On April the 25th there will be a Varner’s Drive-In reunion. To us teenagers in the 50s Varner’s was always a place to find friends hanging out, it was a way of life.
In the parking lot there were a lot of drinking and some fist fights. Everybody was always out to have a good time.
I was thinking about Varner’s yesterday. I remembered next door to the drive-in was a big vacant lot, which is presently the parking lot of Burlington Clothing Store. That was usually where the fights took place, in knee high weeds.
Once in the vacant lot Oral Roberts and company moved in their “big top” revival tent and had a healing revival. That was a bad choice for a location.
Some teenagers hanging out sitting on fenders at Varner’s sung:
Oral, Oral – He’s our man!
If he can’t cure us,
Nobody can!
One teenager limped inside the tent with crutches he somehow got ahold of. I think it was Jimmy Pat Presley, I forgot who for sure. When Oral cast his healing power on him he jumped up and ran out laughing.
Yesterday evening I talked to Debbie who remembered the Oral Roberts Crusade very well. She told me she knew of a girl who was terminally ill. She was expected to die anytime. Her parents carried her to Oral and he healed her and as far as she knows the girl is still alive today.
He or she who laughs last,
Laughs lastly…. right?
My pretty cousin used to be a carhop at Varner's, back in the '50s. Her jealous husband used to park up in the corner of the lot and watch her. She was the same one who said she liked to go to the swimming pool, but she hated getting wet. He remarked that she didn't go to swim.
ReplyDeleteI remember a man from our community who went to an Oral Roberts crusade. He died anyway. I was a young teenager at the time and thought it was a cruel joke because he was so desperately ill and there was a little hope held out, for nothing.
Nell,
ReplyDeleteI'm your cousin but I'm not pretty. Oh, you mean another cousin!
Maybe they should change the name to swimming pool to tanning-flirt pool.