I’ll tell a story that I might’ve told some of you before. I’m not even sure Ceil or Becky knows about this. In the late 90’s we went with the Normans up to Ridgecrest North Carolina. Our old church has a lodge up there, and we would go up for long weekends in the fall. I don’t think the Hurts were on this trip. Joel’s dad Steve would lead us out on these long hikes. We had been doing this forever, even back in the mid-80’s, before I met Ceil. We would hike and climb and cross creeks and get wet and dirty. In July of 1996 he had Ceil, eight months pregnant with Anna, tramping through the woods.
Once we were next to a waterfall. Steve was 50 feet above me. All of a sudden all I could hear was Steve screaming “Bees! Bees!” It had taken us forever to climb that far, but we got down real quick. The amazing thing about these hikes was the return trip - you had gone so deep in the woods that without Steve, there was no way you’d ever make it out without him.
So this was Will’s first big hike at Ridgecrest. He was five or six. All the Norman boys, even tiny Charles, had gone on these hikes before. They knew how to keep up, how to get back. Will didn’t. We finally reached the top of the mountain, which gave a great late-afternoon view of North Carolina’s tallest mountain. Looking at our watches, we knew we needed to hurry back to the cars before dark.
Spencer, Willis, and David took off, followed by Joel, Will, and little Charles (who might’ve still been in diapers). Steve and I walked behind. My fears were soon realized…Will had missed a turn, and was running around in the darkening woods alone. It was only by God’s grace that I found him, but that ten minutes seemed like an eternity.
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