Of course it's been years since I was active, but I always enjoyed the Mem. because all kinds of interesting people came: non-believing family members, old-timers, various often quite fascinating inactive ones, visiting/non-local single sisters who were husband hunting (often getting desperate), newbies who were in that dizzy state they were frequently in. It was a sort of circus if one could step out of the prescribed "serious" nature of the occasion.
I thought it was great fun to watch newbies react to the bread and the wine being passed and nobody partaking. It was really funny when someone would munch and take a belt, especially a good one, of the wine, and then watch the elders' reactions! I would often seek out the newbies and non-believing family members afterward and ask for their impressions. Sometimes it was quite telling. Then you could go out to a restaurant afterward and let them see the local Witness community with their hair down, the opposite of the Mem. itself.
Gabbing with the old-timers was fun too. Some knew the Judge or went back to the old days. They were often gruff. I remember one old sister who was unhealthy but made it to the Mem. each year. Since she was hard of hearing, she would speak real loudly. After the meeting was over, she was speaking of her active son's bad marriage and said, "Yeah I told him, so you wanted to screw around and now you're paying the price!" This was almost a shout, so the whole congregation heard it, even over all the small talk. A KH-wide hush followed. The sister was so old and respected that no elder would dare counsel her. I just laughed inside and thought, "Only at the Memorial!"
To me the Memorial was great fun—if you didn't take the org's perspective of it too seriously.
