Did you feel euphoric at conventions? Anyone go to Dodger Stadium?

by BonaFide 25 Replies latest jw friends

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  Texasgurl

  Hortensia wrote-"The world's longest closing prayer and the world's worst traffic jam after that?"

  Ha! I forgot about that, it was always the longest final prayer on Sunday, when you wanted to hurry and get out of there to go eat dinner with friends,....my mom and I would look at eachother and roll our eyes half-through....wish she would read this forum!!!!

  
  
  IreallydidwalkoutofaKH wrote-"my mother made me sing the song as everyone else ditched the song and got closer in lin"

  LMAO!!! My mom did the same thing! It was all for appearance and so she could bitch about everyone else doing it. The frozen OJ, lol, wow! Why wasn't there someone who thought of ordering more of the more popular items??? We were losers too.. :(

  
  
  LDH wrote-"Texasgurl.....you must lurk a lot! What a great second post."---

  not in a long time. Actually I think it's been a couple years. I plan to visit more often this time! About to get married again and realizing how screwed up my family, myself and my kids are because of the way we were raised. Still de-programming and didn't realize it!

  Texasgurl
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  Jeremy C

  We attended Dodger Stadium conventions for many years - decades, in fact. One of the most tiresome assignments was to serve as an attendant at Dodger Stadium. We were the enforcers of the Society's guidelines on seat saving. Not a fun job folks.

  In an open air stadium, seating is a huge issue, as everyone is clamoring for shade when the doors opened. I am not exagerating when I say that it looked like the starting line of the Boston Marathon when we opened the gates in the morning. Parents would send heir children running in with stacks of Watchtowers to throw on rows of seats. Overweight 60 year old men all of the sudden had the speed of Jesse Owens. I never saw such out of shape middle aged men move so quickly and with so much agility. You could hear the ice cubes shaking loudly in their mini-ice chests as they ran through the concrete halls of the stadium. We would often shout "please, no running brothers and sisters". But to no avail. Sometimes, a sister's heel would break off, and she fall down - with all of her books spilling onto the floor. Wheel chairs were used as battering rams.

  And then, there was the issue of reserving shaded seating for the elderly and infirm. We attendants had to approach young and healthy appearing people and remind them that those seats were for the elderly and infirm. The usual response was that of anger on their part with a long diatribe as to how they were suffering from some obscure and little known "condition" that had about fifteen syllables in its name.

  Ah yes, what a refreshing spiritual banquet that was. I should have just gone to the Billy Graham convention. People rolling onto the floor after being seized by the spirit. And then there are JWs rolling onto the floor when they trip and fall during seat saving. Not much difference.
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  ninja

  nope....they made me feel guilty at murrayfield just for swigging from a bottle of vodka and throwing tomatoes at the speaker.....self righteous twats.....muhahahahahaha
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  Dagney

  Yes, I think there were years of euphoria, inspite of those afternoon sessions when the only seats available were in the afternoon sun. Boy, those were killers, no breeze.

  However, I thought we were special, I thought it was the only place S Calif where God's Holy Spirit was, and during those times it was fun and heartwarming. I remember of course linking arm in arm, swaying as we tearfully sang the closing song. We didn't want to leave that "spiritual paradise." It was great in so many, many ways. I don't regret the district conventions at all...it was kind of a highlight to the years.

  It's not the same now it seems, speaking of the JW's I know who still attend. Things change...it just does.

  I've come to realize, however, get any group of nice people together and you can have almost as good of a time. I go to conventions of a network marketing company, and people are just as nice, you can leave your goodies on your seat during session breaks, preople ae happy, friendly, generous, and helpful.

  So, I think there were some very special times at district conventions, and I have very fond memories, even making up for the horrid smells in the stairwells and bathroom, the "one-towel" rule and kraft paper over the mirrors.
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  jookbeard

  some of the few pleasant memories as kid being a dub and going to the D/C as a kid, even remembered the International Conventions, including 5/6 long and evening sessions sitting in the old Twickenham Rugby ground, that old ,dirty dusty ramshackle stadium,(now a state of the art complex), remember the sizzling bacon baps smell as you approached the stadium, and the stench of the awful stewed coffee brewing in the large urns awaiting to be supped,yes days were a happy then, until the awful,hard line, tossers that gained control of the G/B from the early 80's onwards
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  halcyon

  I could have written exactly what you wrote ... you're probably the same age as I am, in fact ... but in a different state. I remember the little yellow sundress I wore and my sunburned knees the day we got the BS book. I was sitting with my little cousins and nibbling pop rocks out of my little plastic wristwatch that "secretly" opened ...
  
  I have wonderful memories of those days in the open sun. They just seemed so ... deregulated ... somehow. You had a ton of freedom from all the minute little rules, yet everyone was orderly and united in looking out for one another.
  
  The last couple of DCs I went to, I tried really really hard to get that feeling back from listening to the songs that started 5 mins before the sessions. The only conclusion I came to is that any song that is orchestrated in such a stirring way is bound to stir up emotions, and I couldn't help but draw parallels between the stirring orchestrations of the kingdom songs and the stirring orchestrations of nationalistic songs.
  
  
  
  
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  IreallydidwalkoutofaKH

  Dagney.......what do you mean by "kraft paper" on the mirrors?
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  gymbob

  Bonafide~

  I could have posted that same thing!

  I lived in Long Beach back in the 70's and we went to Dodger Stadium almost every summer. In fact, I was dunked in a pool in the Dodger bullpen! Gymbob
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  LDH

  "kraft paper" = brown butcher paper that was placed over the mirrors in the women's bathrooms to prevent women from checking their looks in the mirrors.

  How sexist.
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  eyeslice

  Yes, both circuit and district assemblies were great. We used to cook food and serve hot meals even at circuit assemblies. And, the big 'International' conventions in the 60s when I was a kid were like refugee camps. Thousands of people, huge marquees, cooking for thousands and people sleeping in communal tents. Being a witness now is totally joyless!