Private Jokes in Public Places 1

One of my pet peeves is "Private Jokes in Public Places". In other words people want me to listen with full attention while they tell me a personal story that is about a subject that I know, but I have no relationship with the tale. Example 1: We went to the Church 40th anniversary reunion. The first after dinner speaker was the youth minister who was not only born into this church and has always been a member there, but he is on staff currently. His topic was a "History of the Garnett Church". I settled in to hear all the highlights of the last 40 years, about some of the past leaders, etc. What I got was this guy's personal memories of his Sunday School classes, HIS experiences at youth camp, HIS memories of HIS life! I was in great pain before this was over. HIS memories could have been at ANY church in America. But he thought he was funny.

Today, I went to the funeral of a friend. They handed me an order of the service when I came in and there were 8 items listed in the celebration. The funeral started at 3 pm with the obituary being read aloud. Next on the list was "Stories" and four of his friends were listed as speakers. These 4 took about 40 minutes. 40 minutes of personal stories that warped into sermons with scripture readings, testimonials, and stories that I could not relate to. Then (Not on the agenda) the Pastor declared "open mike" and 6 more people came forward with more personal stories. It is now 4:10pm and Dennis Jernigan is taking the stage for a "Time of Worship".

Remaining on the agenda was the "The Message", the Family Eulogy, a Video Tribute, another Dennis song and the Benediction.

As far as I know the service is still going. I left at 4:15 with my own good memories of my friend safe in my head.