I wasn't born then but went to the 1969 Wembley, London 8 day International aged 8. The sessions were a blur of boredom but the food tents and double towers of the old Wembley stadium remain imprinted on my mind. I remember my first experience of London Underground trains which was cool.
1958 Convention Program. 8 days from 9am till 9pm. Anyone attend?
by StopTheTears 76 Replies latest jw friends
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Juan Viejo2
We stayed in Brooklyn in 1958. I was pretty naive, being the "good JW kid" that I was - so at 15 I nearly got my first butt-kicking by a local resident teenager. What had I done to deserve a beat down?
I wore an LA Dodger baseball cap. You see the year before both the Brooklyn Dodgers and the New York Giants moved their teams to California (that was why the Polo Grounds were available at the same time as Yankee Stadium that year - unlike 1953). I was living in Riverside, California in those days and the LA Dodgers were now our local team. So, like most teenagers in Riverside, I had a Dodger cap that I wore all the time.
My father and I were walking along a business street a few blocks from where we were staying in a home owned by an elderly Jewish couple. Dad just wanted to get a cold beer (not available at the assembly site) and had me wait outside for him. About that time a half-dozen kids about 17-18 walked by and gave me a shove into a street newspaper rack. I hit it and then the ground pretty hard. One kid grabbed my cap and handed it off to another kid who ran off. Then he pointed at me and told me the next time he saw me he was going to kick my guts out. Just then my father came out of the store and chased them off.
I learned a valuable lesson that day - Jehovah won't protect you from disgruntled former fans. He must figure that if you are stupid enough to wear a baseball cap of a team that the locals really hate, then maybe you deserve a good bashing. Jehovah works in mysterious ways...
JV
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new boy
A walk down memory lane I was there in 1953 and 1958, Rose bowl in1963 and Dodger stadium for the last really big ones in 1969 and 1973.
Yes my folks and me were on the grass at Yankee stadium on Sunday.
Remember after being there for 12 hours everyone would sing the last song "Keep your eyes on the prize."
Than they turn off all the lights, The only thing that was lite was the lights around all the flowers. People were crying....it reminded me the torch light parades Hitler did before the war.....yes we thought we would fight and never loose.... yes my friends those were the days!
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dropoffyourkeylee
It really strikes me how things were so different then. Not just the jw religion. Everything. A modern audience wouldn't go for 8 straight days of 12 hrs each. Amazing. But we did it. Miserable, but it made such memories. -
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JWdaughter
We took the metro bus to every day of '76 convention at the Kingdome in Seattle. I eventually learned that pulling the cord made the bus stop more. Very long day. Before that I remember going to high school gyms and the Puyallup fairgrounds(formerly a Japanese internment camp. ,)
Not sure if that was when MJ showed up, but one year he did, with an entourage.
4days.
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prologos
I remember the long lines buses coming into the stadium to pick up the ~ 6000 baptism candidates. that was before the induction into the "spirit directed organisation" clause. the live orchestra. -
NVR2L8
That's where my parents were baptized and they attended the whole assembly and couldn't speak or understand a single word of English. They drove 350 miles following another car and both cars broke down. My dad was a mechanic and he had to fix the cars on the side of the road. The 8 adults shared 2 motel rooms, some sleeping on the mattress on the floor and on the bed springs. We had a picture of the Yankee Stadium on our living room wall with the theme The Divine Will if I remember correctly, the dates and the attendance of 253,922 delegates.
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watson
Wow, Newboy, my family attended the exact conventions, with the exception that they were at NYC in '50, as well. My first was 58 NYC. Just a baby, so no recollection. First memories of "Super Conventions" come from the Rose Bowl, '63. Hot and long. -
jookbeard
I always chuckle to myself in the years that past about the so called mentions or commendations of how great the WT are with these events from the worldly organizations, police,local government even the army etc, when the reality is the towns/cities these massive conventions were held in grind to a halt most of the day traffic wise, their parking control isnt so great is it? or the army commending how great the catering is when the reality is massive violations of health and safety, even kids used to work in them, complete disregard to food preparation and handling , one particular year a giant compressor exploded at Twickenham that never made the news did it? and the amount of hotels and their workers who are glad to see the back of the jw's when the convention has finished.