The Children of a King
Ridgecrest, Summer of 1950
by
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I am having that same dream again.
A darkly twisting mountain road. Way too many of us – all laughing and singing – piled together into that rickety old Ridgecrest station wagon. A greasy plastic knob on the steering wheel.
The blinding glare of truck lights on rain-slick asphalt. The screams, the sickening swerve, the grinding crash, and then . . . silence.
The smell of gasoline. . . .
The smell of blood. . . .
I wouldn’t really call it a nightmare; it doesn’t haunt me. Yet it happened. It was all so sudden, so shocking, that I must have recorded it indelibly, somewhere deep inside my brain. For I have dreamed about it again and again – not just for years but for decades.
Maybe I am having the dream again because just this afternoon I saw a brief notice in a Baptist news-magazine: “REUNION OF RIDGECREST SUMMER STAFFERS.” I wonder who will be there . . . anyone at all from more than sixty years ago?
Or maybe I’m having the dream again because of another memory, another dream . . . one that still haunts me now and then, ever since that memorable summer when I had just turned eighteen years old and I was green as grass.
The child in my dream – or is he only the child in my memory? – has unruly brown hair. His front teeth are widely spaced. There is a splash of freckles across his face. One side of his nose flicks upward a notch every time he sniffs.
Right now the child is begging me: “Please, Cordel, please!”
I am tired of this everlasting tag-along. “Go back where you belong!”
His eyes flash hurt and anger. “Where I belong!” he blurts. Then the tears begin. “That’s just it.”
He is still bothering me. “Get lost, kid!” I snap.
And that’s exactly what he proceeds to do. . . .
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About the Book
The Children of a King: Ridgecrest, Summer of 1950 follows eighteen-year-old Cordel Whitman as he leaves home for the first time. Hoping to do something different and worthwhile, he spends three months working on the summer staff of Ridgecrest, a large Christian conference center in the North Carolina mountains. He makes many friends (some of them lifelong friends) among the 330 college students who work with him, and also among others at Ridgecrest — especially a lonely, troubled little boy.
Cordel hears about the ominous outbreak of war in Korea. He experiences the sting of false accusations and the sadness of a fatal accident.
Author Perry Thomas, who spent several summers of his youth working at Ridgecrest and similar places, has woven together his own memories and the recollections of other former summer staffers to create the gripping story of Cordel Whitman.
As young adults of today read about the lives of youth many decades ago, they will recognize striking similarities and discover significant differences. All who can look back on their own histories, finding times in their younger years when events conspired to move them along the path to maturity, will welcome The Children of a King as a story that entertains while it inspires.
About the Author
Perry Thomas is one of the pen names of an author who has written more than sixty books, including Ways We Worship, Exploring Church History, and Good News from Indonesia. He worked with Christian print media in Southeast Asia for three decades. He and his wife live in Raleigh, North Carolina.