Interview with Brother Harrison Mayes, 1977

This is a documentary recording by Eleanor Dickinson of Brother Henry Harrison Mayes, the folk-art sign-maker and lay preacher from Middlesboro, Kentucky, near the Cumberland Gap.

The recordings are part of Eleanor Dickinson’s Pentecostal Videotape and Audiotape Collection and were made public through the Smithsonian Online Virtual Archives.

Chapters

• Opening Introduction (00:02:00)
  Eleanor introduces Brother Harrison Mayes and his life’s work of building and erecting religious signs
• The House Design — Land Layout (00:03:49)
  Harrison explains how he purchased the land in a carpenter’s square shape with 12 corner posts representing the 12 apostles
• The Principles of Jesus — Religious Symbols (00:06:12)
  Harrison details the religious symbolism in his house design: religion, politics, languages, nations, and the unity of all races
• Tour of the House (00:12:04)
  Eleanor and Lilly describe the cross-shaped structure with eight rooms, 12 windows (apostles), and 10 windows (Ten Commandments)
• The Injury & Vision (00:14:15)
  Harrison recounts the mine accident at age 19 that nearly killed him, followed by Lilly’s account of the miraculous recovery and vision of large signs
• Messages on the Signs (00:17:21)
  Discussion of the core message on the signs: “Jesus Saved” and “Prepare to Meet God”
• The Airport Signs Controversy (00:17:39)
  Harrison and Lilly explain the signs placed near major airfields and address concerns that the message scares airplane passengers
• Making Concrete Signs (00:19:15)
  Harrison describes his hand-casting method for creating permanent concrete signs designed to last forever
• The Concrete Sign Plan (00:19:58)
  Harrison’s ambitious plan to create 200 signs: 9 for planets, 1 for the moon, 50 for states, 7 for the seas, plus North/South Pole and canal locations
• Sending Signs to Missionaries (00:22:51)
  Harrison details his project of sending 50 packages of miniature religious signs annually to missionaries worldwide using the Church of God directory
• Finding Missionaries (00:23:56)
  Lilly explains how they locate missionary addresses through the Church of God publication and headquarters in Cleveland, Tennessee
• Whiskey Bottles for Miniature Signs (00:24:41)
  Harrison demonstrates how he creates miniature signs in whiskey bottles to send to missionaries for placement around their churches
• Trespassing & Putting Up Signs (00:29:56)
  Harrison’s extended narrative about the challenges and encounters while illegally placing signs, including stories of using psychology to avoid confrontation
• Vision for the Future & His Family’s Mission (00:36:08)
  Harrison explains that he can do nothing else but put up signs; he names his children and grandchildren after continents and planets to carry on his work
• Family Values & Teachings (00:40:18)
  Lilly discusses the values she taught her children: honesty, decency, uprightness, and keeping the Ten Commandments
• The Walking Stick & Denominational Divisions (00:40:59)
  Harrison presents his walking stick decorated with 259 crosses representing chartered churches and discusses the problem of religious denominations
• The Museum (00:47:39)
  Harrison describes his 40-year-old museum displaying examples of sin (drugs, alcohol, nudity, abortion materials) to educate preachers and leaders
• Vision for the Future & the Cosmos (00:54:31)
  Harrison concludes with his philosophy comparing himself to Moses, reflecting on the vast universe, and expressing his hope to live 40 more years to place signs throughout space

Opening Introduction

Eleanor Dickinson

Brother Harrison Mays has lived and worked in the Cumberland Gap area, which crosses from Kentucky into Tennessee since 1896. As a young man working in the coal mines to support himself and his 15-year-old bride, he began writing religious messages on the mine walls with slate.

In the 1930s, he was fatally injured in the mine by a coal car and had a vision of huge religious signs across the United States. When, by a miracle he recovered, he felt that God had spared his life to erect these large signs on the highways.

In the half century since then, Brother Mays has built, painted, carved, trucked, and erected these signs in every continental state and many foreign countries through missionaries. His home in Middlesboro is his largest sign. It is built in the shape of a cross, with Jesus Saves painted on the roof for the benefit of any airline passengers flying over.

He built the house himself with a religious meaning for every part of it, even making each brick himself in a special mold that indented a cross in each brick and Jesus saves over every doorway.

The House Design — Land Layout

Harrison Mayes

All right. I want to talk about when I begin to get around to building this house. This is the way I bought the land in the shape of a square, a carpenter’s square to begin with. So it would mean everything.

And I managed to get 12 corner posts with the gate posts and everything to represent the 12 apostles and so on and so on. And I left one of them. I stole one of the posts wood. I didn’t want nothing right about it. And I swung a gate to it in the back end. And every time I needed a brush cleaned, I’d swipe that brush against it because Judas is no good to Judas, no way you fix it.

And I had to have it that way to make it plan out right to be a carpenter square, everything square about it, before I even started the house. So I’ve got the front end of five lots, the back end of three, the back end of five, and the front end of three 25-foot lots to make a square.

Now this heart right here, that chain that’s around it has got 33 lengths in it. That represents the 33 years that Jesus stayed on earth. And the principles of Jesus is inside that, which I’ll let this down and explain a little bit about when you’ve got this here now. Tell the boy to come out here.

Eleanor Dickinson

OK. What about this?

The Principles of Jesus — Religious Symbols

Harrison Mayes

This heart right here, I had one on the other side and one on this side, which means everything. If you don’t have your heart in these things, the cross don’t mean anything. I want everything else left like it is, the outside that represents the cross of Jesus. I meant everything to mean something.

I’ll lay this down. Oh, just this one. Easy. Are you ready? Now, the world may not like this, but this is the principles of Jesus himself. And that chain represents 33 years as a stage here, and that holds the thing together.

All right. First one: My religion. Catholic, Protestant, Jew. What I mean by that is this. The good that’s about any of them, I’m in for that. That that ain’t good, I’m not for it. So that’s Jesus and stuff.

Political — politics is Democrat, Republican, Communist. The good that’s about either one of them, I’m into that.

The third one, languages. I think everybody should cater to have one language till we could understand one another better, not be fussing over things that one won’t understand. It wouldn’t take me a period of just a little while if every nation put themselves to it till we could all become one language, regardless of what it took, English or what.

And I believe in one nation, not have hundreds of them where we all the time fussing over inches of land, wars, and everything. And you don’t—if you don’t believe it, if somebody takes an inch from an American, they’ve got a war on their hands. Fight on the hands, and so is everybody else. They’re not going to have their land taken without a fight.

And I believe in one race. Get me now. While this is taking place, there’d be a lot of unrest. But when it was over, race, prejudice would be away from this earth. White, the colored, the yellow, all blended in one race, because we’re all God’s people. And I’m no better than the colored men. I’m no better than the yellow men. Chinese do nothing. We’re all God’s race. So, like it or not, that’s the principles of Jesus.

So, we will close it back up. I’ll talk to you. I had a walkway here coming in from the highway. You could either come this way or the other way. But if you come this way, you have to walk up to this little thing here and notice, open to guard your heart and say, Jesus, save me. And it had to be tuned to a little photograph in there. When you said that, that recorded that little old photograph I had in there, and then you could undo it. But you had to say, Jesus, save me. If you didn’t, you didn’t get in.

Tour of the House

Eleanor Dickinson

Can you tell me about the house?

Lilly Mayes

The house, how it’s made.

Eleanor Dickinson

Yes, the shape and all that.

Lilly Mayes

It’s made like a cross. The room that you’re standing by now is the living room. That’s the top part of the cross. And then the wing chair is the two bedrooms.

Harrison Mayes

You want me to tell her about it?

Lilly Mayes

Yeah, go ahead. I guess you understand it better.

Harrison Mayes

Well, this cross represents the cross of Jesus Christ. The house does. It’s got eight rooms in it — 13 foot, four inches square, each one of them.

The front part of it here represents the grace plan. We’ve got 12 windows in this front end, represents the 12 apostles. The back end has got 10 windows, represent the Ten Commandments, and the back end represents the law. So I tried to make it mean everything.

Each one of these rooms right here on the front’s got two doors. If you get in the work of the Lord and don’t live right, you just get out the other door, as far as the Lord is concerned.

Eleanor Dickinson

Now, what are the eight rooms for? What does eight stand for?

Lilly Mayes

She said, what do the eight rooms stand for?

Harrison Mayes

Oh, that represents the eight people that saved in the ark. Yes, yeah.

Eleanor Dickinson

And what about the shape of the lot?

Harrison Mayes

Yeah. This is like a cross, yes. 88 feet long, the long way, and 43 this way. 43, yeah.

Eleanor Dickinson

You built it.

Harrison Mayes

I made all the blocks, made them, and done everything there was to do with it.

Eleanor Dickinson

When did you make it?

Harrison Mayes

About 30 years ago. About 28 or 30. I was making signs when I got hurt.

The Injury & Vision

Eleanor Dickinson

What happened?

Harrison Mayes

Well, I began when I was 19 making signs and I got hurt about the ’30s. Around the 30s.

Eleanor Dickinson

What happened?

Harrison Mayes

I got squared, but in the mind… I don’t know whether I probably could know what the rib is. In the way it’s society, the mind goes in there. And it squares my eyes out. I’ve never been aware of it since.

Eleanor Dickinson

Did you pray over him?

Lilly Mayes

That’s whenever he was… They brought him out of the mine, so nigh dead.

Harrison Mayes

Oh, yeah.

Lilly Mayes

And they take him to the hospital, and they just give him from 48 to 64 hours to live. And he laid unconscious from Friday till Sunday night. And that’s when the little church break through and got the victory that he wasn’t going to die. He said he’s seen these large signs. That’s when we went to putting them up large then, the Lord would let him live.

Eleanor Dickinson

Was it like a vision?

Lilly Mayes

Yes, I guess it was this lady at the little church, the little church of God in Heaven Holland was praying. A lot of churches all over town was praying, but yet this little church, this little lady got a vision from the Lord and he wasn’t gonna die, he was gonna get well.

And the doctor come in that night and he told me to take care of myself, that he couldn’t live, he was smashed to death and that all the mess they had in their hospital wouldn’t keep him alive. So he told the nurse to watch it close. He didn’t think he’d make it till midnight.

At 10 o’clock that night, that little church got through with the Lord and he is going to live. At that hour, he woke up and asked me where we was at. He knowed from that on.

So the doctor come in next morning and asked the nurse, did he make it? He said he didn’t think he’d make it till midnight. She says, there’s a miracle for sure—he’s talking, he knows everything. We just have to say with the Lord ’cause they’ve done all they can do.

Eleanor Dickinson

How did they get the message at the church?

Lilly Mayes

Well, this little lady was praying and she got a vision. She said the Lord showed her. You know, she just got up and told him what the Lord showed her. Gave her a vision that he wasn’t gonna die. Said she’s seen, through the spread, she’s seen an angel standing by the bed.

And the Lord spoke to her and told her, says, “Tell him he ain’t gonna die. He’s going to live and work for the Lord.” So he did. He’s still here. And we still honor the Lord first.

Eleanor Dickinson

Did he have this vision of the signs as a picture?

Lilly Mayes

Yeah, he said the second motor, the first motor, I mean the motor pulled off and hit him. Then it was coming back second time putting on sand. He said then when he seen the large signs. And he said, “If you’ll spare me, I’ll put them up.”

Messages on the Signs

Eleanor Dickinson

What about the messages on the signs?

Lilly Mayes

Well, it says, “Jesus Saved” and “Prepared to meet God.” It’s something to try to get people to think of eternity and try to get right with the Lord. Now, that’s what he means by it.

The Airport Signs Controversy

Eleanor Dickinson

When he put those signs up by the airports, was he trying to scare people?

Lilly Mayes

No. He’s trying to get the people that was riding the airplane to see the message and get right with the Lord.

Harrison Mayes

We had about 24 of them, around 24 major airfields over the years. But they don’t let them stay too much because it disturbs their passengers at the wrong place.

Lilly Mayes

Well, he don’t mean to scare them.

Harrison Mayes

No.

Eleanor Dickinson

Well, what did they say? I don’t know. But if they say “prepare to meet God” as you take off, that scares people.

Lilly Mayes

He don’t look at it that way, but they do.

Eleanor Dickinson

They do, wouldn’t you?

Lilly Mayes

He just wants to… Well, he had to sign up going up in Harlem, you know, and if they thought there’s something wrong, I pray he’d just turn around and come back. He don’t mean it that way, but a lot of people takes it that way. He just wants to tell them to get right with the Lord no matter where they’re at.

Harrison Mayes

I had four signs up there if he were done at last for it. Well, that man that let me put him on his place, he said, “Well, they’re just calling out here and telling me that the passengers are coming in here fussing about things at the end of the runway down there, scaring people.”

I’m not scaring people. I’m just reminding them to get right with the Lord at the right place. I know where to put them. I’ve got directions on all of them, just what to do with them. I don’t mean to hurt nobody, trespass and nothing.

Making Concrete Signs

Eleanor Dickinson

How about the concrete ones? How did you make the concrete ones?

Harrison Mayes

Well, you can’t move that much. Well, I’ve had two moves.

Lilly Mayes

She wants to know how you make them.

Harrison Mayes

Oh, by hand.

Lilly Mayes

He had a farm before.

Harrison Mayes

There’s a hole down the ground, pour it full, put my steel in there. Get it up to there and put that form on there. I’ve got a wood form — the bottom part, cross-piece the top, fill that full, and the other one up till I get it up to the top. And then when they dry a day or two, I take that off and the letters is already formed in there.

I got around to making these concrete signs to last forever. I intended to make 200—four of them around each state capitol, and one for each to stay in the state.

When 1990 has come, three of them is to be taken to the place designated. It’s cut on the backside of where they go, whether it’s a planet or whether it’s a nation.

This one right here, this third one, belongs to the planet Jupiter. That right out there belongs to the planet Venus. This one right here belongs to the moon. And so on and so on.

I intended to make 200, but I’ve had some health issues that have cut me short. I’ve got about 125 of them made and up. But I’m finished, I guess, as far as making them is concerned.

I had a little mishap in some of these because I made some of these during the war. And it was priority on getting the proper kind of steel. Some of them has busted and cracked on me due to not being able to get the proper kind. But anyway, we have to do as we can when war is on.

So if ever I get back to it, I’ll finish out the 200. Nine for the nine planets, one for the moon, one for all 50 states, and one for each one at the bottom of the seven seas. Why? Just figure it out for yourself. We’ll be traveling the bottoms of the seas, just like we do the highways one of these days. And I want people to pop up down there and get right with God.

I’ve got one made for the North Pole, one for the South Pole, one on the bank of the Suez Canal, and one on the Panama in the 200. But just like I say, I’ve got to cut short, and I’ve got about 80 of them up, I guess. And they weigh 1,400 pounds apiece.

This fourth one and fifth one right here, they’ve got propped up. There’s a lady here to take them and put them in the art museum in Washington, D.C. Some are going to Japan. I’m going to try to send off 50 packages like this year. That’s 50 dozens. Twelve of them around the rim of the United States, and the rest of them are for missionaries.

This year some go to Jerusalem for a missionary in Jerusalem.

This is what you’ve got to put on them. They’ve got to know what’s on there — everything. Who it’s to, the value, whether it’s valuable. This one has the name of the missionary. On the other side here, “12 religious signs, a gift, no value.” That’s to keep the missionary from paying duty on them.

Eleanor Dickinson

I see.

Harrison Mayes

He takes them out instead of putting an oil ball sign up on his church or whatever. He takes these out at his convenience, him or some of the church folks—put them on a river, ocean, or lake, whatever’s around them. Twelve of them—don’t send them back.

Finding Missionaries

Eleanor Dickinson

How do you know the missionaries?

Harrison Mayes

About 40 of these will go this year.

Eleanor Dickinson

Where do you find out the missionary’s name?

Lilly Mayes

We’ve got a Church of God book. I should have brought it. Magazine. It gives the pastors’ names and the state overseers and other places.

Harrison Mayes

All the missionaries all over the earth and their families. Addresses, families—all I’ve got to do is look at it.

Lilly Mayes

This is the Church of God. They send us one every year, see? We keep up with the missionaries that way. We mail them to the missionaries. See, I belong to the Church of God, the headquarters in Cleveland, Tennessee.

Harrison Mayes

I should have brought it out here and showed you what I’m talking about.

Lilly Mayes

And they’ve got missionaries all over the place in all the foreign countries and stuff.

Whiskey Bottles for Miniature Signs

Eleanor Dickinson

Yeah, what are you doing? How do you make them?

Lilly Mayes

Now, this is what he was going to show you how he gets. Where do you get the bottles? Oh, he gets little boys to pick them up for him. Some men bring some gifts.

Eleanor Dickinson

But are they all whiskey? Yeah.

Harrison Mayes

It’s a plain old whiskey bottle.

Eleanor Dickinson

Have enough whiskey bottles?

Harrison Mayes

I’m having a tough time of getting them down.

Eleanor Dickinson

Are people drinking less?

Harrison Mayes

No, the bootleggers are gathering them up. We’re doing something. I can’t get them hardly. I called a courthouse down here. They took 40, 42 of them the other day.

Lilly Mayes

Your business.

Eleanor Dickinson

Are you sure they pour it out?

Lilly Mayes

I don’t know. He doesn’t know either. You know, since you said it ain’t our business, we don’t know.

Harrison Mayes

Here’s the way it goes now.

Eleanor Dickinson

Okay, let me do a close-up here.

Harrison Mayes

All right, you run this thing right around in there and straighten it out. See? That’s 14 tiny ridges there. I’ve got the courthouse down here watching for them when they take some off of people—save them for me.

Now this is the packaging department right here. Right here is the pints, half a pints, when I can get them, you see. And to get them, you’ve got to have glass to put these in and put cork in there because the salt water will ruin these little old plastic caps. But you put a cork in there, it won’t.

I’ve got one package in there of half a pint that has to go 10,000 miles—to Fiji Islands, Gilbert Islands. It’s quite a distance.

I am sorry that I’ve got one life to give for this, but that’s all I can do. I’ve got two bicycles—one that I work with, my workhorse, but this is the one I ride in Christmas parades and festival parades and such, for thousands on top of thousands of people. And I’ve got other signs to put on here. Oh, about three foot by two foot that I had on the sides here and on the front and everything.

In other words, a lot of things I got on this bicycle that I want people to know. I want to ride this in outer space if I possibly can sometimes.

Trespassing & Putting Up Signs

Eleanor Dickinson

Great.

Harrison Mayes

Now, all this sacred sign work is not heaven on earth because you’ve got the highway with the people, you’ve got the Farmer Brown in your hair, and if you put any of them up, you have to get in the halfway place, put them up, trespass and do it, and they roll up on you. You’ve got to get out of it some way or another.

I can look at a man and tell just about what he’s going to say to me. One man was upset to run me out of the country, make me take the sign down—and I’d worked a day to put it up, half a day. Then it started raining. I’d already paid him some money for it and had no fortune of it. I just laid down in the grass and got wet, played like I was having a heart attack. He told my company that I better not say no more, but I’m causing him to have a heart attack. So he let me get away with it.

The Lord just gave me—he didn’t care nothing about signs, and I couldn’t have scared him and told him, “The Lord will get after you.” I had to use human psychology.

Another time, a man rolled up behind me and said, “He owns a little piece of land. I was up there putting it all the way, what you guys are doing, just hateful.” I was up on the top of the truck. I looked around at this big heavy man down there, and I said, “Bud, trespassing looks like—don’t you know you’ll get in trouble with trespassing?”

It just came to me. I said, “No, sir. Nothing else in this world will matter. Everything that’s happened that can happen is done already happened.” It just melted him—not because I said it, but the Lord had the thing in it. He said, “Why in the world?” I said, “You all know, don’t you?” He said, “Yes, I do.”

I said, “Now 9 times out of 10, if I ask people, they’ll cuss me out, run me off, put a dog on me or something. And I don’t aim to put up with it. I’m just going to hunt that way place and put them up where they won’t be in, hurt nobody. Put them up and trust them to stay there.”

Another man—this last trip was on for a sign up. I thought I was getting it on the right place. I mean, a little old strip of land, 12 foot, about 300 feet of it, right by the side of the road and a bluff over here. Well, I got it up, and my buddy took the tools back up to the truck, all but I had the materials. And I see this owner outside. He’s mad, you know. Well, I couldn’t hardly walk for this arthritis anyway. And I said, “Right now isn’t the time to use human psychology because he sees what I’m doing here. He cares nothing about sacredness, the Lord either.”

Well, I got a chain on the sign. I got it all tuned up. I got a hold of that post there and went walking just like I couldn’t get one foot before the other. I couldn’t hardly move, but I put it on.

I got up, oh, about a hundred foot. Oh, my serious countenance fell as if to say, “Instead of me whooping that fella, he needs somebody to pity him.” When I went up and run around, I didn’t pay no attention to him. He come around and I said, “Hey, trust me.” I jerked out my pocketbook, and I said, “Buddy, I thought it was on the right.” He said, “Thank you. No, that’s mine.” I said, “Well, let me pay you for it.” He said, “I want no pay. It’s raining.”

I said, “Well, tell you what, dude. Just leave it there. And when it quits raining, just push it off over the hill.” He said, “No, I didn’t want to do that. It’s cooling off, you know.” I said, “Tell you what, dude, just leave it there. Call some of these creatures around here and tell them to come get it and take it and put it around their church house. Don’t waste that time because that cost me $21 besides the work.”

And he said, “No, just leave it alone as of now.”

And dozens and dozens and dozens of things just like that. And the Lord has endowed me with some kind of something to get out of it right now, ’cause the man’s ready to shoot me or wake me up. So I better close right there before the highwayman comes back to me again. So that’s it. If you want, I’ll give you two or three of these planks and you can roll ’em up in a little roll and take ’em and get some of your friends to let you attack them on the side of a barn.

Lilly Mayes

Okay.

Harrison Mayes

I thought you wouldn’t try to put them on the highway because it’s a problem.

Lilly Mayes

They’re easy to put up if somebody gives you the opportunity to nail one up somewhere. But I can’t do like that. If I was putting one up, I’d have asked the people, “Do you want it?”

Harrison Mayes

She wouldn’t put none up either.

Eleanor Dickinson

You just put them up whether they like it or not.

Harrison Mayes

Yeah. I’m just like the apostles. If I get any up, I’ve got to trespass and do it. Everything they done, they trespass.

Eleanor Dickinson

Are you sorry?

Harrison Mayes

Sorry? No. The Lord’s got me doing this, and I don’t care who knows it. And there’s nobody can stop me but the Lord.

Vision for the Future & His Family’s Mission

Eleanor Dickinson

If you were starting all over again, would you do any kind of different signs, or would you be a preacher?

Lilly Mayes

She said if you had to do over, would you be a preacher, or would you do more signs?

Harrison Mayes

No, I can’t do nothing but this. I’ve tried everything. I had a sound system, a little church house, everything. I can’t do nothing but this, but I can do this.

My children—they’re named after the continents that get these signs. Like I am on Earth: James, that’s the oldest boy of mine, in South America. He’s to get signs of some sort in South America just like I’m doing it. After I leave you, Clyde in Europe. That’s my baby boy. Melvin, one of my grandsons, in Africa. Collie, that’s another grandson, in West Indies. Billy Ray in North America. Jimmy Seals in Australia. Raymond Seals in East Indies. Carl Seals in Asia.

Now, down here to the planets now, if transportation’s available. I’ve got them named after planets anyway to get some kind of a sign up there when transportation’s available. Jamie, that’s a grandson—Saturn. Ricky—Mercury. Jeff Mays—Uranus. David Seals—Mars. June Seals—Venus. Charles Seals—Pluto. Ronnie Seals—Jupiter. Stevie Nepulon, that’s a great grandson—Planet X.

Lilly Mayes

Them names don’t kill them—they live.

Harrison Mayes

Now, in other words, they know that I want them to do that, whether they do it or not.

Lilly Mayes

Yeah.

Harrison Mayes

See the point?

Eleanor Dickinson

Do you make them a promise to you?

Lilly Mayes

Well, there’s some of them that say, “Daddy Mayes, I’ll do anything I can.”

Harrison Mayes

Yeah, yeah.

Lilly Mayes

He’s hoping they will, but whether the Lord puts it on them or not, he don’t know.

Harrison Mayes

I believe this one’s up.

Eleanor Dickinson

Did you let them pick which planet they wanted?

Lilly Mayes

Oh no, he just laid it out himself.

Harrison Mayes

I didn’t let these grandbaby girls get by either.

Lilly Mayes

Wow.

Harrison Mayes

One of these daughters-in-law is to do everything she can to do away with certain things. Yes, then do everything she can do to do away with other things. See.

Eleanor Dickinson

Yes.

Harrison Mayes

That’s what I mean. Work at it. Get a hold of the Lord and do what they can for it.

Family Values & Teachings

Lilly Mayes

I teach—I taught my children the Bible as much as I wrote out. And I’ve taught them to be honest, to be decent, to be upright. As my mother used to tell me, if you borrow one spoonful of salt, pay it back. So I think if that’s the best keynote to the Bible, if we’ll just keep the Ten Commandments. See? If we will keep the Ten Commandments, we’ll do a lot of good.

The Walking Stick & Denominational Divisions

Harrison Mayes

I’ll tell you what. I’ve got a walking stick. I’m going to show you this walking stick. And you don’t have to even look at it if you don’t want to.

Now, here we go, and I want everybody to particularly pay attention to what I’m saying, because this is very particular. On this jacket are 259 crosses, which represents the 259 chartered churches that the United States has got, plus them that don’t have any charter. Each one of these crosses represents a chartered church. They’re all doing good, and I’m working through all of them, and I respect all of them.

But when I got this jacket—this is a barber jacket—I went down to the barber and I framed up some stories to get this jacket to put it on. Because in the first place, the Lord didn’t give us no right to do all these things. We just done it ourselves, and we’re human, and he let us get by with it.

They’re all doing good because we’re humans, and the Lord has to work with us as humans. That’s all he’s got to work with—a human. I’m working through all of them, and I respect all of them.

Now this, in the eyes of the educated people and society, looks bad. They’ll say it looks like there’s nothing to nothing—people all divided up that way. But, like I say, we’re humans, and we have to look at it that way.

Well, I decided to come up with something—in the eyes of society now, all this mess of denominations, 700 all of them together. But 259 has got a charter for it in the United States. I tried to come up with something that had an odor that could equal it. So I went down to a farm where these animals are, and I got 12 little vials of animal litter, and I put them all in one vial. Now, if you don’t believe there’s an odor in there, you just open that vial. But there’s nothing on earth that stinks any worse than this mess that we’re all divided on.

However, we are humans and we have to be looked at. The Lord can’t hold it against us because He made us, and that’s all He’s got to work with—just us human people. Humanly speaking, this is to be expected. But manly speaking, this would gag any gut on earth. Now, I hope the public has got this.

The Museum

Harrison Mayes

I want to say something in regard to this museum that I’ve had 40 years. I’m gathering stuff from everywhere in the world, both good and bad—artifacts for lectures, preachers, lawmen, key people. On this door here says, “Hub Nub Theological Seminary for Key People.” I wouldn’t let everybody come in here and see this stuff—not roughnecks and such—but I’ve done this to help the leading people of the country to stop these things.

On this side right here—the road to hell up there, the road to heaven—there’s all kinds of sacred things that I can get a hold of: sacrament and wine, different versions of the Bible (the Catholic version, King James, English version, and so on), and all kinds of tracts and sacred things.

Well, this here has got all kinds of things that I can get a hold of in the way of heroin, marijuana, beer, whiskey, different kinds. I’ve got behind there marijuana and heroin that the police department down here gave me for this purpose.

Every time a preacher comes around, I bring them in and show them, “Now, preacher, if this stuff ain’t stopped, the Lord’s going to stop all of us, because we’re just getting too far with everything.”

Now, here’s a slot machine right here—a penny slot machine. I had a man come in here from May’s Land in New Jersey on a meeting here and stay with me. He came in and I showed him some of this nudist stuff. He said, “That’s where I live.” I said, “Don’t you know that’s up there?” He said, “I don’t know it.”

Well, that’s the reason I have preachers and lecture people on these things—because they hear of these things, but they don’t know it. See, if a preacher went down to the newsstand and bought a Playboy and the public saw him getting it, they’d accuse him of something. But the stuff that I had in these things—a Playboy is a Sunday school card. I had this cabinet full of everything. Marilyn Monroe in there. Companies are running day and night making them for men, for dance halls and dancing parties where they ain’t got enough women. They have one of these rubber women. I had one in there that cost me $40. I had $400, $500 worth of literature from everywhere in the world—Denmark, England, from the rim of the United States, Baltimore, Maryland. And they wasn’t just talking about things. They was showing the beginning and the end.

As for this marijuana and heroin I’ve got in there and all this whiskey, me and my wife, when I had this stroke, figured I couldn’t be a lecturer anymore much. My wife wouldn’t want to fool me. We came in here and poured this whiskey out, but I’ve got the labels there. This is the road to hell, and this is the road to heaven.

Right over there, I’ve got a round of depopulating pills—the pill. Now, the American ladies in ’69 took 5,000 tons of this depopulating pill. I don’t know what the ratio is now. So I’ve got a round bed in there. I’ve got the bottle where heroin and matter water come in. I’ve got the steel and the needle that injects the stuff in it. I’ve got pictures in these magazines of the whole setup of everything.

Now, I hope I’m reaching somebody that needs to be reached. I don’t care nothing about what people think of me, just so I’m saying something that’s good.

Up here in Baltimore, Maryland, they’ve got a place where you can walk in at 10 o’clock in the morning and they’ll have you ready to leave out of there by evening—an abortion place. Well, now that’s not right. I don’t care who thinks it or who says it, it’s not right. It’s plain, outright murder, and it should be stopped.

And in this cabinet, I had literature—the worst kind from Denmark, England, and what have you—about $400, $500 worth. Me and my wife came in here—to keep my children and grandchildren from getting a hold of it—we took them out and burned them up.

But now get this. This is just plain old hellish stuff. But get how I say this. For the purpose I had in it, it’s just as sacred as anything because I had it here to teach preachers and key people that this must be stopped. I bring them in here, one by one, and just lay it out to them.

And I’ve gotten all these letters, drawn-out, telling me my work’s no good, it’s degrading. I got a letter from a state highway patrolman in Mississippi the other day: “Your work is just plain old nuisance.”

Well, that’s just what he thinks. This sacred work—I’ve been into this sacred work here, putting up religious signs and sacred stuff, 58 years now. I hope to live 40 more.

Vision for the Future & the Cosmos

Harrison Mayes

Now, I want to save this for the end. Moses lived 120 years. I’m not Moses. By no means. I’m just plain old Brother Mayes. I just got enough sensitivity to what the Lord wants done.

Moses spent 40 years being raised in Pharaoh’s house, killed a man and had to leave. Spent 40 more years with his father-in-law across the mountain. The Lord called him when he was 80, and he spent 40 years bringing the children of Israel out of Egypt and over to the Promised Land. But Joshua took over from Moses because he made a mistake. By trying to get a little honor out of striking the rock to make water come out, he didn’t get to go over to the Promised Land.

Now, I’ve just about spent 80 years living and getting up to maturity and getting this work. I’m just almost 80. I hope to retire from the sacred work on highways and byways by 80. And I hope—I don’t know, the Lord may be ready for me tomorrow—but I hope to live forty more years to spend for outer space.

Because visible from this earth is a hundred million what we call stars, and some of them is a million times bigger than this Earth. Planet Jupiter is 1,318 times bigger than this Earth. Every square mile of this Earth has got more live individuals than there are people on Earth.

Well, why would He make a little thing here with 196,000 square miles of it, with everything on it, and space with nothing on it? Why? I’d do better than that. The Lord has got plenty of these planets, what we call stars. It’s got millions and millions of people on them. However, I don’t know that, but we are going to know it.

Now, I’ve got grandsons and great-grandsons and my own children to keep the sign work going on Earth as I’m doing it. When they get around to transportation to the planets, I’ll try to get some kind of a thing that says, “Prepare to meet God.”

Because “get right with God” is all any preacher, Jesus, the apostles, or anybody has ever said. So that’s all I care about. Get right with God. That’s all that matters. If you preach 100 years, that’s all you say: Get right with God.

[End of main interview. Closing music follows.]

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