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Bright Raven

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I hope this does not offend. It is a story from my life experiences. Just enjoy it or ignore it.

My comment on another thread about whisky and indians reminded me of someone I knew a long time ago. His name was Denzel Lewis. I met Denzel in the late 1960's.  Like me, he was from a poor family but his smarts landed him a scholarship to college.  That is where I met him. We both started college in 1968. His scholarship was for tuition and housing only and since he was from a poor family, he had to earn his own spending money and in a college town, jobs can be scarce.

Denzel thought he could make some easy money performing as an evangelist preacher and hold revivals in the mountains of Kentucky.   The revivals were in summer. Denzel would use the copy machine to make fliers of the upcoming revival.  He would post these in the town where he was holding the revival.   Then he would load up in his 1959 Impala and head to the target town and erect an old army surplus tent and fill it with rented chairs. Denzel was good and the word got out.  His tent was filled to the point of standing room only. Sometimes his revivals would go on all weekend and his inspirational message made people very generous when he passed the plate.

This went on for about two years till late one summer Sunday afternoon, he had just finished one of his performances.  A couple ask where he was preaching next.  He took them to his old Impala to give them a flier for the next gig. When he unlocked the trunk of his car to get the fliers, they saw a trunk full of beer cases. (This was a dry county).  That ended his ministry.  You see, he also made a few bucks buying beer in Mt Sterling and selling to college kids.

I went with Denzel on a couple of these performances. He was good!  My maternal  grandfather was an eastern Kentucky evangelist in Lewis County. I have no idea what happened to Denzel.  He grew bored with college and dropped out. I wonder if he is still preaching.
 
I'll bet Denzel went on to become a great politician somewhere. Under an assumed name I'm sure. Sounds like he had the right qualifications.
 
zirlottkim":11g8gufm said:
I'll bet Denzel went on to become a great politician somewhere. Under an assumed name I'm sure. Sounds like he had the right qualifications.

He was a biology major, as was I, as intelligent as he was - and he was amazing - he would not study. He failed Invertebrate Zoology as a freshman. It was like that both years I knew him. Just a wasted mind.
 
It would be nice to look him up nd find out what happened to him. Reminded me of a similar situation in college for me. My room mate was dating a girl who was very good at drawing people. She wanted to draw a picture of me and I told her no. At the time, like my entire life I was on the heavy side and was not interested in seeing myself as others saw me. I occasionally draem about her, right down to the color of her hair and eyes and wish I had let her do the picture. Some hidden meaning??
 
melking":22dgx3xt said:
It would be nice to look him up nd find out what happened to him. Reminded me of a similar situation in college for me. My room mate was dating a girl who was very good at drawing people. She wanted to draw a picture of me and I told her no. At the time, like my entire life I was on the heavy side and was not interested in seeing myself as others saw me. I occasionally draem about her, right down to the color of her hair and eyes and wish I had let her do the picture. Some hidden meaning??

Ahhh. Don't we all have those encounters that we wonder - WHAT IF. I had some opportunities I passed because I was drinking the sweet poison of forbidden risk.
 
He might have done well Might have changed his name to Jim and married a gal named Tammy Faye and lead a holy life.
 
Jogeephus":64p3i02c said:
He might have done well Might have changed his name to Jim and married a gal named Tammy Faye and lead a holy life.

Haha. I remember Jim Bakker. Not him. He was a 100 times more intelligent than Jim Bakker.

James Orsen Bakker is an American televangelist, convicted fraudster, a former Assemblies of God minister and a former host of The PTL Club, an evangelical Christian television program. An accusation of rape made by his secretary led to his resignation from the ministry. Subsequent revelations of accounting fraud brought about his imprisonment and divorce. He later remarried and returned to televangelism.
 
Bright Raven":1zp5562f said:
Jogeephus":1zp5562f said:
He might have done well Might have changed his name to Jim and married a gal named Tammy Faye and lead a holy life.

Haha. I remember Jim Bakker. Not him. He was a 100 times more intelligent than Jim Bakker.

James Orsen Bakker is an American televangelist, convicted fraudster, a former Assemblies of God minister and a former host of The PTL Club, an evangelical Christian television program. An accusation of rape made by his secretary led to his resignation from the ministry. Subsequent revelations of accounting fraud brought about his imprisonment and divorce. He later remarried and returned to televangelism.

I lived near Jim and Tammy's headquarters and seeing what they did was sickening seeing how they took advantage of people. They called it the Praise The Lord club but locals dubbed it as the Pass The Loot club. What really got the heat on them was their time share deal where they promised people who gave them all their earthly belongings a home in their village. Once they signed over everything including their homes they moved into apartments only to learn later these apartments were only time shares and when their time was up they were evicted and loaded up in a van and tossed them in the street in front of the local welfare office. Why someone didn't kill him speaks well of Christian tolerance.
 
Bright Raven":1fdspg4f said:
melking":1fdspg4f said:
It would be nice to look him up nd find out what happened to him. Reminded me of a similar situation in college for me. My room mate was dating a girl who was very good at drawing people. She wanted to draw a picture of me and I told her no. At the time, like my entire life I was on the heavy side and was not interested in seeing myself as others saw me. I occasionally draem about her, right down to the color of her hair and eyes and wish I had let her do the picture. Some hidden meaning??

Ahhh. Don't we all have those encounters that we wonder - WHAT IF. I had some opportunities I passed because I was drinking the sweet poison of forbidden risk.

Just lke the lengthy post I just finished reading, "the road not taken"
 
melking":1bviabbd said:
Just lke the lengthy post I just finished reading, "the road not taken"

Mel.

If we had it all to do again, where would we be today. In our youth the road has so many beckoning forks. As we reach our age, the road ahead is so much more limited....the choices fewer....
 

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