"Look I'm Sorry Brothers, but I'm gonna have to take my jacket off!"
Yes, the absurdity of it all. I was at a Hall in the deep south where the AC was totally broken and
it was totally hot. For the most part, the area was very understanding of jacketless brothers and
sisters w/o pantyhose on. BUT- this was the C.O. visit. Nobody in the seats had their jackets on,
but the C.O. did, and the chairman did along with attendents and a few elders in the back.
After nearly dying during the song/prayer, they introduced the C.O. He said something like the
above words, "Look I'm Sorry Brothers, but I'm gonna have to take my jacket off!" Every last
jacket came off seconds behind his.
I regularly took off my jacket, wore short sleeve shirts with a tie, conducted the bookstudy like that,
even meetings for field service without the jacket. When I stepped aside as an elder, I didn't even
carry the jacket anymore.
On a vacation once, my wife had a wardrobe problem where she could not wear the dress to the
Kingdom Hall. (Yes, we did go to the hall on most vacations.) All she had was pants, and I was
an out-of-town elder. I told her to simply wear the pants- no big deal. Word did get back to the
cong. elders. It was so stupid, me explaining her wardrobe malfunction. I told them I would have
her skip the meeting next time, and it was dropped because of that remark.
