My older brother was about 14 and had been playing the piano for the meetings since he was about 11. One day at the end of the Sunday meeting my mother was called to the front of the hall to meet with a couple elders. They informed her that my brother would no longer be allowed this "privilege" because his hair was too long (1977-height of the John Travolta/Saturday Night Fever craze-my brother was in the thick of it). While disappointed, she remained calm and only let a few tears out as she walked the three of us out of the hall and drove us home. My brother did not care in the least. He hated playing the songs, even though he was great at it. My mother was humiliated, embarrassed and confused as to why they didn't give my brother a bit of a warning that his hair style was too "worldly" so that he could do something about it (not that he would have-the hair battle raged in our home until he moved out at 18). A few weeks later, I was playing with some neighborhood witness kids, and an elder's son was in the bunch. If I was ten, then he had to be no more than 7 or 8. As elders' son are wont to do, he was making himself out to be a "better witness" than the rest of us. He went so far as to call into question the families of the other witness kids that were with us. Then he told everyone what his father said the elders said about each of the families. His meanest comment came when he asked me why I thought my mom was crying after her elders' meeting a few weeks earlier. I told him it was because my brother wasn't going to play piano anymore. And he said, "yeah, I know, but I do you know why?" I told him sure, because my brother's hair was too long. "Nope" he replied. "My dad told us at dinner that night that the real reason your brother can't play piano anymore is because the elders heard he smokes pot." Everyone heard this little twit say this and we all raced to my house to tell my mom. My mom was furious, on so many levels, but couldn't do a thing about it, since my dad was not a witness, and there was no one to back her up in bringing the elder with big flapping mouth to justice. JR (we'll call him JR, since that's what we called him) never even got in trouble for blabbing to the neighborhood kids like he did. Not only was he wrongly privy to confidential elder matters, but he was informed that the elders had lied to my mother about the reason. The only reason I can think of for why they lied to her was that the reason they knew about my brother's pot smoking was because some other "important" kid in the congregation was smoking with my brother, and they wanted to keep that covered up. This was my first, in the face, irrefutable example of hypocrisy I experienced in the congregation, my mother's too. Too bad she is completely brain washed. She never got a straight answer as to why they lied to her-or with held critical information about her minor child.
