Old North dorm, built sometime in the 1890s, sat on a high point overlooking the scenic Ouachita River. As rumor had it, Old North probably would collapse once the termites stopped holding hands. If you didn’t know better, you’d be forgiven for thinking it was the Hitchcock house in the movie Psycho.
A cozy sanctuary to mice scampering to and fro in the attic, in the year of our Lord 1963 to be exact, it also became a shelter for me the first two years of study at Ouachita Baptist College in Arkadelphia, Ark. I was a transplanted Texan preparing to become a Southern Baptist preacher.
But I wander from my storytelling, most of it spot-on true. Even though I had my own car, a ’59 Volkswagen bug named Elmer, short for Elmer Gantry, I was otherwise your normal poor student.
Jimmy Coleman
I felt blessed whenever I found a countrified church in the hollows and byways of rural Arkansas willing to invite me to preach. It not only helped to hone my preaching skills but also to pay the bills. They passed around a basket to take up a collection — a pittance though it may have been, but given by those with little in their pockets who offered out of love — and was much appreciated. A member of the church always would invite me to their home for a warm meal, usually fried chicken, mashed potatoes, cornbread, iced tea and a yummy slice or two of peach or apple pie thrown into the mix.
Old-fashioned revivals have all but disappeared in today’s world. I was asked to participate in a revival meeting at Damascus Baptist Church. Given the church was not that far away from campus, I decided to commute betwixt one and the other.
Nancy Crompton, a music major at Ouachita, volunteered to lead the music for the revival. Nancy played a mean piano, what she referred to as classical-religious-boogie-woogie, a foot-stomping amalgamation of the three. Her real gift, bar none, was as a vocalist of a caliber that would make the “Queen of Gospel,” Mahalia Jackson, proud. When she lifted her voice to the high heavens in praise to the Almighty, the rafters shook and the pews danced, and that was in a Baptist church where dancing was frowned upon. She lead the congregation, not to mention yours truly, through an emotionally charged spiritual journey, a catalyst that helped bring about a renewal of the soul and set the stage for a much-needed revival. Looking back, I could not help but wonder if my preaching just got in the way!
“Sunday morning, it rained meows and bow-wows — a thunderous, cloudy, rain-drenched yuk of a day.”
We traveled a winding dirt road to get to Damascus Baptist, a house of worship established in 1858. Sunday morning, it rained meows and bow-wows — a thunderous, cloudy, rain-drenched yuk of a day. I wasn’t all that sure Elmer’s ragtop canvas “sunroof” would survive the jack hammering it was getting. The heavy pounding amplified to the sound of a snare drum in the interior of the car.
At one point, the road crossed Low Water Creek. In dry weather, the road was hard and slightly rutted; in wet conditions still passable. Leastwise, I hoped that would be the case. Fortunately, we got to the other side, and after a little slipping and sliding, we topped the last hill before the church. After that, clear sailing!
Sunday evening’s service was a whole ’nother adventure. The road through yellow wood had more craters than the surface of the moon. Debris, even a downed power line we managed to go around and broken branches — some the size of a full-grown anaconda — cluttered the road. Chirping crickets and croaking bullfrogs announced the rain had stopped. Our nostrils filled with a petrichor scent of damp earth, wet vegetation and decaying wood.
The road to Damascus, obviously a different road than Saul of Tarsus traveled 2,000 years ago, looked different than earlier in the day — especially at Low Water Creek, now a great deal wider at its girth. Common sense took a nap that day; wider often correlates to deeper.
That said, Elmer rolled up to the creek’s watery edge before stopping, trying to decide if he should go any further. I urged him on till all four wheels got their feet wet. Satisfied we were still on firm ground and could make it across, I put Elmer into first gear. We were on a mission, a revival. The congregation would not be deprived from once again hearing Nancy’s heavenly voice. “Onward, Christian Soldiers,” I said, trying not to show the apprehension I was feeling. Nancy said nothing, but anxiety was in her eyes.
We made it about a third of the way across when the engine started sputtering, which soon turned into a gurgle and then silence. Before what occurred registered in our minds, Elmer began slowly to move — not forward or backward, but sideways — of its own volition. My little VW was now a floating Noah’s Ark, void of the animals. Water seeped into the car, up to the level of the transmission hump that ran down the center of the vehicle. The flooding appeared to slow down, but something had to be done, or we soon would have to abandon ship.
If I could get in the water, I might be able to push Elmer to the other side, with Nancy’s help. She could sit in the driver’s seat and use the steering wheel to turn the front tires, using them like rudders to guide the car in the right direction. We weren’t exactly the Israelites trying to cross the Red Sea, but for us it became our Red Sea moment. But this time around, there would be no parting of the waters.
“No half-witted Texan or a fully sane Arkansan would jump in the water to play chicken with a venomous snake.”
Fortunately, Pharaoh’s army was not pursuing us, but I did see out the corner of my eye what looked to be a water moccasin swimming close by. Water moccasins were a dime a dozen in Texas, but no half-witted Texan or a fully sane Arkansan would voluntarily jump in the water to play chicken with a venomous snake. This appeared to be our only option, but I couldn’t open the door or crawl through the small window to let myself out. Nancy tapped me on the shoulder, pointing to the sunroof. “Manna from Heaven,” I said with a sense of relief. The way out of our confinement.
I knew I was going to get a little wet. Nancy and I were wearing our Sunday best, but it was as it is. After removing my suit coat, socks and shoes and rolling up the pants above the kneecaps, I reached up to manually crank the canvas sunroof to its fully open position, providing me a way of escape. Nancy wished me luck as she prepared to move over to the driver’s side to manage the “rudders.”
Elmer was a little wobbly, bobbing around like a rubber ducky in a bathtub. It didn’t help that I was hanging on for dear life while lowering myself. In the process, my glasses fell into the water, forcing me to let go and get a baptismal dunking; water settling well past my knees, just north of the waistline. Praise the Lord, miracles still occur; faster than poopie-a-doo-dah, I found my spectacles after swooshing the bottom with my feet.
I pushed Elmer with Nancy adjusting the steering wheel’s rudder(s) against a slow-moving current to point us in the right direction. The water level pretty much plateaued with the top of the transmission casing, at least for the time being.
Fortunately, a farmer and member of Damascus Baptist stood at the edge of the water on the other side, waiting for us with his tractor. Word was now out — the preacher and the vocalist were in dire straits. Several other cars and trucks showed up to lend a helping hand, including a dry set of clothes.
They towed us to the church. Nancy and I decided to go ahead with the service, me in my borrowed baggy pants and shirt along with my coat and tie. Either God or one of the church members — or maybe both — had a sense of humor. The service started off with a traditional Christian hymn, “Shall We Gather at the River”!
Jimmy R. Coleman is a former president of Garon Inc., a computer consulting company. He has devoted more than 20 years to studying the question of why Middle East peace remains elusive. His research has taken him to the four corners of the globe, and he has relied on some of the best experts in their respective areas — historians, theologians, political and military mindsets, and radical thinkers from the left and right. He considers himself not as an expert who sees the trees, but someone with a more generalist viewpoint of the forest.
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