The Gravel Pit

There a sort of magic that lures young boys to the gravel pit. You can descent below the depths of the earth. You can see her many layers. Adventure, climbing, playing on adbandoned cars and strange rusting equipment. It seems as though the gravel pit invites people to through their junk into her open stetched arms. It was probably the sheer joy of seing something tumbling to a final resting place that attracts people to toss things into the adbandoned gravel pit.

Our house in Milwaukie Oregon was only a few hundred feet away from a gapping hole in the earth. The area was evidently very fluvial. The earth just gave up tons and tons of prime aggregate. That gravel pit is probably responsible for many foundations around Portland. The rock was crushed cleaned and used in the ready mix cement plants in the area. When they could take no more gravel because of the proximity to homes, they just adbandoned the pits. The gravel pit was used to create a housing comlex.

Our gravel pit was exceptional. It seemed as though it stretched from horizon to horizon. At one end the gravel pit was not very deep, since it was really an exevation where they removed a large portion of a hill. Since our house was at the top of the hill, we were not very far from the highest point.

In those days there was not much consideration for liability as there is today. There was no fence, no warning signs. You were expected to know not to fall into the pit. In those days most people relied on common sense. We never thought about danger in the way it is thought about today. It is a well known and understood fact that you cannot protect everybody from everything. People will invent ways to get into trouble. The gravel pit was no exception. We frequented the pit to do all sorts of kid things.

Rolling an old tire off of the top of the gravel pit was one of the most exciting things to do. If you got it just right the tire would bounce down the cliff and roll almost to the other end, threatening even to go on forever, if it were not for a boulder or two to throw a fateful wobble onto the tire to give it a few wild turns and then to come to an abrubt rest . On a bad roll the tire would wobble end over end and just smack on the bottom near the base of the pit. Very dissappointing. We found that if you gave it a good roll before reaching the edge of the cliff then the tire would stay upright.

The centrifugal force was enough to keep the tire going until the energy of the journey down the side of the cliff petered out. Laird and I were only afraid that in our vigor to roll the tires towards the edge of the cliff that we would miscalulate and end up going over ourselves. Our common sense worked well in these matters.

At the bottom of the gravel pit was a small lake. With the so may rainy days in Oregon the build up of rain water was inevitable. Even though the ground was very pervious, the water manged to build up and stay almost all year round, at least until summer. Then it would dry up leaving exposed all of the. The life created in these pools was amazing. There were three levels of creatures. Those that lived above the water, those on and the others under. The dragon flies swooped around the various plants that grew from the ponds edge. Why they had to hover in one place for as long as they did, we never could figure out. Maybe it was just to let us see them. That they were scary, so we should leave them alone. We could never hit one with a rock or catch one for that matter.

There were also the water skimmers. They walked on the water. We couldn't so we would get our shoes all mucked up and would try to dry them before going home. Our shoes never did last very long. We would either loose them or they would fall apart. Dad learned not to invest in new shoes. Mom could never insure that we only used them for school. So the Goodwill was a preferred shopping spot for our shoes. The mothers of the good kids that didn't ruin their shoes would give them to the Goodwill, so we could ruin them.

The tadpoles were those little back peas with small tails that swam everywhere. We would catch them and then let them go. They weren't very fast but they were numerous. There would only be a short period during the summer where they would be adbundant, then they would disappear into frogs. Sometimes we would catch that tadpoles with little from legs. Later during the summer we would be catching little frogs. There were much more fun to keep. Tadpole needed water and would last less than a day, while frogs would stay with us for weeks.

Easter on The Hill

Grandma Richardson lived just above us on the top of the hill. Dad sold his parents his house when he purchased a lot just below the house. We lived in a trailer until my father was able to construct the BIG BLACK HOUSE. Actually it was not a hudge house, it was of average size, but for me it was enormous (until I later visited the house and of course it seemed small).

Grandma's house on the other hand was small but very traditional. It was constructed I think in the 40's. It was a box with just the right amount of space for a kitchen, living room and one or two bedrooms. I remember the basic design but not much else.

What I remember the most was the white picket fence to the front of the house and the various contours of the small yard in front and the back yard which was right on a steep incline going down to our house.

Instead of a garage there was a carport, which is sort of an open garage. Buford, grandma's dog loved to lie in the shade of the garage. Old buford was so old that his hair was a little matty. His hair color was a little like a rich brown cappuccino. I think he was a collie.
One time we had an easter egg hunt. My mother hid a number of eggs around the yard and it was our job to find them. Grandma had made an easter meal of sorts and we kids spent our time outside looking for the eggs and playing on the lawn. I don't remember how many I found or where they were hidden. I suppose it will come back to me some day.

What I remember was how happy I was, the smell of grass, the cool brease, floating things like blowies in the air. The sound of distant traffic on King Road, birds and barking dogs.

It's too bad we dont remember much more than a few snap shots of special moments.

It was Easter and there was meaning in peoples faces. They were celebrating a tradition, a belief and to a certain degree, the feeling that life was ordained and that there was structure and order to these significant religious events. Church and supermarkets reminded you of these events.

Easter is one of the holiday's that is hard to grasp for children It was very hard for me. What I remember so clearly was the easter egg hunt. For me that made a lot of sense. We were always looking for our socks, shoes, library books, so why not look for eggs too!

To find the easter eggs you just had to be fast. It was like wanting to be everywhere at once. You would see one of your brothers or sister find an egg and you knew there would be other eggs close by. We would all hoard in on the find. Since I was the oldest boy I think I bullied a greater share of the eggs. This is probably why mom was harder on me than the other kids. She was the balance. All's anybody would have to do was to call out MAAAUUUMMM then say CHRIS and add whatever complaint was necessary. It worked. I knew and mom knew that if I didn't stop then it would be the wooden spoon. Sometimes my brothers and sister over did the MOM thing. It was a neat way to get back at me.

Mom boiled the eggs and experimented on how to color them designing eggs that should have been in a fine arts exhibition rather than being in our dirty clutches. We also had the pleasure of creating a mess with colors. That was the great thing about mom and dad. Unlike most other parents we were encouraged to be creative, which meant being messy was ok! Later, however we didn't exactly pass on this benefit to our own kids. Most of us kids liked a tidy and organized environment. Creativity was in habitat was for our childhood.

I don't think we found all of the Easter Eggs, there are probably some eggs still hidden around grandma's old house. I would like to think that they are still waiting for us to find them. Maybe in our dreams. There is a purple one with yellow stars high up in the top of an old tree that was once a sapling.