THE CAVE

When you are a child growing up there are some activities you just have to do, not because you are supposed to do them, not because you are asked or told to do them, but just because you want to do them.

I have previously written about the Belmont Jungles, the name we boys had for the wooded area behind our houses on Belmont St. in South Easton Pennsylvania.  In the back of the Jungles, near where the truck farm fields started, there was  a slight bank where the terrain of the woods dropped off toward Glendale St., or more properly the right of way of Glendale St. , And a few of us decided this would be a good spot to dig a cave.  What we intended to do with the cave once we had it dug is lost in the mists of time.  Why we were going to do it probably wouldn’t make much sense either.  Let’s just say it was there, we had our folding camp shovels, and we just wanted to dig the cave.

The Belmont Jungle Excavating Company consisted of Roy, Mike, Bill, sometimes Jim, and I.  We took turns digging the dirt and throwing it out of the hole as it got bigger. We must have picked  a good place, because even though we were into the side of a bank in the woods, we didn’t run into any tree roots and no big rocks.

We eventually got the cave big enough that two of us at a time could be in it digging.  Digging went quick because the ground proved to be somewhat damp.  I don’t remember why we stopped, but I know why I wasn’t allowed to dig any more.  Mom and Dad had bought me a new winter coat, and I had been wearing it while I dug, ruining a coat they could ill afford to replace at that time.