While I was taking Tim to pick up another tractor he had recently purchased the other day, we were doing our usual pastime of “Trivin’ out”. In fact, we’ve done this about 98.3813 % of everytime we’re together for the past 30 odd years or more. In response to the many times we’ve been asked over the years, that is one reason why I can remember all the details of being a kid, which makes all the “fodder” for all these true accounts. As we puttered down RT 61 south of Berlin Heights, Tim said, “Remember when you, me, and “Bommas” walked through the storm sewer system”? I most certainly did, and here’s the story…  Sometimes we would hang out around the Berlin Heights reservoir. One of the main attractions was to slide down the algae-covered concrete overflow. It was steep and the algae was as slippery as ice. (If I get around to it, I’ll snap a pic of it when I get the digital camera back shortly, unless I post this first).  We would squat down on our “haunches” and fly down the ramp! (A little free advice from a “horse person”- NEVER SQUAT WHILE WEARING SPURS”!)  J After doing this for awhile and getting soaked and algae-covered, we would then go skip some flat stones. All of us got rather skillful in rock skipping, which unfortunately I never found a practical use for later on in life. It seems most of my “talents” don’t serve any practical uses in life, albeit they do make life a little more fun, so I guess that counts for something at any rate. One thought that aways seemed to tacidly persist in the back of our minds was to explore the storm sewer system and see where the water went that seemed ot eb (whoops, I mean “to be”; I’m having another “dyslexic moment”. This can be a problem when an adult has it such as the dyslexic State Trooper who stopped a drunk driver one time and charged him with a “UID”) always flowing down the algae-covered ramp was slid on.  Fortuneately I don’t believe I’ve ever been dyslexic, but when one doctor said I was, I asked him for a second opinion and he then said, “You’re ugly too”!  Oh well… one day when our young boy-hood sense of adventure was particularily strong, we all three decided we would check out the sewer system once and for all. We started walking through the large concrete pipe which was probably 4 feet in diameter, so we had to walk bent down. As we jouneyed through the pipe we looked like a parade of “The Hunchback of Notre Dame” look alike contest contestants. While we treaded through the flowing water in the pipe which seemed to be just a few inches deep as I recall, both the sloshing sound and our conversation was making neat and eerie-sounding echos. Our several yells added even more to the echo effect. I can’t recall if we had a flashlight, but I seriously doubt it since I’m sure it was a “spur-of-the-moment” decision like just most if not all of our adventures were at that age. It seemed as though we were treading water through the pitch dark pipe for miles! At long last we saw a small shaft of light! We discovered it was a man hole lid, so I climbed up the ladder and pushed with all my might and the heavy round iron lid finally lifted up a few inches. It was just like in an “old time” silent comedy because as soon as the lid raised up that few inches I saw that it was right in the middle of STATE ROUTE 61 just north of the Ohio Turnpike bridge. I also discovered to my horror THAT A CAR WAS HEADING RIGHT TOWARD ME! I quickly lowered the lid and yelled to Tim and Tom something like, “HOLY____! WE’RE RIGHT IN THE MIDDLE OF 61 AND A CAR WAS HEADING RIGHT FOR ME!  Hey… you skeptics out there might think this never happened, BUT I CAN ASSURE YOU IT DID! After Tim and Tom had a good roaring laugh, we ventured back outside the pipe. I don’t recall if we ever made any more treks through it again, but I guess that one was enough, even for us!