Jim & Tammy Bakker's Appearance at Heritage USA- June 27, 1988- Vid #1

I was at Heritage USA on two dates in 1988: Once on June 23 and again on June 27. On both dates I recorded video of the grounds. You can imagine my surprise when, lo and behold, on the 27th, I walked into the Heritage Grand Hotel (HGH) to discover Jim & Tammy Bakker sitting inside.

To anyone who remembers Heritage USA, and, more specifically, the former HGH, you will recognize that they are initially seated in what was originally a nice restaurant in the semi-circular enclosed area within the HGH lobby itself.

At first, they are almost completely unnoticed by the people in the lobby. Soon, a large crowd would form. A few people walk up to their table for pictures, and it is quite clear that the people are being intrusive. Jim & Tammy are clearly engaged in conversations with whomever it is they are seated. By this particular date, June 27, 1988, Jim & Tammy were no longer running PTL, and it was teetering very very closely to falling apart entirely, so their mere presence inside Heritage USA was an unusual sight in and of itself.

Seated at the table with Jim & Tammy are a couple men and one tall, nicely dressed blonde woman. I have no clue who these people were. I am guessing they had something to do with the Bakkers' legal defense team. The blonde lady was perhaps a personal secretary?

Jim & Tammy are the only ones you hear speaking on the video, amongst all the other people around them, and in addition to all the guests in the HGH on that day and at that time, of course. Initially, I tried to keep my distance, and decided to record them from a ways away. It was not my intent to disturb them while they were talking, and if you watch the video closely, particlarly in this video, you can clearly see people are interrupting at the most inappropriate time. However, the Bakkers should have realized that walking into the HGH would have caused a stir, considering their very high profile & popularity. If they did not wish to be seen or disturbed, I am sure there are many secluded meeting rooms into which they could have conducted this meeting. So, I am guessing that they wanted to be seen by the public?

At one point I had taken an elevator up to the 3rd or 4th floor of the HGH and was recording from up above. The lobby had an indoor pool, and the children in it are quite noisy. I then realized that the Bakkers would likely soon be leaving so I made my way back down to the 1st floor again to be close enough for when they did try to make their escape.

At about 3:30 into the video, you will see the beginning of what I believe is repetitious signs of videotape degradation. The video drops out for a few seconds intermittently. This particular videotape is about 20 years old. In fact, it was 20 years and 1 day exactly between the date that I recorded this video, and the date when the video was digitized and put onto DVD for uploading to YouTube. Videotape's life is seriously limited, and videotape was never intended to be a long-term video storage solution. Thus, the videotapes have begun to degrade, resulting in the intermittent video drop-out you will begin to see in this video, and in others I have on YouTube that were originally shot and stored on videotape 15 - 20+ years ago. It is something that I do not know how to correct, or if it can be corrected, so, please, just take the videos at face value and don't leave stupid or insulting remarks about the poor quality of the videos.

Compare the first 50 seconds of this video with video I had recorded of the same exact location in my other videos, which I had recorded in June 2009. The differences are INCREDIBLE- and saddening!

[READ MY ADDITIONAL COMMENTS TO THE LEFT. START AT THE BOTTOM AND WORK YOUR WAY UP.]

Category:

Travel & Events

Tags:

• Heritage
• USA
• Fort
• Mill
• SC
• South
• North
• Carolina
• Charlotte
• PTL
• Praise
• the
• Lord
• Jim
• Tammy
• Faye
• Bakker
• Baker
• televangelist
• christian
• retreat
• campground
• HGH
• Grand
• Hotel
• Towers
• water
• park
• waterpark

[BeefyTuber]

Those people in the white shirts Jim & Tammy are speaking to, I think are Simon & Philip Cameron. They were regular guests on their show

[CincinnatiGifts]

@BeefyTuber - Maybe so, but if they were, would they be so interested and eager to have pictures with Jim & Tammy?

[CincinnatiGifts]

At 9:36 one woman does what all old women do to try to appear helpful: she dashed forward towards Tammy to untangle her necklaces. I didn't see that they were tangled. I think the woman just wanted to appear helpful. The last thing you hear on the video is Tammy saying "OK, now let's try it one more time." I really think she meant the "one more time" phrase, because she really wanted to get out of there.

[ThoughtTraveler]

I LOVE this video. You get to see the inside of the Beautiful Heritage Grand Hotel lobby.

This is a piece of history here. What a lovely dining area right in the lobby next to the pool.

Again, you can see the great care and effort that went into the decor and furnishings.

[CincinnatiGifts]

Indeed.... I have three computers on my desktop, side-by-side. I like to have at least two, and sometimes 3 vids up and running, so I can compare what I see in one with what I see in another at the same exact spot, separated only by 2 decades of time.

Lots of changes! All the furnishings seen in this vid are gone. The pool, hot tub& gazebo are all gone. It hardly looks like the same place now! :(

[CincinnatiGifts]

Apparently a green light keeps coming on, which I am guessing is an LED indicating that there is not enough light, and that the flash isn't working, likely due to weak batteries. Tammy appears to be getting sightly agitated by this point, but still manages a smile, and at 7:59 waves to me again and blows me a kiss. She comments, "I haven't been on television in so long..." Indeed. It had been about 15 months since their last appearance on the daily Jim & Tammy Show.

[monsterlove811]

Just wanted to say Thank You for this video. Strangely, this was filmed on my birthday and not having ever been, your tour gave me the gift of almost being there. Such a shame for all the love, money and work put into this place only to be destroyed by the jealousy and envy of Falwell.

Thank you so much again for this gift to us and your dedication to keeping the good memories alive.

[apaceadelisbe]

that trippie one watch?v=R02tbrZSO3I

[kona1967]

I remember sitting behind Tammy Fay at the movies at Disney's Pleasure Island in Orlando, Florida. We were seeing the 1991 Ron Howard movie, "Backdraft." Nobody around noticed her.

[ThoughtTraveler]

This has been up for 5 months. I do not know how I missed this one.