“Preacher” H.D. Dennis gets upset when he sees his beloved Margaret’s Grocery, the folk art “Bible castle” he created through the 1980s and 1990s, falling into disrepair.

Dennis, who will be 96 on March 25, now lives in a Vicksburg nursing home, but is often driven out North Washington Street to see his former home by his friend Frank Johnson, a deacon at Cool Springs M.B. Church, which sits just behind Margaret’s Grocery.

Friday, Dennis and Johnson joined a group of 15 visitors traveling from Laurel’s Lauren Rogers Museum of Art to see the Grocery and meet Preacher, who pointed up at the roof and shook his head as he saw pieces of his art about to fall off the building.