Around the time I was six, seven and eight years old, church was an exceptionally miserable affair. On Sundays we had three hour church meeting blocks. The meetings were spread apart, so I had only intervals of free time, and we had to wear itchy church clothes most of the day. No playing at the creek or anything. No swimming on the Lord's day. Then on Tuesday, I had Primary class after school, which ran to about dinner time, so I had only a couple of hours off that day.

I had school during the day, and it seemed like that alone was enough stress. Sundays and Tuesdays were the worst days of the week. My parents were angry before meetings, and I know why. They had to round up a handful of children for mandatory attendance. Asses in pews or asses in pain, was how it went. Who could blame me for hating it? I did hate it, and those were the years when I became an intense daydreamer. My mind was always trying to add drama to the dull parts, which covers every minute spent in church. So I stole ideas from the things I saw on TV and read in books. I was a spy, and there were enemies hiding everywhere. The boring adults around me knew nothing of the real threats we faced. Theirs were devils, and mine were also fictional.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/30/2019 06:40PM by donbagley.

even though we went to church, the children did, my parents weren't extreme. My dad went to priesthood and then got ready to go to the farm and dropped us off at SS. Then we went home for dinner and then back to SM at about 5 or 7. My dad usually didn't go to anything except priesthood. He'd come home from irrigating (20 miles from the house we lived in--grandparents lived at farm) and watch football and fall asleep. He didn't sleep much at night.

My mother would argue with him for not being more mormon, going to meetings, although she only went to SM or F&T meeting. We kids had to go to everything.

My older sister and I once got in a hell of a lot of trouble for going to the store for treats (our friends were coming to stay overnight only because they were the daughters of my mother's best friend--who was really over the top mormon). We both went to F&T meeting. My mother just happened to drop our older brother off at the gas station in front of the store for his work and caught us. She was SO ANGRY at us and we had been the ones who went to all the meetings. She never went to SS. I don't know if my parents did even after the 3 hour block started. My mom did go to RS during the week and taught primary forever.

I don't know that I can say I hated primary. I had a best friend (whose parents weren't active) and we had fun in primary UNTIL we had to memorize scriptures and articles of faith. What a pain that was.

Going to church was basically torture and, obviously, our parents showed us that it was.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/30/2019 07:07PM by cl2.

When I was very young, my family only attended SS on Sunday (since we didn’t live in Utah, involved a lot of driving to go to all three meetings). I hated the times we did go to SM. I actually liked midweek Primary.

Unfortunately, as time went on, we became more active and involved. By the time I was ordained a deacon, we were doing the trip to church and back three times each Sunday.

SS and then goofing off and playing until it was time to get dressed for SM then after we'd rush home to watch Bonanza...never missed that!...and after getting ordained, PM ate up another hour of sleep time...##$#$$#$. Never once can I remember us as a family doing scripture study...thank GAWD for that. That would have made church and Sunday even more unbearable than it already was.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/30/2019 10:22PM by Lethbridge Reprobate.

Bonanza! I loved that show. I had a crush on a young Michael Landon.

nice!.....I was a fan of Hoss....he was a big guy, like me....and Lorne Greene was a kind of hero to my folks as he was Canadian and a famous radio voice on the CBC during WW2.

I like hop sing ... excuse, please, my English is no such good...

I remember starting my Sunday by going to priesthood around 8:00am. Then between priesthood and Sunday School, all of us Aaronic Priesthood kids would walk through a back alley to a nearby liquor store to load up on candy and snacks.

We got back in time for the "Opening Exercises" of Sunday school where they had "2 1/2 Minute Talks", practice hymns, and we passed the sacrament. All of us Deacons usually had a Fizzie or two (for you youngsters out there - https://www.oldtimecandy.com/pages/fizzies-drink-tablets) that we had broken up and would drop into the sacrament cups as we were passing the trays. Pretty cool seeing green, red, purple, orange colored fizzing water in the cups going up and down the aisle. We got yelled at pretty good for doing that.

Then we'd go home for lunch. The house would smell great because mom usually had a roast cooking while we were at church. Then around 4:00pm we'd go back to church for another couple hours of Sacrament Meeting.

We used to have ward dinners and parties all of the time. Always looked forward to the annual bazaar. One year I bought the coolest toy gun I ever owned for $1 at the bazaar.

There was a confectionery 2 blocks from church and after PM we would beat a path there to by junk food and Cokes.

After I got my driver's license in 1964 and my first car, joyriding after PM was what we did.

What memories!

We would watch Bonanza every Sunday, too. The anticipation of that, would keep me sane on that long, boring day. We kids would take off our Sunday clothes, the second we came in the door (my TBM grandchildren do this). We wore cotton dresses and cotton shirts, that needed ironing, and my brothers wore wool--that's why the clothes were scratchy. My mother ironed for hours, so my brothers could have "crisp white shirts". We would hang up our clothes carefully, and then put them on again for sacrament meeting. We weren't allowed to play, or see the neighbor kids, or have any fun. I escaped by reading, which was always acceptable.

In those days, we were allowed to sit with anyone we wanted, in church meetings, and I loved sitting with my little friends, and drawing, and passing notes, and getting uncontrollable fits of giggling in testimony meeting. We had to keep quiet, or our parents wouldn't let us sit together. I still remember the pain of suppressing laughter. I thought my eyeballs would burst out of my head with the flood of tears--but I could laugh without a sound. I had that same laughing experience, recently, at my niece's temple wedding ceremony, and I was 55 years old. Some things you never grow out of....

Church would have been unbearable without my friends. In the fifth grade, a new boy moved into our ward, and it was love at first sight, for all of us girls. It was worth sitting through the meetings, just for a smile from him! I would sit in meeting and daydream about him. We were classmates in school, and we performed music together. We went on church ski trips, bicycled together, played tennis, etc., and we became good pals. He even asked me to a couple of gold and green balls and our senior prom--whenever he was between girlfriends and needed a last-minute date. It wasn't until graduate school, that he finally fell in love with me. The problem was that, along the way, he had decided that he never wanted children. I had to make that difficult choice, and break up with him. I couldn't give up my life-long dream of having a family. We were both heartbroken, and didn't get married (to others) for several years after that. I never did love anyone as much, unfortunately, except for my children, of course.

Ah, the church of broken dreams, lies, and false promises.

My whole church experience is interwoven with that saga: being taught that women were at the mercy of men, who were supposed to rule their lives; wanting to be "a mother in zion", wanting to be married eternally to that handsome boy in the next pew, being made to feel that I was never good enough, being passed over for the more aggressive girls, hanging on for crumbs of friendship, turning down good dates because my heart just wasn't in it, being a bridesmaid for the other girls, feeling like I was a hopeless old maid because I graduated from BYU without being engaged.

It was the sixties, but when I got divorced 15 years later, the Mormon attitudes about unmarried women had not changed. I had failed as a wife, and that was all that mattered. My parents were ashamed of me, even when I succeeded in my career, and my children turned out great. "No success can compensate for failure in the home", in the words of David O, McKay, Prophet in the late Fifties.

No, not much has changed.

During most of that decade, I was in either high school or university, and not a Mormon.

My father died early in the decade; JFK the year after. The latter half of the decade was definitely better.

I experienced my first - and only - hangover during that marvelous decade, as well. And rid myself of - um - purity - as well. Glad to have THAT over and done with!

I was newly married, four small children, difficult finding employment, I other words the sixties were a nightmare

I don't remember a three hour block in the sixties. People would go home from morning meetings and then come back later in the afternoon for sacrament meeting.

I remember the 1950s, which lasted until the Kennedy assasination in 1963. RS was Tuesday night, so I got to watch tv the entire time Mom was gone: Combat, Red Skelton, and I don't remember what else. Bugs Bunny?

Primary was some weekday afternoon. Sunday evening was Disney and Ed Sullivan. Mom disapproved of tv on Sunday, and it was occasionally banned, but everyone else in the family wanted to see those shows, and I think she did too but couldn't admit it.

The 1960s ran until the early 1970s, the end of Vietnam and Watergate, followed by the Arab oil embargo, a definite 1970s event. That drove the cost of gasoline way up. Our branch back east covered a sixty mile radius, and there were several families that in fact travelled sixty miles each way each Sunday. They either had to make the trip twice, or hang around town all day to attend all three meetings. The BP thought this was absurd and expensive, and instituted the three hour block on his own.

The Mission Pres told him he couldn't do that. They argued back and forth for a while, and the BP, a convert who thought rationality trumped authoritarianism, would not follow orders. The MP finally said he would be released if he did not go back to split meetings. That worked. He relented. Two weeks later, the three hour block was announced. I like to imagine the MP was royally pissed.

The MP was released the next year and returned to SLC and became a Seventy i believe. He went on to approve the $800,000 signature loan for Mark Hofmann, which he paid back out of his own pocket, after the whole Hofmann affair went south. Karma is a bitch. I smiled.

Surprisingly, Hugh Pinnock did not lose his GA position over the Hofmann debacle. He probably knew too much. But he did get stuck for the loan.

By the Hofmann affair, I was already out of LDS Inc, so I no longer got an insider's view of stupid GA tricks.

I remember the Bandelos. I managed to earn the pictures of the wheat and the praying girl, the musical note, the scrolls, and the house, but very few of the diamonds. I think the diamonds were for attendance. I walked with some of my friends at school to their ward for primary because I didn't want to attend my own ward because of bullies.

I did love Primary in the 60s. I didn’t have to ride the bus home on Wednesdays. I’d walk with a friend to her house and her mother would drop us off at Primary. We had the coolest church that had a courtyard and a playground. So we’d get there as early after school as we could so we’d have time to play and chase the boys. I got every jewel on my bandalo that was possible to get. Never missed a meeting so got all the perfect attendance jewels. We were Lihomas (LIttle HOme MAkers) and did cooking and knitting and all that sexist stuff that was actually fun when you’re being brainwashed at 10.

I wish I had daydreamed in church like Don. I listened rapt to every word, although I got really annoyed when F&T went a half hour over while somebody went on and on and on. My big sin when I was little was rolling the bread into a little ball and taking it like a pill with the water.

Still, the best part of church was pushing the doors open and walking out into the sunshine at the end. Luckily, my bishop father still thought it was righteous to ride my horse up the crick on Sunday afternoon even if we couldn't do much else. Sacrament meeting didn't start until 7PM so we had a good long break in between.


The fifties and early sixties were something special though. We actually learned to dance in Mutual on Tuesday nights. We had hayrides and road shows. And, I still thought I would soon like girls the way I was supposed to. I wasn't terrified yet having no idea there was more to all this than I knew.

We were way up in the mountains and our TV antenna didn't pick up everything. We all loved GunSmoke (OMG Burt Reynolds as the blacksmith), Ed Sullivan (The Beatles blew my mind--hated Topo Gigio) and Mitch Miller, What's My Line, and all the rest. Even then though Lawerence Welk didn't do it for me as my parents thrilled to his show. Seemed so wooden. And of course, we were not allowed to watch "Laugh In." Our family was the family that was a little too Mormon for the other TBMs.

Our youths had such an impact on the rest of our lives. No wonder Don's mind is so fertile now having escaped in the daydreams. Interesting that the benefits of having been raised Mormon did not come from the pulpit, but in spiTe of the pulpit. I know that is true for me.


And, from Ed Sullivan. I couldn't "get" Peggy Lee singing "Is That All There Is?" until very late sixties, sitting the Celestial Room and that was the first thing to cross my mind. And then off on the mission I went, clueless. Totally clueless.

If you don't like Peggy Lee singing Is That All There Is, look for Nancy Wilson and/or Cleo Laine doing it. You may not like it but their version are very good.

And Gunsmoke I believe on Saturday night. We never had a ban on TV on Sundays at our home. My dad would never have allowed that. He watched football a lot on Sundays if he wasn't farming and my brothers watched it with him. I learned to like it as my parents always argued over football and I thought it would be a good idea to watch it with my husband. What a joke! He hates football. My boyfriend says he doesn't like it much, but he watches it (he's lying).

TV was worshiped in our home more than church, so there was no way the church was going to interfere.

We used to play kick the can in the evening on Sunday at the neighbor's house. They were REALLY mormon. The mother was always trying to get us to play "Know Your Gospel" instead.

When I was older in primary our parents used to let us walk home from summer primary that was in the daytime and regular late afternoon primary. Our stakehouse had a creek behind it and woods that had trails through some of the neighborhoods or the smoky hollow for our high school. So my friends and I used to play in the creek and woods for a long way before we got back to our neighborhood. On Sundays sometimes I would get very tired of attending church, and would tell my parents I was sick and they let me stay home from sacrament meeting in the evening, and I could watch adventure shows on TV, sometimes my friends parents let them sluff too and they would come to my house and we would eat junk food, watch TV and play wild games. My dad was in the bishopric then as was my best friends dad so they allowed us to exercise our free agency ... maybe why I am no longer in the Church. I don't know about my best friend, he got angry with me because I did not like his girlfriend he married, have not seen him in years, but a friend of his wife told me his kids are out of the church too.

I remember my sister’s friend , who was LDS. They had SEVEN kids and one in the oven! The poor mom was only in her early 30s !
Karen was only allowed to spend Saturday night ,if we dropped her off at the chapel ,or her dad picked her up , early in the morning
. The little girl ( Karen) was so sweet. She always said “ Yes, Sir/ Ma’am.”
On Saturday nights, she always had workbook assignments for Sacrament, the next day.
She always kept putting those long skinny pamphlets around the house with the churches address and phone number to the missionaries on it.
They weren’t allowed to go trick or treating on Halloween.
They had a party at the church, which me and my sisters were invited to and went .
Back then you didn’t hear too much on crazies, as in an epidemic.
They gave out freshly baked cookies sometimes for Halloween.
They also had a choice between Candied Apples or Carmel.
I always picked the candied, even though, it got stuck in my teeth

The sixties was like living on another planet growing up with the church, compared to what it is like today. There was still plenty of “follow the brethren” talk and focus on family solidarity, like today - but the church was much more into promoting church social solidarity. Eg. Youth dances, Friday night ward movies, ward dinners, stake softball tournaments, traveling ward shows, etc. Also, because it was a time when the Vietnam War was front and center, Mormon boys were subject to restrictions on missionary service. For example, in the later part of the sixties only two boys per year from each ward were allowed to go on a mission. In 1968, I was one of those boys and to this day I cannot figure out why I was selected to go a mission while many of my friends were drafted into the Army. I eventually served in the Army after the two year mission completed, but by then the Vietnam War was nearly at an end.

I think there were more church leaders trying to follow the spirit of the law rather than the letter of the law. Also, more tithing monies stayed closer to the ward/stake. Correlation made sure that money went to SLC first.

I can't say. I was born in '72 - so I'm solidly in the GenX period. I came age during the zeitgeist of Benson, Packer, McConkie, et al (may they all burn in hell).

This thread poses an interesting question that I have pondered as it concerns my dad's generation. My father is a jack-mormon through and through. But he still fervently believes in the church. Has never been a model of righteous priesthood living, I think the only time he ever went to temple was to take a new wife there (married 4 times). He will never be convinced though that the whole this is a big steaming pile of bulls**t.

I have wondered why he has such loyalty to an organization and a doctrine that has always ill-suited him. I think a lot of that has to do with family ties and his pioneer ancestry. He was born and raised in southern Idaho and he would have personally known grandparents and great-grandparents whose days stretched well back into the 1800s. I think that is one major difference between the LDS church of the 1960s and today. Most of the membership then were descended from pioneer stock and a lot of people back then still had some personal connection with the early pioneers. I think that renouncing the church for him would mean renouncing family and legacy. It did for me too, but not to the same degree I think. While I myself was also born in southern Idaho, we moved away when I was just a child and I never really had that same connection.

I have always suspected that his formative years in the church were far more pleasant and gratifying than mine were. I've tried (and never really succeeded) at making the point to him that we grew up in two largely different periods. He came of age during the time when David O. McKay, Hugh B. Brown, and Henry Moyle were calling the shots. It is my belief that the church was considerably less toxic during his coming-of-age than it was in mine. That is my impression anyhow. As others here have mentioned, the church at that time was far more community and ward centered rather than the top-down and much more corporate approach that really started happening in the 1970s and was in full swing by the 1980s. I don't think that his generation had masturbation talks, worthiness interviews, the same degree of boot licking the puppet masters in SLC, nor was there the "prophetic" command for every 19 year old to go out and be a missionary. Being that he wasn't very active at all, I don't think my father ever truly recognized how much the church changed between David O. McKay and Ezra Taft Benson.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 09/02/2019 04:06AM by Strength in the Loins.

Like others have stated above, it was a totally different church in the 60's.

If you lived east of the Morridor back then there were no temples so the whole attend the temple as much as you can spiel that is going on right now didn't exist.

I was just a kid, but the church back then was fun. I didn't really like Sunday evening sacrament meeting - especially when it would interfere with the once a year showing of Wizard of Oz.

The church today is pretty much unrecognizable.

I was raised in Norwalk, CA during a time when most everyone treated each other with respect. We didn't eat a lot of fast food because it was considered a treat, not a food group. We drank Kool-Aid made from water that came from our kitchen sink. We ate bologna sandwiches, or even tuna (which was in a can not a pouch), PB&J & grilled cheese sandwiches, hot dogs, pot pies, but mostly homemade meals consisting of mainly meat, potatoes, vegetable, bread & butter, and homemade dessert.
We grew up during a time when we mowed lawns, pulled weeds, babysat, helped neighbors with chores to be able to earn our own money. We went outside a lot to play games, ride bikes, roller skate, run with siblings and friends & played hide and seek, basketball even dodge ball. We drank tap water from the hose outside... bottled water was unheard of.
We watched TV shows like American Bandstand, Gilligan's Island, Happy Days, The Walton's, The Dukes of Hazzard, Andy Griffith, The Brady Bunch and I Love Lucy. After school, we came home and did homework and chores before going outside or having friends over. We would ride our bikes for hours. We had to tell our parents where we were going, who we were going with, & what time we'd be back.
You LEARNED from your Mom instead of disrespecting her and treating her as if she knew absolutely nothing. What she said was LAW!! And you had better know it!!!
You had to be close enough to home to hear your Mom yelling to tell you it’s time to come home for dinner. When the street lights came on you had better be home. We ate around the dinner table and talked to each other as a family unit. In school we said the Pledge of Allegiance, we stood for the National Anthem & listened to our teachers.
We watched what we said around our elders because we knew if we DISRESPECTED any grown-up we would get our behinds whipped, it wasn't called abuse, it was called discipline! We held doors, carried groceries and gave up our seat for an older person without being asked.
You didn't hear curse words on the radio in songs or TV, and if you cursed and got caught you had a bar of soap stuck in your mouth and had to stand in the corner. “Please, and Thank you were part of our daily vocabulary!
You grew up to respect the Nation, the flag, and the President, no matter who it was.
Thankful for my childhood and will never forget where I came from & the time I came from! Wouldn't it be nice if it were possible to get back to this way of life?

Also was honored to serve in the Army branch of the U.S. Military from ’66 - ’68 as a computer operator [lucky]..
wasn’t I? ……. As this was during the VietNam ordeal]. Full Metal Jacket a move one of the best ending scenes ever made. If you remember, these Marines were American children during the post war boom of the 50s. They had their amazing, fairy tale life handed to them on a silver platter by the New Deal and the men and women of the WW2 generation. The war in Vietnam, by contrast, was a rude awakening from their American Dream of a childhood, and broke many of these servicemen. The war represents their transformation and loss of their childhood, as the Mickey Mouse club was a popular show during the Golden age of the 50's. Them singing it here, in the middle of a warzone, shows how different they have become from their youth.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PmILOL55xP0



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 09/03/2019 10:18AM by moon1943.

McDonkie, you are lying.

You presently believe in Dah*shism, which was founded in 1943. Dr. Dah*sh, you believe, visited you in a dream in 2005 or so when you saw yourself falling into the moon. That is why you chose, this time, "moon1943."

You are presently 58 years old according to public records, and you went on an LDS mission in the early 1980s. It follows that you did not serve in Vietnam; you were not a "computer operator" in 1966-1968; and you don't know what life was like in the 1950s.

In fact, you edited your previous post to add this paragraph afterwards. It was an afterthought, a belated attempt to cover your tracks. You are trying to persuade people that you are not who you are so that they will listen to your preaching. Today you are telling us that Jesus was married, was a polygamist, and bequeathed his genes to the white Nordic races. You also claim spiritualism is a reliable way to find truth, your truth.

Stop it.



Edited 3 time(s). Last edit at 09/03/2019 02:28PM by Lot's Wife.

Lot's Wife Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> McDonkie, you are lying.
>
> You presently believe in Dah*shism, which was
> founded in 1943. Dr. Dah*sh, you believe, visited
> you in a dream in 2005 or so when you saw yourself
> falling into the moon. That is why you chose,
> this time, "moon1943."
>
> You are presently 58 years old according to public
> records, and you went on an LDS mission in the
> early 1980s. It follows that you did not serve in
> Vietnam; you were not a "computer operator" in
> 1966-1968; and you don't know what life was like
> in the 1950s.
>
> In fact, you edited your previous post to add this
> paragraph afterwards. It was an afterthought, a
> belated attempt to cover your tracks. You are
> trying to persuade people that you are not who you
> are so that they will listen to your preaching.
> Today you are telling us that Jesus was married,
> was a polygamist, and bequeathed his genes to the
> white Nordic races. You also claim spiritualism
> is a reliable way to find truth, your truth.
>
> Stop it.


Because of some people doing stupid stuff on the page I have turned off free posting for awhile. You can still put up all the posts you would like but they will have to be approved before they go to the page. Sorry But it has to be done to keep the page a fun place. Moon1943

Sure, Darrick. Nothing I post will appear on RfM without your approval.

After all, you are the omnipotent one.

What happened, Darrick? My posts are still appearing and people are replying.

Did you lose your magic powers?

It all must be part of the plan!

Moon1943 and I could have been raised in the exact same neighborhood of America - except 1800 miles away. IMO, the whole 60’s landscape, as compared to today, partly explains why we feel so disconnected with each other as neighbors and Americans - and why the middle class is almost completed gone. For example, in my neighborhood, no one lived behind gates or had others doing house chores for them. My Dad didn’t make much money but we were able to live safely in a modest home in a clean neighborhood. Next door lived a policeman. Across the street was a doctor, two doors from him was a high school teacher and around the block from him lived a city judge and a barber. Show me a neighborhood like that today. Sigh -

I couldn't stand Mormonism (even Mormons) as a kid.

I won't lie: NOTHING'S CHANGED
But the lipstick on the pig.

I remember everything as being bigger in the sixties.

I thought this was about being in your 60s.

Ugh!! Who wants to go back to being in their 60s?! It's such an awkward age group...

I don't know

They haven't come yet

I hated all things mormon as a kid too.

Sunday: 3 hours of church spread through the day. No outside play, no TV, no nonmormon friends over. The only good part was going to a mormon friends house between Sunday school and sacrament meeting, and getting to play outside and watch TV because their parents allowed it.

Monday: Family Home Evening, complete with agenda, assignments, lesson, refreshments.....and threats of spanking when you're 5 years old and can't stay awake through hours of droning church lessons.

Wednesday: Primary after school for the kids and MIA in the evening for youth.


Saturday: Get up early and collect newspapers around the neighborhood, then spend the rest of morning shredding them in a building leased by the church. And you can't stay up late because you have to be ready for church the next day.

Whats not to love for a kid that just wants to play and fit in and be like normal people??

I barely missed the 60's but into the 70's, when I converted, I was expected to drive 14 miles (one way) to the branch facility in the next town for MIA after school. I rebelled and stopped going. There were only three of us in the group and it was a HUGE waste of my time and loss of study time.

Later, when we had Home Study Seminary, I was expected to do the same thing again for a weekly seminary meeting. The seminary teacher was a sister of one of the students and they bickered through the whole lesson. I quit because it made me lose two hours pay from my after school job from 3 to 5 pm and nothing but negativity came from the lessons. I'm SOOOO glad my mom believed in free agency for me when it came to religion. And my dad was not LDS so he stayed out of it.