The Pentecostal Peeper Prayer Meeting of 1975.

This is a story that some of you may have read before, as I have posted it on my Facebook page, but wanted to share it with a broader audience here.  Plus, it's illustrated this time!  Hope you will enjoy it, and it gives you many laughs.

Some of you may have remembered that Ray Stevens song that came out in the late 1980's called "The Mississippi Squirrel Revival," but about 12 years or so before that song hit the airwaves, a real-life story that was even more hilarious happened in the small town of Bedington, WV,  and this one involved tiny frogs and a 6-year-old kid with a fascination for catching a menagerie of critters, as well as a bunch of glorybun-crowned Pentecostal church ladies.   Although little humor was seen by the ladies, and the frogs were just relieved to taste freedom again, it now provides a great family legend that makes relatives chuckle.

My grandfather and my late stepgrandmother Goldie lived at the time in a double-wide mobile home they owned on a meadow-adorned plot of land just east of the town of Bedington off Scrabble Road.  Mom and I stayed with them at the time, as we often lived a semi-nomadic existence between relatives then.   Goldie was a very devout Christian, and was active in a tiny independent Full Gospel church just to the north in the town of Falling Waters.  It was an old-fashioned little church, but also a lively bunch, pastored by a demure balding man by the name of Claude "Jeff" Carbaugh and his wife Altha.   The Carbaughs had pioneered a number of those little Full Gospel churches around the region, which encompassed the far eastern panhandle of West Virginia as well as north-central Virginia and west-central Maryland.  And, he was a conservative, old-time Holiness-Pentecostal minister who could preach passionately and also had gained a great deal of love and respect from his parishioners.   Being churches then actually believed in prayer meetings, the congregation had an active prayer group that met at the homes of its members on a rotating basis each week, and that particular week was our house.  As the group - mostly old Pentecostal ladies who dressed modestly and lived their faith sincerely - assembled in my grandfather's living room, they began a spontaneous prayer meeting that was emotional, vocal, and intense; these people really did know the power of prayer, and they practiced what they preached.  There was a comfort about that too which I didn't understand then, but nowadays I really miss, as many churches don't believe in this like they used to.  Church felt like church, and you knew when you were in God's house or among his people.  Nowadays, no one knows the difference between a church and a nightclub, and now "self-esteem" seminars have replaced prayer meetings, which is truly tragic.  However, I digress, so let's get to the story.

It was the late spring, and earlier that day there was a rainstorm.  Near the house was Hoke Run, a tiny stream that cut across the edge of the meadow on Grandad's property.  There were some wooded groves near the edge of the meadow where Hoke Run meandered through, and in those meadows was a cornucopia of wildlife that I liked to capture.  So, on one of those invasions of the grove, the fresh rains had brought out literally dozens of these tiny little frogs called spring peepers. If you have ever seen one, they are roughly the size of a grown man's thumbnail, and they make a little chirping sound that gives them their name.  And, if you knew where to look, you could find them in great abundance.  And, I had a keen eye for those things, and armed with a large Maxwell House coffee can, I went a-huntin'!  After an hour or two, when my active 6-year-old mind began to lose interest, I headed back to the house with a canful of tiny amphibians, and being proud of my catch I bolted into the door.  What happened next was classic, and it was something probably some of the people in Grandad's living room never forgot until their dying day.

The prayer meeting was in full swing by this time, and people were really intense in their prayers - they were crying, praying in tongues, shouting, etc., and some real intercession was happening.  Then, I come in the door, and anxious to proudly show off the day's catch, I popped open the lid to that coffee can, and tiny frogs exploded everywhere!  As the women bolted up on chairs, their frantic screams brought their glorybuns down, and the frogs were going up dresses, getting stuck in pantyhose, and some managed to achieve such a height that they landed on top of a couple of buns on the ladies' heads.   Mom had to act fast to restrain me - she had gotten used to doing that a lot! - and in due course of time we managed to round up the majority of the peepers and safely incarcerated the little critters back into the Maxwell House can.  I am pretty sure I got into trouble, but am a little young to remember the punishment.  Definitely a prayer meeting to remember!

This is one of several stories of my childhood adventures I will share from time to time, because in many cases truth can be more entertaining than fiction.  Therefore, feel free to visit again, and we'll share some more stories in the future.