How many remember the 1969 8 day convention?

by seek2find 110 Replies latest jw experiences

  • aSphereisnotaCircle
    aSphereisnotaCircle
    We attending the Vancouver, B.C. convention. Not only was it 8 days, but it started early and ended very late...like around 8:00 p.m. if I remember correctly.

    I was at this one.

    It was right next to a large amusement park. There was a huge roller coaster and many other attractions. But the coolist thing of all was they had a chicken that could play a piano. The bird was in a glass cage, and when you put a quarter in a slot a lightbulb would turn on, on top of a childs little piano. The chicken would walk over, peck a few notes and then three grains of corn would come down a chute, to reward his efforts.

    I spent all my quarters on that chicken and then would hang out hoping other people would put there quarters in too. One day, a guy came along with a box, he opened the cage took the chicken out, and put in another chicken! There was more then one chicken in the world that could paly the piano! It just about blew my little eleven year old mind.

    Oh and there was a talk on "felatio" and "cunninlingus". There intire stadium was dead quiet. It was the first time I had ever heard those words (had to look it up in the dictionary when I got home).

    And my sisters and I got diamond shaped sunburns on our legs from the fishnet stockings we wore.

    But the greatest part of all was that chicken!

  • Quentin
    Quentin

    Kansas City...stayed in the farmers field two nights...rest of the time spent staying in the stadium or with friends in a Holliday Inn...thing I remember most is the moon landing...a party Terry and I attended and the trip back to Texas in Terry's '63 Plymouth Fury...we rocked coming down the Indian Nations Turnpike...everything else is a fuzzy haze...drank a lot of beer out of the stadium consession stands, which we weren't supposed to do, of course...

    Hell of a big crowd there...

  • compound complex
    compound complex

    Greetings Seek2find,

    I was at Bethel and went to Yankee Stadium - some 100,000 [or 120,000 - cannot remember] on Sunday afternoon, crowded out onto the playing green. We B'lites HAD to work and were gone some 18 hours a day, including travel time. I was in the drama "Let No Man Look Down on Your Youth" [or was it another skit?]. I just recall that whatever play I was in, it was highly-charged, dealing with sexual content relative to the homosexual purge prior to my arrival at Bethel. It was graphic, but the only line I remember specifically was my "friend" saying, "I'm not exactly a monster for looks!"
    I was worried about missing the program, as so many brothers worked in the caverns and other venues where seeing and hearing what was happenin' was simply not possible. My fears were expressed to my overseer and he reassured me that many COs and DOs missed large portions of the program but did not suffer spiritually as a result. My prayers were answered! I was assigned to work top center of the stadium - totally under cover and with a perfect view of the stage; I missed nothing.
    One really bad thing was the impossibility of movement due to the EXTREME press of the crowd. I pretty much had what I needed where I was stationed, but going elsewhere was next to impossible.
    Poor Lady Lee and family! Others, too, who suffered similarly.

    Thanx for jogging my memory!

    CoCo

  • undercover
    undercover

    8 years old and went to the convention at the old Fulton County Stadium in Atlanta with my parents.

    I remember it being hotter'n hell, getting sunburned and the thunderstorms in the afternoon. I remember that there were three sessions, the last one ending in the evening. I remember we spent one morning in service and we handed out tracts on the street corners of downtown Atlanta...my first time in a big city...I was scared shitless. I hated cities for a long time after that experience.

    I vaguely remember my father sneaking off a couple of afternoons and mysteriously showing up about 30 minutes before the final session ended. As a kid, I thought he was "volunteer" working or something, but remembering the expression on my mom's face, I have to think now as adult looking back that he was sneaking off to enjoy a beer or six (as he was apt to do from time to time). Funny, now that I think about it, I definitely took after him, 'cause I've been known to disappear from assemblies to find a nearby bar from time to time.

  • Brother Apostate
    Brother Apostate
    I was 13 in NYC at Yankee Stadium. All I remember is that I was hot and those damn little battery operated fans do nothing for you in 90 degree heat and oppressive humidity

    Yes indeed, same place, same time, but a few years younger, me was.

    BA

  • BFD
    BFD

    I was 9 years old and was in attendance at Yankee Stadium in NYC. Our congo rented a school bus for transportation and I remember getting food poisoning or maybe it was heat stroke toward the end of the convention and threw up all over the bus on the way home one night. puke Of course, the next day I was not allowed to stay home and when we showed up for the bus I remember no one wanting to sit anywhere near me. blush

    My older sister got her dunk at Yankee Stadium, I was so jealous! Is that when the blue "Apostacy Truth Book" was introduced?

    BFD

  • Emma
    Emma

    Peace On Earth International assemblies, I think. I was in Chicago (might have helped cook some of that hot food served under the tents.) We stayed in someones home, too, probably the dirtiest place I ever slept. I locked myself in the bathroom after asking for a wash cloth, found scouring powder under the sink, and scrubbed down the whole room. When we got home one night there was someone sleeping in our bed! But I loved the 8-day assemblies. I was 20, pioneering, and without a lot of other responsibilities at the time.

    I was also at Wembley as my pio partner and I scrimped and saved to attend the European conventions. We traveled Europe for a month and though we didn't get along, being in Europe was wonderful!

    The long conventions must have been a nightmare for families. My mom took my baby sister to Yankee Stadium in 58 or so and washed diapers in the bath tub. The apartment was roach filled; once they were at a restaurant and a big roach crawled out of her purse! I don't think she ever missed an assembly.

  • NewYork44M
    NewYork44M
    We traveled Europe for a month and though we didn't get along, being in Europe was wonderful!

    Were you on the society's tour of Europe? My mother was on one of those trips.

  • ferret
    ferret

    I was there, if I remember correctly it was in Kitchener, and we camped at Bingham park. I do not remember anything about the convention itself.

  • seek2find
    seek2find

    I was actualy at the Big Daddy of all conventions in 1958 in New York, but was to young to remember it. seek2find

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