Long ago in the olden days, before cell phones and internet and fast food restaurants, churches used to hold revival meetings at least two times a year. There was none of this Wednesday to Sunday nonsense, either. Real revival meetings lasted two weeks, with preaching every evening till 9 p.m., if not later. and sometimes there were meetings around lunch time too. During the afternoon the pastor and the evangelist "visited", going to peoples homes to invite them to the revival and to share the Gospel. And the evangelist didn't stay in some cushy motel as happens these days, with time to rest, and a bathroom all to himself. No Siree!
The evangelist would stay in someone's home, in their guest room or in little Albert's room and Albert bunked in with his brother and whined about it the whole time. This was probably for one week, then he packed up and stayed in another house for the second week. Evening meals were in still other church members' homes each day and the ladies all vied to see who had the best fried chicken so the preacher had chicken at least five times each week. At every dining room table he told jokes and exclaimed "This is the best fried chicken I've had in I don't remember how long!" You thought preacher's never wear watches so they don't have to quit preaching on time but it is really so they can make statements like that without actually lying.
Shortly after Dennis and I bought our first house, four rooms with no garage, no attic, and no basement, our church was having a revival meeting and Dr. Jimmy Draper, then the pastor of a large church in the Kansas City area, was going to preach. I don't know what we were thinking since along with no garage, no attic and no basement we also had almost no furniture, but we asked to have the preacher stay at our house and we won! He would stay one night, Saturday. I guess the family where he had been staying had other plans for that night
We set about getting our tiny house ready. The cardboard boxes that we were using for night stands were draped with pillowcases that almost matched our bedding. I cut orange and yellow flowers out of contact paper and applied them, with much sticking to my arms and peeling and re-sticking, to the fronts of the metal kitchen cabinets and we rearranged the avocado green and harvest gold couch, ( Danish modern with the end tables built in, such a deal,) and matching chair and the TV on it's metal rolling stand around and around the living room till they were just right. I cleaned the only bathroom, a very efficient place in which you could take care of all of your needs without moving more than a foot from the same spot. Dennis handled the linoleum floors. He may have missed the part about sweeping when he agreed to sweep, mop and wax them because I found a penny waxed down to the floor in the kitchen, but, hey, he was doing his share.
The only thing missing was a bed for Dr. Draper to sleep on. Not to worry. We had the classified ads and a friend with a truck. Dennis and our friend got the small sleeper sofa that we found---$15 dollars!---into our second bedroom, which was the size of a walk-in closet, although we didn't even know what a walk-in closet was back then, just in time. It barely fit but it looked like there would just be room to open it up. The doorbell rang. Time to impress the visiting preacher!
This was going to be a rare day of rest for him, so Dennis got him as comfortable as possible on the couch, comfortable being a relative term since there were no arms, only end tables. We got him a Pepsi and set out our gourmet snacks, a chip bowl with dip bowl attached by a metal rack that matched the faux brass TV stand, filled with potato chips and dip that I made from sour cream and onion soup mix. Dennis, man of the house, turned on the 13" black and white TV and they watched football. I made an apple pie while the men were watching the game. I wore a dainty apron. Pre-food processor days, just slicing the apples occupied me through more than the third quarter. The house smelled of cinnamon and apples. It was very homey.
Now, you think this is going to be another culinary catastrophe, for which I've become somewhat famous, but it's not. The pastor picked Dr. Draper up when the game was over so he could eat a chicken dinner at a church member's home, we all went to the revival meeting and we saved the pie for after church. It was delicious, thank you very much.
No, the excitement came as we were preparing for bed. Dr. Draper, always the gentleman, insisted on helping me get the sofa bed ready. I brought in some wedding gift sheets and a wedding gift blanket. I brought in the fluffy pillow, not quite down, but the best $3.99 pillow TG&Y had in stock. We took the cushions off the sleeper sofa. Dr. Draper pulled open the mattress---And out ran a roach! I don't know where it ran to. I don't know how Dr. Draper managed to keep the horror from showing on his face and I don't know how he was able to sleep all night with the thought of that roach crawling across him in the dark, but it seemed as though he did.
As I understand it, Jimmy Draper stopped preaching at revivals after that and was president of Lifeway Christian Ministries till his retirement. I think they always put him up in motels when he traveled.
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