1. Why is anyone ever invited to 'The Special Talk' when it was always the most boring canned talk of the year?
2. Why is anyone ever invited to the Memorial? It's got to be the most confusing meeting for any new ones to listen to and no one hardly participates as Christians are encouraged to do.
3. I once gave a talk in a Kingdom Hall and on the stage was an American flag! Did anyone else ever see such a thing?
4. In the 60's on a visit to Bethel I went to the Bethel library. At the end of the book aisles were different small room decorated with different country themes. At one oriental display there was a Budah God in the room! Did anyone else see this and is it still there?
Are there any others on the Board who have seen some strange things, or wondered about anything?
Outaservice ( who has to say he never did see a 'smurf' at the Kingdom Hall though!)
I once gave a talk in a Kingdom Hall and on the stage was an American flag! Did anyone else ever see such a thing?
It was probably a prop that someone else had been using (or was going to use) for their talk. I remember once visiting a KH in a small country town I was visiting, for the Sunday public talk & WT study. Surrounding the podium was a bizarre array of pumpkins, pineapples, cans of baked beans, bottles of ketchup, etc. I thought, "What the devil is going on here...?" It turned out that the subject of the talk was "spiritual food" provided by the WTS and the speaker had decided to insult the audience's intelligence by showing them what "literal food" looked like, just in case they were confused.
Speaking of props, I remember one time seeing a brother doing a student talk in the Ministry School. He had intended to bring a prop with him to do an illustration which would form the basis of his talk... some sort of tool - a spanner I think... but he forgot to bring it on the night. So instead of just improvising, he held up his empty hand and said "Uh, I forgot to bring it, but imagine I have a spanner here..." and he kept holding up his hand and referring to this imaginary spanner throughout the talk.
I certainly never saw a flag of any kind in the hall. I used to see it at an district assembly where it was part of the decor of the building that was being used, but never in a hall.
I never thought that the special talk was in any way special, and yes the memorial was always talked up, but would have been extremely boring to anyone attending.
"4. In the 60's on a visit to Bethel I went to the Bethel library. At the end of the book aisles were different small room decorated with different country themes. At one oriental display there was a Budah God in the room! Did anyone else see this and is it still there?"
Yeah, I remember those rooms on the 2nd floor of the 107 building. We used to give tours through that area and show the rooms. I remember the oriental room, but I don't remember being inpressed with a Budah in that room. I thought the big paper umbrella or fan was lovely.
The flag was probably in a room or building that was being rented from an organization such as the VFW, Oddfellows, Kiwanis, town hall, etc. I went to a congregation that rented a room with a flag displayed (many eons ago) . I have been to conventions in buildings with huge flags prominently displayed. These flags are always displayed there. The WTS does not take them down.
Everyone is invited to the Memorial to inflate the numbers for the report that year. The WTS can point to the numbers and say to the rank and file, see Jehovah is blessing us.
The most boring talk is the Memorial talk. At least the topic/outline of the Special Talk changes from year to year.
