Return to the Florida page
  
 
Return to the Pensacola page
  
     
 
Adventures On E Street
  
     
At some point during a childhood that seems so perfectly preserved in time, I can recall that we, my two buddies and I, along with my older brother, decided to dig a tunnel.
We lived on the outskirts of Pensacola, Florida. Here, we weren't living in the country, but neighbors weren't as close as they would have been in the city. Here, there were many places that didn't have buildings of any kind on them and they were overgrown with trees and slight underbrush.
These woods were our playground. It was here that we learned that a rabbit can outrun four boys, ages seven years to twelve years, any day of the week. It was also in these woods that one day, alone, I spotted my first actual hummingbird. It was hovering over a blossom of some sort while I stood silently motionless and enjoyed this brief show nature was providing. Through the summer months, there were wild grapes, a type of Muscatine grape, locally called Scuffonines and there were blackberries, all of this in abundance!
 
In the woods, there were even a couple of peach trees and several persimmon trees. So ghastly were the effects of a green persimmon when tasted that afterward most would never try to eat even a ripe one. They were delicious - but, only when ripe.
 
Every afternoon, on television, there was a show called "Western Roundup" on which old B-rate western movies were presented. It was after viewing that day's presentation of "Western Roundup" that the idea came.
In the movie, the hero in grainy black and white, had just rescued some poor victims (commonly referred to as "town folk") from the outlaws, who were holding them in a cave. Ah - a cave! "Hey, does Florida have any caves? I'd sure like to see one."
As it turned out, other than rumors of tunnels that connected various forts in the Pensacola area, Pensacola didn't have any. "Well, a cave is just a hole in the ground, right? Let's build our own darned cave!"
Bob Steele
  
Lash LaRue
Being the youngest one in the group, I was accustomed to nobody listening to my ideas. But, this was different, everybody was listening, even Lonnie, Ronnie's older brother and the most mechanically inclined one of the bunch. He even replaced the sprocket on his bicycle once - all by himself! Suddenly a meeting was called for the brains of the outfit, the two older ones, my brother Art and of course, Lonnie. Ronnie and I had to keep out while any high-level discussions were going on.
Gene Autry
  
Roy Rogers and Gabby
Of course, we understood. We were mere underlings, common laborers and they were the brilliance of the administrative staff!
A decision was reached and Lonnie was the one to present the good news, "Come first light tomorrow, we're gonna' start to digging us a cave." That evening, after our dads came home from work, we started lobbying for use of the family shovel. "Boy, if you take any of my tools out of the tool shed, I'll have you living in that crippled children's home down on Palafox Street!" I'll admit that a six-year old boy doesn't always interpret things well, but I think he had just said, "No".
Ronnie and Lonnie were having a similar conversation with their dad "Son, if you touch any of my tools, I'll kick you so far back up the family tree that you'll be wearing bear skin and crappin' in the woods!" They took that to mean "No", also.
The spot was picked; it would be in the vacant field next to our house, far enough away from the house that it would not attract much attention from either of our parents. Of course, Lonnie and Art were there for the kick off. They told us to "Start digging, we got stuff we gotta' take care of. We'll check back on ya' from time to time!"

We dug with our bare hands for awhile, then stopped. We followed the path through the woods that came out at the backside of Valkner's Woodworking Company. There was Valkner's trash pile, the only source a seven-year old would ever need for those important childhood projects. There we found two empty varnish cans which served as shovels.
Digging a hole straight down was no real problem in this soft, loose soil, but every time we tried to dig a hole horizontally, parallel to the ground above, the soft ground would just cave in. It really sounded like a problem for Lonnie to figure out. It was only day one of the proposed five-day job of digging what was to become the tunnel, instead of the cave.

Lonnie's engineering prowess provided us with a solution. The next day, he ordered us to dig a ditch! "Well, pardon the heck outa me, brilliant one, but a ditch ain't exactly a tunnel, now is it?" He and Art had been around to Valkner's trash pile, pulling out scrap wood. The revised plan was that we would dig the ditch, lay boards across the top, then place the dirt on top of the boards! In time, nature would take its course and grass would grow on top of the boards.

By day four, I was convinced that this darned tunnel was gonna reach half way to Tallahassee! "How long does Lonnie plan for us to dig anyway?" We had already covered much of the excavation with the wood and it was beginning to look very much like a tunnel. I was digging in the third "room" of the tunnel and was beginning to tire of it a bit, when Ronnie tried to spring the next big news on me.

"Hey, look, look at it - over there!" I glanced from my working spot in the "ditch" to see nothing. "Ronnie, I'll knock sparks from your ass if you pull that again!"
"No joke. Look", this time he was pointing to the sky; then I saw it. Slowly coming down from the sky was an object, shaped like an exclamation point! It was either silver or white in color. Now, I'd been to two county fairs and ridden the bus all over Pensacola and by North E Street standards, was a well-traveled kid, but "I ain't never seen nothin' like that!" It was huge and slowly descending onto the dirt road that ran past the side of Ronnie‘s house.

A sort of curiosity-driven madness ensued. Both Ronnie and I ran at full speed through the front yard gate, directly across E Street and never once considered looking for traffic! On the other side, we paused a moment, hoping Lonnie and Art would show up. They would probably know what this thing was. At that time, in his best southern accent, Ronnie asked "Do you think maybe it's a bum of some kind? You know they's Commonist and stuff that would do that!"

"Wow! A Communist bomb, right here on E Street!" It was all the more reason to wait for Art and Lonnie to show up. Let them get blown up, at least they'll die smarter than us! I don't mind admitting, I was a bit scared. Then Lonnie and Art showed up.

As they quickly walked across the back side of the yard toward the dirt road, I ran across the yard diagonally to meet them. Lonnie made a quick assessment of the situation, "It looks like a balloon. Sure wish we had some helium."

The thing I will always remember about this incident is that of the few houses in the area, nobody came to the scene to look at the thing. There were a couple of people on their front porches and the rest were peeking out windows. But, before we had reached it, the U.S. Navy arrived. Now, in addition to parents infringing on our fun, the navy was getting in on the act.

Being the littlest of the group, I was elected to lobby for possession of the balloon. So, I gave it my best shot.

"Sir, does the navy really need that? It looks kinda broke to me. If they don't, we could sure use it!"

He was obviously the man in charge, older than the rest from appearances. He turned around with a grin, obviously trying to subdue a laugh and said, "Now what would you kids ever do with an old weather balloon?" Well, he had me there! The man knew how to negotiate!

"Well, I mean if they ever decide to get rid of it, can they let us have it? We would take good care of it and ya‘ll could come see it just anytime."
Then out of the corner of my eye, I saw my mom and Mrs. Macon, Ronnie and Lonnie's mom, walking up the dirt road. That meant trouble! DOOM! Negotiations ended! They had seen Ronnie and me as we ran across E Street, totally oblivious to the traffic. After being forced home, we nervously awaited our judgment. It hit us like a ton of bricks! They ordered us to tear up the tunnel, saying we had done nothing but argue with each other since we decided to dig that thing.
The sun was setting, the evening air cooled and to the south, there was a soft, gentle flicker of distant lightning. All I could think of was how hard we had worked to get the tunnel dug - and it still wasn't complete. It had to be disassembled.
I didn't eat much that evening and went to bed early. As rain began to fall on the roof of the old house, I was eventually lulled into sleep.

The next morning, early, I was awakened to lightning with ground-shaking thunder and heavy rainfall. I kept looking out the windows to try to see the tunnel, but the rain was too heavy. At some point, mid-morning, the rain let up to the point that I could go out. Bracing against a brisk wind, I approached the tunnel. It was filled with water and many of the boards had floated away. The sides of it were no longer well defined. Nature had destroyed it.

Shortly after my seventh birthday, for the first time in my young life, I began to feel contempt for nature. But, in time I came to realize that nature had spared us, Ronnie, Lonnie, Art and me, the agony of having to destroy the tunnel ourselves. And in time, activity would return to the woods. Again we ate wild grapes, black berries, ripened persimmons and peaches that nature provided. We pursued birds just to get a better look at them and we continued to chase rabbits that would never be caught.
And through all my life, I would remember that moment, in which, one of nature's most beautiful little creatures, a hummingbird, seemed to put on a show - all for one inquisitive little kid, alone in the woods that day. The world was beginning to take shape.
   
7 Year Old Wilson Jay
 
Return to the Florida page
  
 
Return to the Pensacola page
  
 
© Copyright 2007 - Wilson Jay