Posted 5:36 PM by Gene

"Maria and Arnold, April 25, 1986, Chowderheads."

Their wedding was a miracle in an age full of miracles, of enduring tunesmiths and profound pastors and epochal statesmen. Nothing could mark it more completely as of its exceptional age than an immortal fount of wisdom reading a poem. Today, the tunesmiths are forgotten, the pastor's once wife is dead, his church is defunct, its headquarters a hollow shell, the statesman long ago retired for $200K speeches, the fount is retiring, and this royal marriage is in tatters. Time's passage has mercilessly mocked the age's foolishness. We do not feel sorry for Maria and Arnold because the former is eligible for a third act and the latter is on his way to a sixth, but we can't reflect on this now without the profound agony that we -- and possibly they -- lived a life that was thoroughly wasted, in several senses.

(Via NRO)

P. S. at 7:55 p. m. Among the hundreds of videos posted by a YouTube member named CincinnatiGifts are dozens of Heritage USA just after the Bakkers' downfall and more recent ones of the veritable ghost town now run by MorningStar Ministries. We've seen only three but can confidently say they are astounding electronic archeology and among the more depressing things on YouTube. In the mid-2000s when the property's future was still unclear pictures of the totally forsaken buildings held a morbid fascination for us; in scanning it today with Google Earth the huge abandoned parking lot near the unfinished time-share is still riveting. (Earlier images showed abandoned baseball or softball lots nearby, long replaced by tract housing.) Last we heard the surrounding town of Fort Mill was in a fight with MorningStar to get that ghetto tower demolished. We could go on but simply put what happened at Heritage was a catastrophe, and ultimately a signal reminder of the fleetingness of life, and of would-be heroes.