July 14, 2018
Exploring; Dangerous, but Fun
Discovery of new places is nothing new for any of us, I would suppose. It has been a part of my life since I was able to crawl, find forbidden things and get myself into trouble. It is an innate nature of man, is it not? The first time I remember being exposed to the concept of exploration I was but a young, preschool kid living in a large, first-floor apartment at the Louisa Inn. When I was born my family consisting of my great-grandmother, my great aunt, her two children, and mom and I, lived in a family home behind the Riverview Hospital on Water Street. Later, my great aunt Shirley Chapman and her two children joined up with my mom and took the apartment. Granny moved to what later would be the family home on the corner of Clay and Franklin. The ‘new’ home in the inn was the first to burn lasting memories in my weak, but active ‘toddler’ mind. I was out of diapers but a year or so, but I already had an innate desire to see and learn all I could about this interesting world.
I was blessed to have what has become a life-long friend as a neighbor. He lived at the inn, as well in an apartment on the shared ‘wrap-around’ porch. Billy Elkins, Jr. was the same age as me and had the same curiosities and urges to seek out life’s answers. We were kindred spirits. I learned that his dad was fresh back from serving in the war, so the Elkins family was adjusting to being back together. It came naturally for Billy and me to run around the big porch and play tirelessly until nap-time.
One morning Billy and I decided to step out on our first exploration. Knowing we had been told to stay off the stairs leading to other apartments, we nonetheless climbed those stairs. They were set back a bit and therefore out of sight between the wings of our respective apartments. Of course, the staircase led to the second-floor apartments, but those were all rented out by people we really didn’t know. (One was a slightly older friend of my mom’s, Ruth Ellen. She moved out, to our sorrow, shortly after this time. I remember some pictures of her with mom and me, and I have reconnected since doing these articles.)
Because the second-floor units were rented, we climbed further to the third-floor level. I remember that we found one those units unlocked. We cracked open the door peaked in to see if it was safe to enter. We could see drop cloths spread on the floor, some paint buckets, and I think a dusty, if broken, chair. We entered on the dusty flooring in hopes of a quiet look around. Frankly, there was little to see but it still thrilled us to be stretching our horizons. I recall that the windows were very dirty, barely allowing us to wipe an area in hopes of seeing the yard far below.
When I looked out of that high window, my mind immediately conjured up the scary thought of falling to our deaths. I, for one, carefully backed away. I think Billy was braver than me, so he looked around longer. As for me, I was ready to descend (scoot on my bottom) back down the stairs to find other safer adventures closer to the ground. Before I could get me out the door, Billy called for me to look at the strange light fixtures. I reluctantly turned to see what he had found. Close study told us that they weren’t electrical lights at all. They were gas lights. Each had a little valve to turn the gas flow up or down. I remembered seeing them later when I was at a historical museum in Detroit. They explained how gas, or kerosene lights were the most popular way for our parents to see at night. While some used carbide lights or candles, many people of that day had gas lamps; that is, until electric lights were finally installed. Apparently, the landlords of the Louisa Inn had converted all the first two floors to the new electric variety, but were still working on rehabilitating the third-floor apartments.
As I mentioned, I was about twelve-years old when I spent part of my summer in Detroit. I had the privilege to visit museums on Woodward Avenue that included a historical museum and a grand fine art museum. I recall that the basement of the historical museum had been set up to represent a town in the nineteenth century. It gave me an opportunity to walk through a main street of an earlier generation. I walked on wooden sidewalks and peered through the distorted glass at hardware stores. I saw a working blacksmith shop, and a wheelwright at work. I saw what a typical home looked like with a wood-burning cook stove, and a half-filled ash bucket. I saw kerosene lamps, and a handpump as part of the sink. Some had to carry water from outside or even fetch it from a creek. The fancier hotel lobby had gas lights. The streets were mud and pictures showed it to be deep enough to entrap a covered wagon. Pulled by oxen, and occasionally a team of horses, it was a rough experience. I left feeling grateful that I lived in a better time.
The issue with small kids of maybe two or three years old, is that they are too much like me. That is, they are very interested in what they don’t know and will wander off in the ‘bat of an eye.’ Most have more curiosity than a sense of fear. I know because I once stuck something in an electrical outlet. I still remember the shock. As humans, the parents, grandparents, or older siblings can be distracted and that’s more than enough time for a pool drowning, even if the pool is four houses down the street. The desire to explore isn’t something that we ever fully purge from our system, but at some point, we start to understand some of the risks.
I remember that there was a stone house directly behind Billy’s apartment. A couple of older ladies lived there but they had a son who was a little different. I quickly picked up that he wasn’t like everyone else. For one reason he wore his pajamas all day. Even though he was older than me, he seemed to be different, somehow. The ladies and my mom told me never to be alone with him. The rule was that grownups had to be there. I knew by instinct that there was a reason and while I was a little scared, I felt kind of sorry for him. I hoped he would get well. I think his name was Mickie. I never saw him again.
The big house across the street from the inn also was worth exploring. It is situated where the library now sits. I’m told that it was owned by F.T.D. Wallace, who was an attorney and a leading citizen of the day. I read later in life that Mr. Wallace was credited with having the railroad come through town. That surely helped the local economy. His house was a two story Victorian home typical of the period. It had a nice front porch and at least one rain barrel to collect water from the down-spouts. My mom liked to use that water to wash her hair. She thought it had the right degree of softness to make her hair lovely. It did make her hair lovely, but it seemed to me that all water was soft. I could put my hands right in it and experience no resistance. I didn’t understand what she meant for years.
There was a big barn out back near the property line with the depot property. I think I was only back there once or twice. The swinging barn doors were locked, but there were big cracks between some of the boards that allowed me to peer into the darkness to behold all kinds of magical things. I remember looking inside and making out what looked like a riding saddle, a dirty, dusty stage-coach, a smaller buggy, and lots of tools and harnesses, etc., some that were hanging from nails in the big wooden beams.
Because of seeing cowboy movies every Saturday morning at the Garden Theater, I could identify many of the items, but I know that I missed a few. It’s likely I misidentified some, too, because of my young imagination. The barn was not well lit, so aside from a few spots where a bright beam of sunshine leaked through the cracks, I could see nothing. I remember that the streams of light reflected bits of minute dust particulars that were floating in the air, perhaps sent in flight by some random stirring. My memories are dim, for sure, but maybe I saw a barrel, or a sawhorse, and some rope, but I’m sure there was more. There was absolutely no way for me to get in, but I’d still to this day like to have seen all of what was in there. It’s not that I wanted the stuff or would have taken it, but just discovering it was an adventure of discovery.
Except for a book-signing held in the new library nearly eighteen years ago, I have not been back to that property. Before that, while I was still in high school, a small library was opened in a little building on one side of the home site. It was at the grand-opening for the little library when my great-aunt Shirley Chapman introduced me to the Chief Justice Vinson’s sister. She was very nice and looked a bit like her famous brother. I only had a little time to look through some of the books because I had an obligation to attend something else. That little library grew until it apparently took up the whole site, house, barn and all.
When I was still in grade school, some of us boys would take exploration to new levels. I especially remember going into the old, World War II armory along the railroad tracks just north of where my friend Betty Hager Meade (Cooke) lived. The armory was a tall, block building that had been boarded up for some time. Being one hundred percent boys, we found a loose board and slipped through the opening. The lower floor was dark because of the boarded up windows. I remember there was lots of trash including paper, tickets to dances, broken ’78 records, pop bottles, and a little furniture here or there. The steps leading upstairs groaned when we climbed them. They listed to the side away from the outside wall and threatened to dump us onto the floor below. We had not fully inspected that dark lower floor, but we could see it was lighter upstairs. We were careful not to step on the outside half of the stairs and kept our weight as near the block wall as we could while ascending. Now, once out of the dark basement onto the first floor we saw many more of the broken records and paper trash. There were posters of famous bands of the era. This floor had windows that I don’t think were boarded up, because the lighting was so much better. The floor still creaked and so did the next flight of stairs we used to climb higher into the building. We carefully slipped even higher. The two floors we saw were more of the same. I saw lots of musical records scattered all around as if when the building was abandoned they had thrown them just to watch them break. That was well before the new vinyl, non-breakable records (33 1/3) were invented. Birds had built nests inside because of missing window panes so the floors were slick with bird poop. We avoided those areas. The stairs that went up to the highest floor looked as if they had already given way. We decided not to go higher. For that matter, the floors in this building weren’t all that strong either. They felt spongy and creaked as we carefully walked over them. I started thinking we could step in the wrong place and fall through to the floor below. In the end, we lived, but what an adventure! I’m not sure which of my friends went with me, but I’m thinking maybe it was Johnny Bill Boggs. Then again, maybe it was another friend.
Those old ’78 records had labels with names like the Andrew Sisters, Rudy Valley, Tommy Dorsey, and others of the era. They were something my mother knew about and I wouldn’t know about until later. There are barns all over the country that have been closed off for decades. Some hold things we only know about through movies and history books. Simple things like old signs, a tractor, a pull-plow, a mule collar, or a butter churn, perhaps a spoke-shave, or draw knife, are still out there for someone to discover. I’d love to find and maybe buy a ‘model T’ or a ‘model A.’ Any ‘barn-find’ automobile is exciting, especially if it can be restored and driven again.
A friend, Jimmy Young, a year younger, lived one block west on Main Street at his dad’s funeral home just across Clay Street from the Baptist Church. Jimmy and I explored all around the immediate area, including the second-floor back porch of his grandmother’s house on Perry and the fenced back lot of what looked like a ‘junk yard’ for a business near Clay Street and Madison. I think they bought and sold used furniture and other items. This backyard area was full of rusty antiques. We saw lawn decorations and left-over metal from all kinds of places. There were old stoves, bed springs, washing machines, plows, push-mowers, fountains, and loads of other things. There was also a shed that we explored, but we had to be careful because the owner was known to not like boys. If we made any noise we were certain he’d catch as least one of us. One of us might never be seen again or we could have been hurt. I guess we could have been locked up if the sheriff caught us. We were just looking, though. We wouldn’t have stolen anything. Besides, it was nearly all junk.
Even as I got older there was nothing better than finding an abandoned house or barn in an overgrowth of trees and weeds. Finding an old family grave yard was great because we could see the dates and names. Sometimes we would come away with information that would solve a puzzle and connect some dots later in life. I remember once helping clear and burn off a cemetery on the Burns farm just out of town. I think it was just past, or near the area of the new school sites. I haven’t looked for it but it’s highly likely that the cemetery is still there. While we were working on that site one of the workers told Tommy Burns and me about an incident on the high hill just across the Mayo Trail. It seems that years ago someone in town was missing a horse. A posse was formed and they discovered this stranger riding that ridge heading toward Louisa. They assumed he was the horse-thief so they hung the man then and there. The teller of the tale told me that his remains were put in the very cemetery we were cleaning. What’s worse is they found out later than someone else had stolen the horse. Talk about unfair. This man likely had a family and friends that missed him.
I used to park my bike at the foot of town hill, halfway between Judge Adam’s house and the old grade school. I’d climb that hill until finally I arrived at the very top. I looked at the concrete walls and ruins of what I believed to be Fort Bishop, an old civil war fort. To a non-military mind, the walls made little sense, but later I saw a copy of a map and understood the general idea. I’m not sure the ramparts were ever fully finished before war’s end, but perhaps they were. Now there’s also a new road that cuts through the front of town hill thus making it impossible to climb up the face as before.
Another, easier way to the top was a dirt road that lined up with Madison, which went up behind the grade school to the top of town hill. That road is paved now, but you can’t make the turn-about to the left that in those days would take you to the top. I think that the road to the right is now used mostly to get to the new Methodist Church on the ridge between town hill and Pine Hill.
I remember that on many Sunday’s some of us boys would take our twenty-twos’ rifles to shoot rats in old town ‘dump.’ There’s an old shopping center sitting on that spot today.
I’ve written a couple of stories about exploring the dried banks of the Big Sandy in late summer. I have seen the skeletal remains of boats or barges that were sticking out of sandbars. I doubt there was any Spanish gold down there, but I would have been happy with an Indian head penny, or even an arrowhead. I have a cheap metal detector now, but they didn’t exist back then. I think the army had some for clearing mines in the war, but they weren’t available to the public for hunting artifacts. It is a very popular sport for some and a career for others.
I discovered during grade school that reading was another way to explore. I read stories about Captain Kidd, Blackbeard, and other privateers that were so exciting. My imagination would soar. Just think how I would have been pleased if I had seen “Pirates of the Caribbean.” I rarely would pass up a book that promised to shed light on points of history. I also read about Wild Bill Hickock, the invention of the automobile, first flight of an airplane, the Oregon Trail, and many other subjects or famous people featured in ‘Landmark Books.’ I had a collection of those at one time, but I’m afraid they’re gone.
In those days writers told the stories, but weren’t all about sensationalism. Now many writers focus more on circulation brought on by the intent of destroying the image of famous people. Today, innuendoes will do if facts can’t be found. The thing is, people are people. Everyone has done things at one time or another, for which they are not proud. Also, what’s not acceptable behavior today was the norm in days gone by. Principles change over time. I still prefer books that shed light on the positive accomplishments and gives our hero’s a break. We should respect the privacy of our fellow-men unless doing so create a risks. At one time the press protected the privacy of a crippled president, but now they look for ways to present even the slightest flaw or misstep. They shout that truth should be known, but no man or woman can stand long under that strict measure.
When I read the details about the discovery of an intact tomb by Howard Carter in 1922, and saw pictures of the wonderful things that had been found buried with King Tut, I was excited. So was that generation of people all around the world. They went crazy decorating their homes with Egyptian motifs that were taken from things found in the tomb. Who could not love this stuff? Going to the Holy Land and finding artifacts of biblical history, or discovering Nazi loot hidden in tunnels and caves still gets my attention. It’s not that I want to find riches, or would even know how to market a bucket of bullion if I found some. It’s the finding that matters and the enlightenment that follows. Yes, I would pan for gold, but for the experience of finding it. Sure, money matters, but that isn’t the central thing.
Today, I still take my wife on what I call ‘explores.’ When the kids were little we dragged them along, too, instilling a love for travel and discovery. My goal was to find new roads never traveled, or a village we hadn’t seen. We have turned onto streets to find the sidewalks of a town lined with crowds of waving people only to find out we were leading a parade we didn’t know was behind us. We’ve discovered community fairs, and special annual events. We have found neat shops, great places to eat, and have even seen bears, Emu’s, camels, and all kinds of animals that surprised us upon going around a curve in the road. It’s always worth the trip and often gives us a happy surprise.
Daniel Boone, Columbus, and Eric the Red, weren’t the only ones who liked to discover. I, for one, still do. I don’t really want to fight bears, circumvent a hurricane, or try to escape an Indian scouting party, but I still love discovery. I enjoy watching the on-going saga of Oak Island, reading about the continuing search for the Lost Dutchman Mine, and the dream of discovery of Cleopatra’s tomb. With each generation a bit of history is lost. Veterans are dying every day and their stories are lost to the world. I love to uncover the past. How about you? mcoburncppo@aol.com
PS: If you enjoyed these stories drop me a line or hit the ‘like’ button. That will give me encouragement to keep on writing. Thanks, and happy exploring.
