Remember when assemblies were fun?

by Aphrodite 107 Replies latest jw friends

  • OUTLAW
    OUTLAW

    Oompa..That is the first thing you have said..That makes you sound like a Dub Kid..???..You are a character..LOL!!..........Laughing Mutley...OUTLAW

  • cognizant dissident
    cognizant dissident

    Assemblies were really fun in Vancouver when I was a kid. They were held on the Exhibition Grounds and "Playland" was running all summer. At lunch, you could walk over to playland and go on the rides. This was in the 60's and 70's before everything fun was cancelled. They had ice cream and popsicles and pizza for lunch. We were allowed to have as many as we wanted. Kids could run around with their friends for two hours at lunch by themselves. From about age 10 and up, we would sit with our friends way up in the high seats at the coliseum, giggle, whisper, write notes, fly paper planes on the head of those below us, munch chips and sodas, flirt with boys we liked. Make myriads of trips to the bathroom whenever our butts got tired taking the long way all around the coliseum two or three times to drag it out. Dramas were every day. You could get out of sessions entirely, if you could find an adult in food service you knew who would let you work beside them on the big assembly line food production. Didn't have to a parent. Just any adult who knew you and would let you.

    Great fun. It was like a carnival atmosphere. Parents would get together with their friends and we would all go out to dinner afterwards or visiting old friends. As teenagers we would slink around trying to look cool. How else were you supposed to meet JW prospective mates? After parties were planned that were so wild, committee meetings would still be going on months later!

    From the time I was about 16, things got tighter and tighter. Dramas cut back to one. No more eating during sessions. No more walking around and visiting. No more food service. No more going to outside restaurants for lunch. No more walking to playland at lunch. No more going to bathrooms. Kids and teens were to sit with their parents, not by themselves. No more after parties. No more fun! The WTBTS sure know how to suck the joy out of everything don't they?

    Cog

  • LouBelle
    LouBelle

    eeerm...........no

    I never found them fun.

  • Superfine Apostate
    Superfine Apostate

    in the circuit assemblies sisters and brothers would bring cakes and pies and sell them for donation money. i didn't have my own money back then, but that was the only way to have me donate. there was also that young pioneer sister who didn't wear a bra and you could see it. man did i love cakes... district assemblies had hot dogs, sandwiches or wiener schnitzel along with coke/fanta/sprite (we never got this at home) and ice pops. you had to buy vouchers for the food, because that way they got around the VAT. later the laws where changed and they would have had to pay taxes, that's why they stopped serving food. and yes, that was when they took out the fun.

  • Witness 007
    Witness 007

    All Pioneers were given Witness food stamps to use at the 4 day's for lunch I think $20 bucks...wow I can eat some FOOOD!!! I stuffed my face and pretended to be a big shot...."Hey can I buy you a Drink? Dessert anyone, it's on me." ........the rest of the year Dirt POOOOR!

  • jookbeard
    jookbeard

    When we were kids the D/C was held in Twicknham's rugby stadium,and walking towards the stadia you would smell the waft of bacon baps and the awful coffee,but they were good times really , my old man was head of field security and meeting yearly the guys who would work on the team was nice.The catering setup in the 70's was enormous then (attendees 50k plus) but when the dickheads of the G/B reduced the catering setup part of the joy of being a dub died,after all dubs would only go to assemblies just to volunteer,

  • BurnTheShips
    BurnTheShips

    Assemblies were a great way to meet pretty young out of town sisters and make new friends.

  • willdabeerman
    willdabeerman

    When I was really young they were so-so on the fun metre. Then that period of awkwardness from like 12-18 when I was a super uber pioneering witness/do gooder/ kiss ass that thought I was better than all the 'cool' wordly acting people. It did not help I had SEVERE acne. So all those my age were having fun and hanging out and I was this outcast loser that had to hang out around my parents friends. Then I would zoom home and cry my eyes out because I knew I would not ever find that 'sister' that all the other young lads seemed to find at the meat market, err assembly. Ahh yes fun times. ;-)

  • ellderwho
    ellderwho

    The fun was looking for girls. My brother and I were on the prowl all 3 days. Then we graduated to partying in the parking lot. In the late 70s it was the thing to do.

    As far as the program, being stoned at the assembly was the ultimate way to "get new light"

  • OnTheWayOut
    OnTheWayOut
    oh yeah, and the more I worked in the kitchen, the less I had to sit and watch the programs

    I never worked in the kitchen during programs. They were already serving cold sandwiches
    when I became a dub. I did make sandwiches before sessions a couple of times.

    But Oompa makes a good point. Volunteering during sessions was heavy because it let
    you walk around or do something besides sit there and vegetate on the Indoctrination session.

    I was always an attendant or a watchman or something like that. I didn't act like I was
    important (letting the people I reported to do that) but I looked for jobs that required me to miss
    part of the sessions every day.

    The most fun I had as a dub at a DC was around my second year as a dub. I had scratched
    my cornea in a household accident. I needed to wear ultra dark sunglasses that wrapped around
    the corners of my face, even in the indoor light. I sat there (without volunteering that year) and
    people would stare at me as if I was just rude to wear sunglasses indoors or else I was blind.
    I was also free to slump a bit and go to sleep for little power-naps. No guilt trips from anyone.

    Another year, I was working for a dub and was asked to attend a different DC, so I could work
    while others went to their DC. NO PROBLEM. I did go, but I volunteered and they stuck me way at
    the top of the auditorium to sit in a scoreboard control area of this indoor basketball arena, so that
    kids don't come up there. Absolutely nobody bothered me all three days. I was free to get comfortable.
    I also didn't talk to people because I didn't really know them, so I left immediately at the end of each
    day's sessions and relaxed at the pool of the hotel. No going out to dinner with dubs, no cleaning after
    the day's sessions. It sounds sad as I read it now, but I really enjoyed just being left alone- it might have
    had something to do with the delicate cult programming conflicting with my intelligence.

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