What I remember from 1975

by Big Dog 77 Replies latest jw experiences

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  Big Dog

  Since I am sort of late to the party this has probably been beaten to death and if it has just kick this thread to the curb.

  I was 11 years old in 1975 and I remember being scared silly the whole year. I mean there was so much hype about it and the tension in the air was so thick it was unreal. Every night my mom and dad watched the news for signs of the big A being kicked off. They told me how bad it was likely to get and how really bad things could happen to us and that I needed to be ready for that. I remember having nightmares with images of fire and destruction dancing in my head. I remember freaking out at some thunderstorms when the sky got really dark and wondering to myself if any of my petty sins and indescretions (at 11 that was about all I was capable of) were enough to see me destroyed.

  Any of you other oldersters out there remember this kind of stuff? How did you feel about it? I do sort of remember being pretty bent after it came and went for having to live through a year of terror.
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  stillajwexelder

  I lost my virginity in 1975
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  Big Dog

  stillajwelder, you certainly had a better year than I did.
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  rwagoner

  I was 11 in 1975 too and I remember thae same things....the family meetings about what to do when it started. The cellar stash of canned goods, bottled water and radio batteries. We buried stockpiles of books and magazines wrapped in plastic and tin foil all over our property just in case ours in the house were confiscated.....LOL oh man...it is funny now but it was terrifying as a kid.

  RandyW
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  Dragonlady76

  Well Big D,

  I wasn't even born in 1975 but I can tell you that all my life I grew up afraid of armageddon comming and freakin out when there was a bad rainstorm or some really bad stuff happened in the world and it was shown on the news, my parents would say "there is the begining of the end." The illustrations in the books we were shown as kids coupled with talks of vultures eating the flesh of dead non JW's was pretty frightening. How they can scare little kids like that is beyond me.

  I would always be scared and wonder if I would make it, I was a very rebellious kid and did not really like being a witness so this was always a huge concern for me.

  Dragonlady76
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  95stormfront

  I was eleven at the time also and I do vaguely remember hearing of some apocalyptic group thinking the world would end at that time.

  I think I was more interested, though, in sharing new found "wood" with Lisa or Sherri, a couple of girls I sat next to in class .
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  garybuss

  I was 31 in 1975 and I was at the convention in 1966 that released Franz's book that started it all. From a business standpoint it was an incredible move. Paying members doubled.
  
  I have no idea what keeps the Witness people interested in it all now.
  
  It's like, "What do you teach now?" . . . We have no idea.
  
  "Well, what's gonna happen?" . . . We really don't know.
  
  "Well, when will it happen?" . . . We can't say. That would be speculation.
  
  
  On and on and on and on . . . .
  
  
  
  
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  Robert K Stock

  I was baptized in 1973 when I was 15 years old.

  I may be in the minority but I did not think Armageddon was coming in 1975 and said so emphatically to people I met in service and fellow Witnesses. I did not meet any Witnesses who thought 1975 was the end until years after 1975.

  My thinking was that since the Jesus said that no one knew the day and hour it was unlikely that Armageddon would come when so many people would be expecting it to come. Instead of viewing the Watchtower as back peddling on 1975 I thought they were correctly telling people not to read too much into what others had said. Yes that included Fred Franz.

  In 1979 or 1980 when the Watchtower apologized for not explicitly telling the brothers not to expect Armageddon in 1975 I was outraged since I did not think they had anything to apologize for.
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  David2002

  Big Dog,

  My mother began studying in 1974, with the Truth book. She was taught that while the end was near, no one knows the day or the hour. She and most of family later became Witnesses in the 1980's. One person that studied with me told me that her mother came to the conclusion that the end was coming in 1975. However, she told her mother not to jump to conclusions. Her daughter did not believe that 1975 was going to be the end, nor did she see anything in the WT publications stating the end was coming in 1975. Can you cite me a WT article that clearly states that the end will come in 1975??? Not those half quotes, or misquotes which appear all over the Internet. What I want is a WT publication article that clearly states that the end WILL come in 1975. Can you help me find such an article???
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  fairchild

  I was 13 in 1975, and did not grow up around JW's. I am not sure if it was 1975 in particular, but I clearly remember talk about 'the end of the world being near', some time in the seventies. It was actually my aunt, (a catholic nun), who kept talking about it. I remember being scared to death, and spending many nights awake, praying to God.