The Cave

.

Sometimes neighborhood boys work together to build a safe haven to hideout in. Here’s one of our projects.

 

.

The Cave

.

When I was a lad of about 11 years old, some of the guys in the neighborhood got together and decided to dig us a cave system to serve as a hideout and a place to get away from the real world for a while. We all brought out shovels and went down to the sandlot baseball field. We located a spot down past the end of the field where thick bermuda grass covered the sandy soil.

.

We laid out a three room cave and carefully removed the bermuda grass in squares and saved it over to one side. We then dug the cave out down to about five feet deep and built a 2 by 6 wood frame extending a foot beyond the cave sides and then nailed 1 by 6 wood sheeting over the frame. We picked up the old lumber laying behind the fence of one of the houses that backed up to the ball field. We then put about 3 inches of sand over the wood and carefully placed the Bermuda grass squares over the sand. For the entrance, we made a small wooden trap door also covered with grass that we could scoot in place from the inside or outside. In a couple of weeks, a grown man could be standing over the cave and not even know it was there.

 

 

We took turns digging and worked the cave slowly because we didn’t want the work to get in the way of our fun. That could be my crack in this picture.

 

 

All summer long we had fun hiding out in the cave with our candles to light the inside. We felt like we were getting away with something because no one but us four guys from the neighborhood knew about our secret and we never told anyone. We even giggled a lot when we played baseball because our hideout was right there and no one knew about it.

 

We were all cave men that summer of 1954 . Old Bill’s the good looking one.

 

 

I often spend time reminiscing about the fun times I had growing up with the boys on Stark Street. All four our cave group did well in life. Charlie became a dental surgeon, Everett became a pharmacist, Rocky became a Salmon fishing guide in Washington state, and I became a process engineer. Back in those days, we dreamed about what we would do in life, but I don’t think any of us had any idea where we would actually end up.

 

 

.

Thanks for reading The Cave,
Bill