My wife and I, empty-nesters, prefer two to four rows back, left, right, or center — whatever is open. These zones are usually somewhat in flux. Front row, center, is occupied by a family with nine children, always on time, who have somehow always found the spot available, wherever they’ve lived.

There was a similar thread, “Jumping Pews — Protocol question” on soc.religion.mormon last year, with a number of hilarious contributions. My favorite was the stake patriarch who signaled to a brother to reclaim his spot when the “usurper” vacated it to give the opening prayer. (#19: Search 11bijeo730o4jd5 on Google Groups).

Over the past several years I have been lectured to by ushers “You must be one of those back seat Mormons! Let me find a seat up front for you”, encouraged to repentance by a Stake President “Sit up here in the middle rows with me” (then he left me there), openly scorned “What are you doing sitting in the back row!?”, etc……

There are many reasons for my preferrence for the back row seats (I could list about 8 or 10), but my comment is,

“If these seats are so evil, let’s take them out right away!”

But then another row would be in the back, and we would have to repeat the process till there are no seats left for anybody……

I have noticed this in the world also, with people conducting a meeting often forcing those in the back into the front, or those on the sides into the center to snuggle. Americans have more of a requirement for “personal space” than some other cultures. Am I apostate, or am I just living with immature people?

Sad to say, but I’m afraid much of that material is gone forever. I remember my grandfather’s outrage in describing what happened sometime in the seventies. He had served for decades as a ward clerk, stake clerk, and stake executive secretary, sitting up on the stand on the other side from the sacrament table and taking meticulous, painstaking minutes, to the extent of summarizing the content of talks. Of course he kept minutes on many other meetings too, as well as church courts, and thought he was providing an important service in compiling a record of significant (and insignificant) doings and sayings of a community by which it could be remembered adn judged. He felt quite hurt and as if a big part of his life’s work had gone unappreciated when the stake decided to discard it all. Of course the wardhouse in which many of those events took place is no more, replaced by a structure with 1/10 of its character.

Around the same time, many ward libraries were also being purged, with directives such as, “it’s only necessary to keep the most recent XX years of magazines,” or “the new pictures have arrived; you can throw away the old ones.”

I remember in 1989 I spent some time in my grandfather’s basement looking at some old files including a multi-volume stake history. A couple of years later while I was a missionary, the house was emptied and sold. I think some copies are still extant, but I doubt there is a very wide audience for it.

They stood there in shock and contemplated the stuff someone else had left–a pair of scriptures, a backpack, a jacket. They discussed what should they do? Should they sit in the next pew?

I got up and said, “Mike, just move their crap and sit down. They’ll never know, they’ll just think that’s where they left their stuff.”

“Oh, no, we couldn’t do that.” And they stood there, just perplexed. I was cracking up, there were empty seats all over, it was early.

Finally, the two missionaries who’d left their stuff came walking up and thank heaven, noticed these two old guys (in their 80′s) dismay and moved their backpacks and the old guys sat down.

I think they’d still be standing there if the missionaries hadn’t moved their scriptures.

Actually, a much bigger issue with us is what order we sit in within the row. When my middle sister is here, she sits on the end (and thus takes responsibility for the fire alarm,) which annoys me because she wants to pass notes to our youngest sister, who wants to sit next to our mom, who wants to sit next to my stepfather, who wants to sit on the aisle side. Which means I’m forever between two people who want to sit next to each other. Sigh. My sister is back from college for summer break; that between-and-in-the-way status will be mine for the next three months.

(for the record, none of the buildings I’ve been in in Ohio seem to have desks for the clerks… if they’re there, they’re very well hidden indeed)