Tunnel Rats in the Rew Development

Tunnel Rats in the Rew Development

“Tunnel rat” usually refers to soldiers during the Vietnam War—men who volunteered to crawl through the tight, dangerous underground tunnel systems built by the Viet Cong. But in our little corner of the world, the Rew Development, “tunnel rats” had a whole different meaning.

This story is about me and my sisters Janet and Lisa. Dana had not yet been born and she missed out on a lot of our childhood exploits. But me, Janet, and Lisa, we were weird kids. Adventurous, fearless, and always on the hunt for n ways to have fun. If there was a sinkhole near the sewage plant or a treehouse in the woods across from Valley View Baptist, you could bet we knew about it. And we’d probably already explored it.

The Rew was laced with a stormwater drainage system—pipes big enough for a scrawny kid to crawl through on hands and knees. The hardest part was getting into the storm drain in the first place. Most of the openings were only about eight inches high, so if you weren’t small, you weren’t getting in.

Me, Janet, Lisa, and another neighborhood kid, Terry Penny, used to shimmy into the storm drain at the corner of President Street and Montevallo Road. From there, we’d crawl all the way down to Cleveland Street, then take a turn and head another block to Robert E. Lee Street.

At the intersection of Cleveland and Robert E. Lee—right in front of the Sisson house—there was a chamber where pipes came in from three different directions. There was even a manhole overhead in case you needed to get out. That spot was just big enough for four small kids to sit comfortably in a circle—and that’s exactly what we did. Most of the time, we never went farther. Only once did I go past that, up to the cul-de-sac where the Uptain family lived. The pipe seemed narrower up there, and I didn’t want to risk getting stuck with no room to turn around. Crawling backward for a whole block didn’t sound like a good time.

One afternoon after school, the four of us made our usual crawl into the chamber in front of the Sisson house. James Sisson, Ronald Uptain, Gary Holder, and Paul Thomas were all out in the yard playing around. We sat in our little hideout listening to them for a while. Eventually, we got bored—and that’s when the bright idea hit us: we’d shout up at them.

We pushed up on the manhole cover, peeked out, and started hollering silly stuff before slamming the lid shut again. At first, the boys couldn’t figure out where the voices were coming from. But it didn’t take long before they narrowed it down. They ran over and tried to pull the cover off, but it was harder to lift from above than to push from below.

We didn’t stick around to see if they could manage it—we turned and started crawling back toward Montevallo Road, planning to head home via President Street. But it didn’t take long before those guys figured out where we were going, and they followed us along the road, probably just a few feet above our heads the whole way.

When we finally reached our exit, we tried to shimmy out—only to find all four of them waiting. We were afraid to come out, so we just crouched there in the dark, hoping they’d get bored and leave. They eventually did, but our troubles weren’t over yet.

The commotion had attracted the attention of a couple of local bullies. Every time one of us tried to squeeze out of the drain, they’d hurl rocks at us. Not huge ones—just big enough to sting. This went on for ten or fifteen minutes, until even the bullies got tired of the game.

We finally crawled out, dirty and sore, and made it home just in time for dinner. That was the last time we ever climbed into that storm drain. We took it off our list of cool places to explore.

Years later, I walked down to take a look at that drain. It looked impossibly small—like something only a squirrel could fit into. I could hardly believe we’d ever managed to crawl through it, let alone sit down there for hours laughing and yelling and plotting our next move.

Still, it’s one of my favorite memories from childhood.

Fearless Kids

 

Fearless Kids

My sister Janet and I were fearless as kids. Our mother never hovered over us the way modern parents do. Honestly, I don’t understand how kids today are supposed to grow into fully functional adults. Kids need to explore their world—to fall into creeks, slip in the mud, and occasionally get hurt. That’s how we learn our limits, what’s safe and what’s not.

The year I entered first grade, we lived in a garage apartment on Farley Avenue, just two doors down from Jimmy Moore’s Grocery. Anyone familiar with Leeds knows that to get to the elementary school from our apartment, you had to walk two blocks south—crossing the railroad tracks—then head west for another four blocks. Unless my memory is playing tricks on me, I walked myself to school. Maybe there were older kids I walked with, but I don’t remember clearly. What I do remember is that Janet and I used to roam all over that neighborhood, including downtown Leeds.

One of our favorite spots was the railroad tracks near the Central Club. We’d find all sorts of treasures—tiny glass bottles and old wooden batteries (yes, wooden). The railroad workers would toss them out when they were done. We’d take a piece of wire and connect the battery terminals to watch them heat up and glow red-hot. You could even start a little fire with them.

One of our greatest thrills was climbing the wooden cooling tower behind Magdeline’s Beauty Shop. You don’t see these anymore, but they were large wooden structures, often as tall as the building itself, with slats to let air pass through. Inside was a network of pipes that sprayed a fine mist of water. As the water dripped down, it cooled, and that chilled water was pumped back into the building’s AC system. Magdeline’s was next to McCraney Wholesale—now L.A. Salon—and Janet and I would climb that tower all the way to the roof. From there, we’d sneak across the rooftops, peeking down at traffic and trying hard not to get caught.

There was another cooling tower behind Moore’s Food Center, and we climbed that one too. We loved being above the town, exploring the rooftops, feeling like we had the whole place to ourselves.

As I got a little older, my friend Phil Ingram and I used to play over near Courson Seating. They had scrapped a bunch of old parts from their wood dust collection system, and one piece looked like a small water tank lying on its side with a hatch on one end. We’d crawl inside that big metal cylinder and pretend it was our spaceship.

I’ll never forget the day Phil and I were inside, talking and laughing, when a kid named Lloyd walked by. He heard us and knocked on the side, saying, “Greetings, travelers. Welcome to Planet Earth.” We let him climb in and gave him the grand tour of our ship. A perfect ending to another perfect day.

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When we were kids, our dad would take us to Panama City Beach most summers. We usually stayed a few blocks off the beach in little cottages or motels. One summer, as soon as we pulled up to our cabin, Janet and I started begging to go to the beach. We hadn’t even unpacked the car yet. After some pleading, my mom gave in. We changed into our swimsuits, grabbed our floats, and headed off.

We paddled out as far as we could, then started drifting down the shoreline, just enjoying the day. Time didn’t feel like it was passing. But eventually, we noticed a commotion on the beach—a crowd of people running back and forth, shouting.

Janet squinted and said, “It sounds like they’re yelling our names.”

That’s when we realized—we were the commotion.

We paddled back as fast as we could. When we hit the shore, Mom ran to us crying and scooped us into her arms. Dad came charging from the other direction, red-faced and furious.

“This vacation is over!” he shouted and stormed off to the cabin.

By the time we got there, he had already packed most of our stuff back into the car. We had to beg and plead for him to change his mind. Thankfully, he did. But that was the last time we were ever allowed to go to the beach alone.

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After our younger sister Lisa came along and got old enough—maybe nine or ten—the three of us spent a lot of time down at the Little Cahaba River. Though it’s officially called a river, we always just called it “the creek.”

We swam in that creek, fished in it, and caught crawfish. But the biggest thrills came in the spring when it flooded. The muddy water would rise and rush swiftly toward Lake Purdy. Back then, the Leeds wastewater treatment plant sat right on the bank, though it’s since been moved across a smaller creek. Soccer fields are there now, but back then, it was our playground.

Just before the sewage plant, the creek took a sharp turn. That’s where we played one of our wildest games. One kid would be “the catcher,” standing on the bank with a long stick. The others—one by one—would jump into the flood-swollen creek upstream and let the current carry them down.

The catcher’s job? Stick out the pole in time for the swimmer to grab on before getting swept past the bend and into the dangerous part of the water near the plant.

No boats. No life jackets. Just bare hands and nerves of steel.

Amazingly, we never lost a single kid to that game.

As we got older, our adventures got riskier. We jumped off cliffs into flooded strip mines, took canoe trips from Moody all the way to Hoover, explored the caves around Lake Purdy, and once spent an entire week detonating a box of old blasting caps we’d gotten our hands on (a story for another day).

And then there were Janet’s train-hopping days.

She and some friends used to hop onto freight trains right in Leeds, ride them through the tunnels, and jump off in Dunnavant, where another friend would pick them up and drive them back.

Of course, if I ever bring this up in front of my nephews, Janet denies it with a straight face.