Friday, August 26, 2011

Flashback Friday # 151





The Cave



Welcome back all. Glad to see you again. Where I lived, there were no caves around (except ones that had already become tourist attractions). We decided on day to create our own.


How does one create a cave? If you have excavating equipment, it's easy. Being young teens, we didn't have anything like that, but we had Mother Nature give us a hand.


During one of my many trips to Westerville, One of my friends there, Ricky, spotted a tree near the edge of a hill at the very back of the property owned by the Catholic school that was just up the street from Grandma's. Where we were heading wasn't up the street, it was almost directly across from Grandma's house, about 3/4 of a mile away.


The Catholic school was planning to do some expansion, so they had begun to excavate the area we were heading for. The excavation, plus erosion had laid bare about 1/3 of the tree roots from the tree at the top of the hill. The dirt beneath the tree was soft, so we were able to scoop out a section about four feet deep and big enough to fit me, Ricky, and Ricky's sister in. We also took some rather large rocks up with us so if anyone tried to invade our hideout, we could roll the rocks down on them. It was really a cool cave.


Being young & foolish, we didn't think about the danger we were putting ourselves in. Here we were sitting under a tree that has been undermined. It's root system was the only thing holding it up. We played back there for several hours before we had to head for home.


The next time I was in Westerville, I went back to check out the cave. It was gone. Due to the fact that it was undermined, and no longer had a foundation, the first strong wind that came by toppled it over. Where the tree used to stand was a gouge in the hill that looked like someone had taken a bite out of it. I had already had one tree nearly fall on me, I'm glad I wasn't around to make it two.



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