When we were boys, my brother Bruce and I would often go over to my cousin Joey's house and the three of us would then spend most of the day playing in the woods. On the backside of their property there was a large gully with a small spring at the bottom. We boys often went there to get a drink. There was a bank above the spring where we would jump down about seven or eight feet. It was exhilarating and kind of scary to do.
We were pretty young back then, so jumping eight feet seemed like a long way. It would seem like a long way for me now as well. Occasionally, we would land wrong and hurt an ankle or get the breath knocked out of us; but, for us young boys, the chance of something like that happening only made jumping more exciting.
On the other side of the spring, the bank rose much higher, perhaps 40 or 50 feet. It seemed to be mostly red clay mixed with sand. One day we took a couple of shovels down there and began to dig a cave. It was pretty easy going and we made good progress. Over the next few weeks we made good time digging on our cave. As we worked we were excited to see it taking shape. First we dug the cave straight back into the bank about 10 feet. Then we turned our digging to the left side and dug the cave for maybe another 10 or 12 feet. At the end of this tunnel, we made the whole cave larger so that we could all get inside at the same time. I am more than a little claustrophobic, so I had to tamp down any fears I might have of our cave collapsing in on us.
When our cave was mostly finished, we took candles and matches and had our first meeting inside what felt like was deep inside the bowels of the earth. We had plenty of stale cracklings to chew on while we sat there in a cave of our own making. It was kind of special since we had dug it all by ourselves. And best of all, no one else on earth had any idea it was there. At the time, we thought that was really neat. Looking back on it, if that thing had caved in on us, we would probably still be there since you really couldn't see the entrance to the cave until you were right on top of it and no one even knew we were digging it.
I have to marvel at all the things we did as boys that no one knew about. But, back then, parents weren't so inclined to helicopter their children. I think they were mostly glad to get us out from under foot. I do know my mother would have been horrified if she had known what we were doing. I imagine that's why we didn't speak of it to our parents.
We did, however, tell our friends about the cave and many of them came, at one time or another, to see it. Oftentimes, back then, we would have a friend over from church to eat lunch and spend the afternoon with us or us with them. We would play all afternoon, take a quick bath and wear the same clothes to church that night. Jimmy Malone was one of my best friends back then. His dad was a deacon in the little church where we all attended Sunday School and preaching services. Jimmy loved our cave. He and Joey and Bruce and I played in that cave several times together. My cousin, Brian Halley, came to see the cave. He liked it but would not go in. He was afraid it would cave in on him.
I think the rest of us all had the same thought at one time or another, but we didn't let that stop us from playing in the cave. It was simply too exciting not to. For us boys, the cave held a certain mystery to it. We had all read about Tom Sawyer and Becky Thatcher getting lost in a cave. And now we had a cave of our own. For Louisiana boys growing up in bayou country, a cave was an exotic thing -- Something unheard of in those parts. So we felt blessed to have our own cave, especially a secret one.
That cave provided us boys with many hours of play time as well as a sense of accomplishment. We spent a lot of time there that summer, playing in the cave and building dams on the spring and such. It was a good time to be a boy and to have friends and a brother to play with that shared the same interests as you. I know we felt blessed then, and I feel blessed now as I think back on those days. Boyhood is a season that is all too soon over. We enjoyed that cave like we did many other things in our simple boys' lives.
At least we enjoyed the cave as long as we had it. One day, after a big rain, we made our way down to the big gully where, to our dismay, we found our cave had all but disappeared. The whole thing had caved in and there was barely any sign of there ever having been a cave there at all.
We boys were dismayed and horrified. As we viewed the vestiges of our late earth home, the realization that we could have very well been in that cave when it collapsed began to settle in on us. We were instantly sobered. I think our imaginations immediately connected the dots on what could have been a true disaster. Although we often went to that spring to play, we never attempted to dig a cave again. I guess, with the collapse of our cave, we had gotten the cave digging bug out of our systems.
Sam Byrnes is a Gentry-area resident and weekly contributor to the Eagle Observer. He may be contacted by email at [email protected]. Opinions expressed are those of the author.
Editorial on 01/06/2016