Ridgecrest Baptist Assembly was a special place in the mountains of North Carolina. I spent many summers there growing up, because my father conducted many seminars involving Sunday School work. Many of our family vacations revolved around going to Ridgecrest. It was kind of near Asheville, and it rained almost every afternoon. Black Mountain was the nearest town. We heard about an antique auction and went to see what was being offered. One strange item they had was a wristwatch that ran on your pulse. When you died, everyone would know what time it stopped. I wanted one, but they cost $10 which was too much money.
There were a lot of hiking opportunities in the mountains around Ridgecrest, and one such mountain was called Rattlesnake. It was a little treacherous going up the mountain, but the view at the top was spectacular. The hike is a little over a mile, and it is over 3000 ft. tall.
On one occasion, I had gone to Ridgecrest with some friends from my church. By now, I was in high school. I told my friend Sonny about Rattlesnake, and he agreed to hike it with me. There were other churches that had brought their youth to Ridgecrest, and many were making the trek up the mountain. When Sonny and I got up to the summit, there was a boy resting at the top. He was probably in junior high. We decided to play a practical joke on this unknown boy. He and I started talking about shooting up heroin. We showed the boy what we said were our needle tracks. They were really moles. The boy's eyes got big, and he literally ran down the mountain to get away from us. To run down the mountain like that was pretty dangerous, but I guess we scared him out of his wits. We had a good laugh over that. I hope the boy didn't get hurt. And for the record, neither Sonny nor I have ever really done heroin. We were just dealing with a natural high up in the mountains that day.
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