The Bible says that you “reap what you sow” and this
account will certainly bear witness to that truth! I have never been one to “follow the crowd”, as anyone who knows
me will attest. I’ve been this way as long as I can remember. However, the
following account features a very rare
exception to my almost exclusive “walking to the beat of my own drum.” If I recall correctly, this occurred in our
junior year of high school. It was
around late May and Terry G. was chatting with Tim and I and abruptly said, “Hey,
let’s skip school tomorrow and go to the Quarry!” At first we both thought he was “just
talking”, but quickly discovered he was perfectly serious about it! To me this
was a really dangerous and gutsy thing to do in our “Leave it to
Beaver” era. Ever since the
first grade, I had been “sick” on several occasions when I didn’t want to go to
school, but to “skip school” and actually go somewhere was one thing I hadn’t
actually considered before! Even now, I rarely use a “sick day” at the office
unless I’m being “eyed” by the local mortician or when my psychiatrist suggests
a few days off when I start to complain about all the blue and yellow polka-dot
aardvarks conspiring against me. (There
are many other groups
who are also in on the major conspiracies against me, but they have gone
underground, for now). That’s one reason I’ve stopped going to
football games because between plays even the players huddle up to plan
additional conspiracies against me! I
at once bristled and shied away from skipping school and just as quickly Terry
said to us, “Ah come on, don’t be a chicken or sissy, etc.” Before I knew it, Tim, Terry, Kit (who we
also recruited), were at the Quarry the next morning! “The Quarry” was the main
swimming spot for “locals.” Our mother always worried when we said we were
going swimming at “The Quarry” because she always said, “There’s no bottom
to it!” That never bothered us
since we figured we could drown in 7 feet of water just as good as infinitely
deep water (assuming she was correct). We spent most of the day swimming and
doing general “fooling around” and enjoying the unique things of “The Quarry”.
One of the best was “The Ledges” where we could climb up and choose the 1st
through 4th ledge to jump or dive into the water. However, if you
really wanted to be “Ultra Cool” and “Prove your manhood,” you could climb a
little further up and jump or dive from “THE CHUCKHOLE”!!! This was the highest ledge and was as
best as I can remember and estimate to be about 60 feet high or so. If you were
REALY COOL AND MACHO, you would DIVE into the water instead of jump! I saw very
few guys with the “Kahunes” to actually DIVE off “THE CHUCKHOLE”!!! The
only one I can recall was Mr. Kernell, and he was an adult! It took me 2 years
until I FINALLY got the nerve to JUMP off it! It was on THIS day that we
skipped school. Whenever I got to the 4th Ledge, Terry would yell,
“Come on Crow bait (my H.S. nickname), don’t be a P----, go up to THE CHUCK HOLE”! After repeated jumps off the 4th
Ledge and having my character, gender, and lack of guts, etc., I FINALLY made
the climb up the about 15 (or what SEEMED like 100) more feet to “THE CHUCK HOLE”. That was nothing new; I had been standing at
its crest countless time over the
last 2 years or so! THIS time I was determined to jump since I certainly didn’t
want to face the WHOLE high school as a “Chicken ----“! I finally JUMPED! The
air rushed past my ears with a building crescendo of WWWWHHHOOOOSH. When I
FINALLY hit the water, the bottoms of my feet made a loud slapping sound and
they immediately were engulfed by a “BIG STING”! A bunch of water was driven up
my nostrils and it seemed like I kept going down far enough to touch the “Non
existing bottom” my mother had warned us about! When I FINALLY did start back
to the surface, I broke the surface with one of the most WONDERFUL MATCHO
feelings I have ever had! From now on, WHATEVER happened to me the rest of my
life, I had conquered THE CHUCK HOLE”! I was now among a very elite group that had
jumped off THE CHUCK
HOLE! From that time on, I routinely made the
climb and jumped off THE CHUCK HOLE! This amazing feat also had future benefits as well, such as
when I was in Navy boot camp, we all had to practice “Abandon Ship Drills” by
jumping into the huge indoor pool from about 40 feet high as I recall. Most
everyone was scared at first. The “D.I’s” ask for any volunteers to do it first
before EVERYONE would have to. WELLLL, I’ll have you know, that I was the first
to step forward and do it! Hey, 40 feet was NOTHING to me, I conquered THE CHUCK HOLE! One of the “bad” (but VERY humorous) things that
happened was concerning Tim. He went into the brush to do “what bears do in the
woods.” When it came time to “tidy up”, not having any Charmin with us,
he just grabbed a handful of some “green leaves”. It turned out it was poison
ivy (or “ivory” as we used to think it was called)! Hmmm, where’s Mr. Whipple when you need him??? The next day he
was really swollen all over and the rest of us had a good “ground-rolling” laugh
at his expense! To add “insult to injury,”
someone “snitched” on us (probably due to our bragging about doing it), and all
3 of us ended up with 2 weeks of 1-hour detention AFTER SCHOOL! At least Terry,
Kit, and I had some entertainment sitting at the desks in the vacant schoolroom
watching Tim itch!
