The chalk caves were hidden below the Friant Dam. A short walk from the paved road led to
the entrance of a series of bored out shafts from past chalk mining. All over the walls, were names and
initials carved into the soft chalk.
The floor was covered with a fine powder that makes me cough just
thinking about it. As teenagers, we would go
there to hang out. At the end of
the center shaft, was a fire pit and some bench seats made of chalk slabs. Interestingly, we never ran into other
people there, but by the amount of chalk graffiti, there had been hundreds of
previous guests. We could be
loud, party or whatever, and nobody would know. The western side of the caves had large cracks in the
ceiling and we avoided that area.
How sensible for a bunch of senseless teenagers!
Teenagers love to be by themselves and away from
adults. We took great efforts to
have our space, whether it was by backpacking or camping, or even just fishing
at Hensley Lake in the dead of a foggy winter. I notice how my son wants to hang out with his friends and
just be with people his own age.
His generation. It is
normal, I guess. That’s great as
long as they are safe. We ran into
one of his friends who told us how four of them were in a SUV after having
dinner at around 6:00pm in a busy shopping center. While the four of them
were talking in the back of the Suburban (“trunking” they call it) two men
pulled up and tried to break into the car, not seeing the four because of the
tinted windows. They pressed the
panic button on the key chain and exited the car as the two men, described as a
father and son, fled while cursing at them in a language other than
English. I asked my son why he
didn’t tell us about this, and he said it was because he figured we would be
upset. Well, I have two thoughts
about this. My first thought is
the danger. People don’t fist
fight anymore. They gun
fight. Approaching someone
committing a crime is risky. You
don’t know who or what you are dealing with. Most criminals are either on dope, in a gang or simply
desperate. All three are dangerous. My second thought is how it is in a
man’s psychology to want to protect his wife, girlfriend or child. The two young men did what they felt
was RIGHT by running the thieves off that early evening. To clarify, this happened two blocks
from our home, while it was still light outside.
Unfortunately, the consequences of doing what is RIGHT is that sometimes you become
DEAD RIGHT.
I'll take my chances...
Now, I have another thing to worry about as my children grow
up and face a sometimes, hostile world.
The danger we faced as teenagers, was the ceiling of the old chalk caves coming down
on top of us, so I guess it is all, relative. Young people deserve the opportunity to be together and to
be safe. I don’t know where that
is today, besides the homes we create for them.
The chalk caves are no more. The landowner collapsed them because of the liability and
now thirty years later, there is no sign that they ever existed. Someday, a group of archeologists will
uncover the walls of names and initials carved into the chalk and make a
discovery of a historical place where kids would come to be kids, a place where
there were no adults and no parents.
It was a place where kids could be themselves and celebrate being a part
of their generation. Today however, if archeologists should go there to dig, I
would suggest they bring a gun.
