Kiamichi Mountains - stories for my grandchildren

In the southeastern corner of Oklahoma, there is a rustic, rural area known as the Kiamichi Mountains. The term mountain is generous; the highest peaks fail to reach the 1,000 foot mark that geologists use to designate a "real" mountain, so it really is a wilderness area, part federal lands and part logging industry acreage.

Near Honobia, Oklahoma, some forty acres is carved out of this wilderness by the Kiamichi Mission, and is home to numerous camps and retreats affiliated with the Christian Church. For many years, a Men's Retreat has been held in May, and hundreds of men have gathered annually, arriving in RVs and campers and pickups, setting up camp for several days of preaching, singing and fellowship. And when I say men's retreat, I mean exactly that; no women allowed. Except I guess they aren't that fond of cabrito in Oklahoma, so a group of ladies came every day to cook but left promptly after the dishes were done.

I ended up at the Kiamichi Men's Retreat because I worked for Sweet Publishing during the '70s and select vendors were allowed to exhibit their offerings in a tent set aside for that purpose. Christian churches were in Sweet's marketing demographic, so most years Ralph Sweet and one or two others made the pilgrimage to the wilds of Oklahoma to sell books (our table was right next to the John Birch Society table). One year, Ralph filled up the company RV with as many male employees as could fit, and that's how I ended up at "Christ's Forty Acres."

As I recall, there was preaching and singing in the morning and afternoon, but the main event was the evening service. There was a huge covered area, a glorified pole barn, where the services were conducted, filled with rough wooden pews and a stage at one end with a honkin' PA system, a pulpit and a piano. I didn't know any of the speakers (not my tribe), but these guys knew how to work a crowd. I can still quote a couple of things I heard, more than 40 years later.

"Don't worry about the roof! Let those who are left behind [after the Rapture] fix the roof!"

and,

"I want you to be so filled with the Spirit that if a mosquito bites you, it will go away singing, 'There's power in the blood.'"

And then there was the collection. Kiamichi Mission was founded to help support a number of small churches scattered throughout that area of Oklahoma and Arkansas; all mission-level congregations in poor rural areas, and a large part of the annual budget was gathered on the last night of the retreat.

A number of speakers shared in the exhortation, but the appeal was consistent: "I need ten men to stand right now and give $2,000 each. All right, I have five men! There's eight. Hallelujah, ten men are standing! Now I need twenty men to stand and give $1,000 each!" Next, forty men were asked for $500 each, eighty men... you get the picture. By the time it was over, everybody was standing, with the exception of a few of us sinners who slipped out before it got to our price level.

By the way, one of the guys in charge told us that there were some interesting logistics in getting the proceeds of the collection to the bank (it was largely a cash collection, a significant sum, and we were out in the boonies) He said four county sheriff's cars would trail four civilian vehicles out of the compound; four cars would turn North and four turn South, and at the first opportunity each pair would split off yet again, taking different routes to town. Who had the cash? According to our friend, it might be one, none, or split between all of them. They did it differently every year.

And one more memory. It was at the Kiamichi Men's Retreat that I heard, but did not see, a plane crash. A short distance from the camp area was a small, unpaved airstrip that some of the early standers used to come and go. We were lounging at the RV one afternoon when we heard a small plane rev its engine for take off. The volume and the RPMs increased, then we heard a couple of sharp cracks and sudden silence! The plane failed to clear the pine trees at the end of the runway. After a lot of excitement, we learned that there were no serious injuries, and later we saw the now-wingless plane being hauled off on a flat bed truck.