Hanging With The Boys

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For an 11 year old boy to have a secret place to hang out with the boys was pretty special. Here’s the story.

 

 

Hanging With The Boys

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Down at the end of Stark Street there was a canyon that dropped off about 100 feet to a small creek at the bottom. The face of the canyon walls were covered with huge Limestone rocks. There was two rocks about 20 foot long and 15 feet wide that angled up about 10 feet above the side of the canyon and touched at the tip. Over the years water erosion had dug a natural cave under the two huge boulders. Inside the cave was a natural seat made out of red clay shale rock with natural steps from the bottom opening to the top opening. Natural light filled the cave from both ends and there was shade and a cool breeze usually blowing through the cave. From any direction from the outside, it just looked like two large boulders on the side of the canyon. This became the secret hideout for the boys on Stark Street in Phillips, Texas.

 

This is what the terrain in the canyons around our house looked like. The limestone boulders were huge sitting on red clay shale.

 

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We had some girly magazines stashed under a rock inside the hideout. Ronnie and I would get some potatoes, wieners, buns, and pop from home and meet Rocky at the hideout. Rocky’s parents grew a garden every year and canned dill pickles every year in quart jars. Rocky’s job was to sneak a jar of those delicious pickles and bring them with him. We gathered some dead mesquite branches and built a fire in a natural pit in the cave. When we got a good bed of coals going, we would stick the potatoes deep in the coals to start them cooking. While the spuds were cooking, we uncovered the girly magazines and tried to find the girl with the biggest schlonskis and talked like we were experienced men of the world. We cut some sticks and roasted the wieners over the coals until they were charred black. Then we dug the potatoes out of the coals and there was about 3/8 inch of  hard charred crust on them. When you cut that crust off, underneath was some of the finest tasting potato I have ever eaten. Man, it just couldn’t get much better than this. The blackened hot dogs were great. I wondered why my Mom couldn’t cook them this good. Then there were those great tasting home canned dill pickles for desert. Ummmm good.

 

I think this may be the girl that won the biggest schlonskis contest from the girly books.

 

 

Like I said before. It just don’t get much better than this!

 

 

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We spend a lot of time in our hideout telling each other lies and day dreaming about what our lives would be like when we grew up. Those days were a very special time in my life that I shall never forget.

 

 

thanks for reading Hanging With The Boys,

Bill