jehovah would make it right in his own time. He never did so I left. DCs were just a reminder of how I wasn't doing enough for the kingdom to qualify as a pioneer. In reality I didn't qualify because I questioned too much.

Kate xx

Ucantnome

i'd rather go to the dentist

blondie

It helps if you were younger and did not have all the responsibilities, paying for it, driving there and back and forth (parking), watching children (only mothers). I enjoyed the swimming pool, eating at diners and food carts before and after the convention, taking a day or 2 off (8 day conventions) to go the sightseeing, watch tv with channels we did not get at home (no porn). I can remember going to the top of a skyscraper one year.

I am older too and can remember my not so loyal to the WTS doctrine relatives discuss the "new" points and how they meshed or not with the old and whether the "proof" was adequate.

bigmac

the assemblies in my teen years--the 1960's----yes--they were fun. hanging about with dub-mates--looking for girls. i remember edinburgh ( murrayfield ) scotland--in--66 (?) i was 18. camping again in a large tent with several others. much drunkenness. woke up one morning to find a girl in the sleeping bag--next to me. dunno how she got there.

but--i never took the slightest interest in the sessions--none of us did--it was just a bit of a jolly.

it all changed when i got married--in '68---aged 20. my wife was a born in super-brat. a real do-gooder. i think it was '69 or '70-----went to a big one at the old football ground--wembley, London.

sitting in the rain--actually supposed to listen. it meant a long commute each day. it was the turning point for me---last big assembly i ever attended.

AnnOMaly

They were fun when I was a teen/in my 20s and didn't have to sit listening to all the talks - kept busy volunteering (socializing while we worked). I was in the food service and news service departments. Everyone wanted to stop what they were doing and crush their way back to the aisles to watch the epic costume dramas :-) The 'simplification' ruined all that. Knocked the life out of the conventions and assemblies.

tiki

1 remember those three day circuit assemblies where we'd go into a high school and use the auditorium/cafeteria for the weekend were fun for me in a way.....i was a kid and i'd get to see other schools...and i'd spend the whole weekend in some classroom painting signs......"quiet please" "move this way".....etc.....in retrospect it's rather amusing how many signs we'd put out....we were probably sub-consciously milking it.

the yankee stadium conventions were dirty, uncomfortable...you'd leave the hotel clean in the morning and as soon as you hit the sweat/humid/hot/grime of the subway, you felt like a scuz. the bathrooms reeked to high heaven and the waiting lines were abominable. leaving after the sessions you were packed like sardines in a can inching down the ramps - and as a kid i remember obese stinking females ensconcing me like i was the filling in the tart. then the subway - can't tell you how many times i passed out cold.

BUT - the thrill of seeing all your fellow believers - and the thunderous roar of everyone singing in unison was spine tingling! and you'd get the sense that you were in some coccoon and all real life was right there and outside were the demons and evils of the old world that would go up in smoke any day now.

and montreal in 1978...........literally dripping with sweat. and those poor families staying in the tent city - with next to no facilities, mud, rain, humidity.....it was the worst. we were in a hotel thankfully....and i remember just wearing a cotton spaghetti strap sundress with nothing on underneath but undies - and i can't believe i was in public so barely clad - but i was a little skinny thing back then, so nothing to get all (insert your word) up over.

by the time i was in my 40's panic attacks would set in as soon as i'd see a crowd - so our summer convention attendance lessened to the point where my hubby was sick of making all the plans and getting there only to have to turn around and come back home. plus it got to be a waste of money. between hotels/meals a simple weekend could run $1k.......and no fun involved???? that's just wrong.

rowan

They were fun once I turned 8, and then until around 14 yo. I remember the junk food, hot dogs and burgers, soda, cake, etc. It was the one time of the year we could eat all the junk we wanted, then, it was back to healthy foo. And cruising the huge soccer stadiums in Buenos Aires was awsome fun. I got to know every nookk and crany of the Velez Sarfield stadium playing hide and seek. River Plate stadium was too large, I got to explore it well, but I used to dislike getting stuck in the corridors. Seriously, the design of the building was such that when too many people were circulating at the same time, there was pedestrian traffic jam within the stadium (how there were no tragedies with the soccer hooligans slamming into each other I don't know). You could lose a good 30 min of the break in the jam. I still remember the smell in the stadiums, of burger patties being cooked, sweat, polyester, the subtle sniff of WT literature paper, and the hint of concrete overcooked urine which could not be cleaned off in spite of the dubs' scrubbing.

The stadiums were too tough as a little kid. The one memory I have from that time is being oh so sick at the end of a 100.0 F plus day. I was puking, must have had a high fever, and was delirious (from what they told me later), remember they laid me down on the concrete at the end of the day, with a bucket in the step beneath, and started putting ice on my head. I remember calling for my parents, and some remaining older kids sitting above us laughing at me (now I question if I imagined that last part). My father had been working all day in the VIP quarters, and my mom never figured the 5 yo was getting heat stroke until I started puking in the evening.

Then they built a huge convention hall for the DC conventions. Oh the joy. bo-ring. grey and square, with little sits in rows, with minimal padding. Like a huge Walmarttt store house, with capacity for 10,000 people. The smell was way worse than in the stadiums. No food arrangement by then. clogged letrines. Anyways, never mind. they sold it this year. It is back to the stadiums for the dubbies. I wonder how that is going to sit with the old timers. The poor old, cardiovascularly sick, arthritic dubs, roasting in the sun again. Makes me sick to think about it.

flowerfreaks2

When I was younger it was really fun. More of a hangout, sitting with my friends, passing notes. I liked when we had in house food service and the tickets to buy food. Hated sitting through all the lectures and my mom making me write all the scriputes mentioned. Grew up going to the Buckinham, PA Assembly Hall and the Vet Stadium in Philly during the 80's. The LONG lines for the bathrooms!! I enjoyed going out to eat after wards or staying at a hotel with a pool.

Anyone recall asemblies actually being fun?

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