Believe it or not, I actually enjoyed the "gatherings" of my teens. I've read a lot of you guy's posts about not having a social life as a witness, and I'm thankful I didn't have that problem. What the Witnesses lacked in QUALITY social skills, they made up for with quantity lol. I grew up in NW Ohio, and attended inner-city Kingdom Halls. Because our city was so dangerous as respects gang violence and drug use, the "young at heart" elders and the under-35 grownups were good about providing a social outlet for us teens. Our neighborhood had a LARGE concentration of Witnesses, at least a family on every block, so I always had hang-out buddies if I wanted them (when they weren't boring me with their lack of educational goals or career ambition)
The under-21 set in my city had get-togethers all the time. We'd let the elders know what we were doing and when, and a couple of them would usually show up to "chaperone". We'd go skating twice a month at a local rink for R&B night, throw card parties, have board game nights, potlucks, Bible triva nights (which we called...wait for it...."Dub Quiz"). This was back when Chicago and Detroit stepping were becoming popular. There was a brother who had a decent sized basement who would give dance-lesson parties: 45 minutes of instruction followed by about 2 hours of dancing and fellowship. The catch was, if you held/attended a party on a weekend, you went in field service either that morning or that afternoon, to make sure you'd be in the right "mind frame" and were less likely to engage in questionable behavior.
The elders didn't do this, but large groups of young folk would sometimes go to dance clubs, or restaurants with live music, when they first opened for the night and no one else was there (like between 8 and 10pm). We'd dance to our heart's content, and then leave when the regular patrons started coming in and the music started getting raunchy.
Many of us were involved in our school's music programs, so there'd usually be a good turnout if someone had a concert or recital ( our congregations were more liberal, now that i think about it) We all loved to dance, and at congregation picnics, there was usually either a group of boys or girls doing a dance routine they'd prepared before the actual DJ session started. Some of the older friends had formed their own bands and ensembles, and would provide live entertainment of smooth jazz, r&b, concert pieces, and sometimes original spiritual music. I remember most vividly at a friend's graduation party in a nearby michigan city, there was a group doing interpretive dance to some original songs of praise to Jehovah. I was shocked, 'cause I thought Witnesses weren't allowed to praise dance. But the elders ok'd it, saying since it wasn't forbidden in the bible and the dancing/music was tasteful, they couldn't tell someone how to worship. One brother's exact words "Why would I tell her she can't dance for God when I was just doing the Electric Slide?" .:: blink, blink ::
Ah, the good ole' days...before we started to realize what we were being taught...
