I grew up in a town in Western Maryland during the sixties and seventies. Where I lived was near the outskirts of the town in an area called Mapleside. While I had a lot of friends, there were three misfits that I hung around with on Sundays after church. We all went to the same church. Two of my friends went to the church because their mothers made them go and the other friend went to church because his grandmother would have beaten him within an inch of his life if he didn't attend each Sunday. My point is that none of them wanted to go but they sure did make Sunday School interesting each week.
My parents thought that maybe I would be a good influence on my three Sunday School Classmates so they encouraged me to hang out with them. I guess George and Juanita had no idea that the polar influence ice caps didn't work that way. Instead of me making them more "good", I found my 13 year old self turning to the dark side and I liked it.
While I won't go into any details of our miscreant deeds because I am unsure of how long the statute of limitation is good for; I will just say that quite often we found ourselves running for cover. Fortunate for us, Mapleside had a large wooded area that afforded us the ability to hide at will.
One on of our adventures into the woods, we found a huge concrete inlet that resembled the buried metal hatch from Lost. Removing the cast iron lid from the top of the inlet we stood and looked into the darkness of the hole. Little did we know, we had uncovered the main entry point to the storm drainage pipes that we buried under the town. These were no ordinary pipes. The inside of the pipes were somewhere between 3 and 4 feet in diameter; plenty large enough to attract the attention of four teenage boys.
Exploring the storm drainage system, under the belly of the town, become our calling. With flashlights in hand, we would descend into the abyss and chart each entry and exit point as we surfaced like teenage mutant ninja turtles. Before long we had crudely drawn maps of the entire system. To make travel in the tunnels even quicker, we would take our skateboards into the system and scoot our way from point to point.
While we never uncovered the Dharma Initiative we did find a convenient way to hide from anyone who might be looking for us. Like a quartet of Houdini's, we could disappear into a system of tunnels from points all over the city. From the woods in Mapleside, we ran covert missions that made Apocalypse Now look like child's play.
Today those pipes or tunnels as we called them are still there. The underground metal hatch that was actually a huge concrete inlet is still buried in the woods near the house where I grew up. As far as I know, my three bad influencers still live in the town but I've moved on. The town where I grew up, the Mapleside landscape and the tunnels are now just distant memories. Let me change that.... The town where I grew up, the Mapleside landscape and the tunnels are now just fun packed memories. Boy, it was fun growing up in that place - at that time and, for that, I am thankful.
Be Well.
Bill
