Scuba Tanks, Water Towers, and the Foolishness of Youth

Okay, I’ve done some incredibly stupid things in my life.

Crawling through storm drains. Jumping into the Little Cahaba at the height of a flood. Climbing the light poles at the Leeds football stadium. I even climbed the flagpole in front of the high school once. I could probably name a few others if I gave it enough thought.

But two particular incidents come to mind that prove a point I have come to understand much better now that I’m seventy years old.

The first happened the year I graduated from high school.

My best friend Bart Mitchell’s dad was getting rid of his old scuba tank and regulator, and I jumped at the chance to get them. I was absolutely fascinated with scuba diving. Between Lloyd Bridges on Sea Hunt and Jacques Cousteau exploring the oceans, I figured I was just one wetsuit away from underwater greatness.

To make the deal even sweeter, Mr. Mitchell threw in his old wetsuit and fins.

There was just one small detail.

The tank wasn’t exactly what you’d call a certified scuba tank.

It was actually made from an old CO₂ cylinder that had once been used to carbonate soft drinks. Now, Mr. Mitchell was a machinist and a bit of a free spirit. He improvised things all the time and even built his own underwater camera system. So at the time it didn’t seem that strange to me.

Still, when I carried that tank into Southern Skin Divers Supply to get it filled, they took one look at it and practically threw me out of the store. They informed me that I should have more sense than to even attempt such a thing.

Naturally, I went straight back to the Mitchell house and asked Mr. Mitchell what I should do.

He calmly told me there was a place over in Trussville that would fill the tank for me—no questions asked and no certifications required.

Problem solved.

So I headed over to Trussville, got the tank filled, and then made my way out to one of the flooded strip mines on Sicard Hollow Road to try my hand at scuba diving.

Now for my younger readers, I should mention that there are no flooded strip mines on Sicard Hollow Road anymore, at least not that I know of. Those old pits have long since been filled in, planted over, and turned into residential developments.

But back then they were perfect places for young fellows with questionable judgment to experiment with scuba gear.

A friend of mine, Mike Skinner, and my cousin Mike Rowan came along to witness the historic event.

Knowing absolutely nothing about scuba diving didn’t deter me in the least. I put on the wetsuit, slipped on the fins, lowered my mask, and waded into the water like a professional.

There was only one small problem.

I had always wondered why scuba divers in the movies wore belts with lead weights.

Well, it turns out those weights serve a purpose.

The moment I slid into the water, I discovered that a neoprene wetsuit is remarkably buoyant. No matter how hard I tried, I could not get myself to sink.

I thrashed around for quite a while—twisting, turning, trying every trick I could think of to force myself underwater.

Meanwhile, Mike Skinner and Mike Rowan were having the time of their lives standing on the bank laughing and offering helpful commentary.

Eventually I gave up, climbed out of the water, and went home.

Except for a couple of other half-hearted attempts later on, my brief career as a scuba diver came to an end right there in that strip mine.

But that was only the beginning.

Not long after the scuba adventure, I moved into an apartment on Parkway Drive with my friend Mark Lawley. Mark and I decided to try our hand at being roommates, and somewhere along the way he convinced me to join the Leeds Volunteer Fire Department.

Mark had a lot of interests, and one of them was rescue training. Somewhere during that time he learned how to rappel.

Naturally, I had to learn too.

I bought some rope and carabiners, and Mark gave me a quick lesson in the basics. Before long we were out at one of the chert pits near Leeds practicing rappelling down the rock walls.

To my surprise, I actually did pretty well.

Mark was a good teacher, and rappelling turned out to be a lot of fun.

The real trouble started the following Monday at work.

I began telling a few coworkers—Dan Davis and Butch Crump among them—about my weekend adventures sliding down rock walls like some kind of mountain climber.

They were impressed.

In fact, they were so impressed that they asked if I could demonstrate this remarkable skill.

Now here’s where things took a turn.

Behind Builders Manufacturing Company, where we worked, stood an old water storage tank about thirty or forty feet high. Dan quickly spread the word around the shop that I would be performing a rappelling demonstration after work and that everyone should come out and watch.

At three-thirty I went out to my car, grabbed my rope and gear, and headed for the tank.

When I reached the top, I looked down to see eight or ten coworkers gathered below, waiting to watch the show.

No pressure.

I clipped in, swung my legs over the edge, braced my feet against the tank, and kicked off just like Mark had taught me.

For a moment everything went perfectly.

Then my rope knotted up.

The next thing I knew the rope wrapped around my waist, flipped me over, and there I was—hanging upside down about twenty feet off the side of the tank.

I flailed around trying to right myself while the crowd below enjoyed the finest entertainment they’d had all week.

Eventually a couple of the guys climbed up the tank and got me untangled.

By the time I made it back to the ground everyone was having a grand time laughing about the “great mountain climber.”

Now that I’m seventy years old, I no longer feel quite the same urge to prove my bravery by dangling from ropes, climbing water towers, or experimenting with homemade scuba gear.

Age has a way of smoothing out some of the foolishness of youth.

Still, when I look back on those days, I can’t help but feel a little thankful for them. Those were the years when we believed we could try anything, when common sense sometimes took a back seat to curiosity and adventure.

And if I’m being honest, those misadventures have provided a lifetime supply of stories.

Stories like the day I tried to become a scuba diver in a flooded strip mine.

Or the afternoon when I attempted to impress my coworkers by rappelling down a water tower and ended up hanging upside down halfway to the ground.

Of course, some people never let you forget such things.

To this day, Dan Davis still enjoys telling the story of the afternoon young Ron Howard tried to rappel down the tank behind Builders Manufacturing.

And truth be told…

He usually tells it better than I do.

Teaser from my newest book...

 from The Watchers

Chapter Six — The Lantern Passes

Herbert Nash did not announce that he was dying. Men like him rarely did.

The valley had learned long ago that some endings arrived without ceremony—quiet as frost settling on a field before dawn.

His body simply began to slow in ways the ground recognized before he did: breath shallower, steps shorter, listening taking more effort than it once had.

The lantern noticed first.

 It warmed earlier in the evenings.

Dimmed more slowly at dawn.

It lingered in its glow, as if reluctant to be set aside.

Herbert felt it in his hands, the familiar weight now accompanied by something else—a gentle insistence.

“All right,” he said one night, setting it on the table between them. “I hear you.”

Outside, winter settled over Leeds without argument.

No heavy snow, no violent storms—just cold nights and pale mornings where frost traced the edges of things and then retreated.

The rails hummed clean and low. Atlas Quarry slept. The Little Cahaba slid quietly through its bends.

 It was a good time to leave. Herbert spent his last weeks doing very little that anyone would call work.

He sat longer on his porch.

Walked shorter distances.

Let James Lowrey handle more at the depot.

When he did walk, he took paths that looped instead of cutting straight through.

 He was letting the valley get used to his absence.

One crisp afternoon, Herbert made his way to the Leeds Depot. Older than the city itself, the old wooden structure had stood since 1884, when the Georgia Pacific Railway first stitched iron through the heart of the valley. The depot's boards creaked underfoot, echoing the complaints of a hundred years of freight and passengers.

James Lowrey looked up from his ledger, his pencil pausing mid-mark. “You're early today,” James said, though there was no schedule to it.

Herbert nodded, easing into the worn chair by the window. “Ground's quiet. Figured I'd sit with it a spell.”

James set the ledger aside. The two men had shared this space for decades, ever since the post-war boom when the railroads hauled limestone from the quarries and coal from deeper seams.

The city of Leeds had grown, from a small community called Cedar Grove that was settled by the sweat of War of 1812 veterans and freedmen. Renamed Oak Ridge in 1869, and later Leeds, after the industrial city in England, the city was officially incorporated in 1887. The Standard Portland Cement Company had opened in 1905, pulling stone from Atlas like it was endless, but Herbert knew better—quarries remembered every cut.

“We've kept it steady,” James murmured, glancing at the gauges on the wall.

They twitched faintly, reading the valley's pulse. “No big shifts lately.”

Herbert smiled faintly. “That's the point, ain't it? No headlines.”

They sat in companionable silence, the distant whistle of a freight train threading through the air like a familiar tune.

 Herbert's hand rested on the lantern at his side, its warmth a quiet companion.

He thought of the old Native American trails that once crossed here, paths worn by Choctaw and Creek feet before the rails claimed them. Folklore whispered of lights in the valley—ghostly orbs along the Cahaba, said to guide or warn, remnants of a time when the land spoke louder. The lantern felt like that now, a glow not of fire but of knowing.

Later that week, Herbert stopped by the schoolhouse, a simple brick building perched on the edge of town where the ground sloped gently toward the river.

Manley Edwards, the custodian, was sweeping the steps, his broom whisking away the last of the fallen leaves. A long time Watcher, he kept a quiet vigil over the children of Leeds.

 “Mr. Nash,” Edwards greeted, leaning on the handle. “What brings you out?”

 “Just checkin' on things,” Herbert replied.

The school had been built in the 1920s, during Leeds' cement heyday, when families flooded in for steady jobs at the quarries.

Now, it housed the children of those same lines—kids who played near the rails without knowing the stories etched into the ties.

Edwards nodded toward the playground, where a few stragglers kicked a ball.

“We've had a quiet term. No troubles.”

Herbert's eyes scanned the fence line, noting a loose post that might give under too much weight. He didn't mention it—Edwards would notice soon enough and he or one of the other Watchers would shore it up quietly.

“Good,” Herbert said. “Quiet's what we aim for.”

As he turned to leave, a young girl—Janey Broward—watched from the swings, her gaze steady and knowing. Herbert tipped his hat to her, feeling the valley's approval in the way the wind eased.

Herbert's walks grew shorter, but one evening he ventured to the ridge above Atlas Quarry, where the stone walls dropped sharp into shadowed water.

The quarry had been a beast in its prime, blasting limestone for the cement that built Birmingham's skyline. Now, it lay dormant, replaced by a much larger quarry closer to the center of Leeds. 

Its veins remembered the dynamite and the men who'd fed it. Herbert pressed a hand to the rock, feeling the faint warmth beneath the chill—a seam of heat from old fires, much like the smoldering coals in the Red Diamond mines west of Scott City. “You holdin'?” he whispered. The ground hummed back, steady but fading, as if acknowledging his question without needing to answer.

He found Randall there, on the ridge, staring out as the sun dipped low. The boy—now teetering on the edge of manhood—stood with feet planted wide, head tilted in that listening way.

“You hear it?” Herbert asked. Randall nodded. “It’s… different today.”

Herbert smiled. “Different how?” “Quieter,” Randall said. “But not asleep.”

“That’s how you want it,” Herbert replied. “Quiet that’s awake can tell you when somethin’s wrong.”

He withdrew the lantern and set it on the ground between them.

Randall’s breath caught. “You don’t usually bring that.”

“Well,” Herbert said softly, “I won’t always be walkin’ this far.”

The lantern warmed immediately, its glow deepening—not flaring, not demanding, just recognizing.

Herbert felt it loosen in his hands, like something easing into place.

“Well,” he murmured, almost to himself. “That answers that.”

Randall looked panicked. “I don’t know how to—”

“You don’t need to,” Herbert said gently. “Lantern ain’t askin’ you to work. It’s askin’ you to listen.” He stepped back. The valley did not follow him.

That night, Herbert did not light the lantern before bed.

For the first time in decades, it rested dark on the table.

Herbert slept anyway.

He did not wake again.

They found him the next morning, peaceful in his chair, the window cracked to the cold air. The lantern sat nearby, unlit but warm.

 No one knew what to do with it.

So they left it where it was.

Randall didn’t take the lantern that day.

He didn’t take it the next either.

The Guild never rushed these things.

Janey watched him from the doorway. “You don’t have to hurry,” she said.

Randall nodded. “I know.”

That night, Randall lay awake listening to the ground beneath his home.

He felt the rails hum in the distance.

Felt the quarry hold.

Felt the river move without rising.

Everything was balanced.

Everything was waiting.

And for the first time, Randall understood something Herbert had never said out loud: Listening wasn’t about hearing more.

It was about knowing when the lantern would be ready— and when you were.

Late Life Learning

 Coming Home to Old Ground and New Stories

I've settled in for the evening with a cup of coffee gone lukewarm because I got to thinking again. That happens a lot these days. My mind wanders, doubles back, takes the long way around. And I reckon that’s a fine way to learn.

People like to say learning is for the young. School desks. Fresh notebooks. Sharp pencils. But what they don’t tell you is how sweet learning can be when you come to it later in life—when you’re not chasing grades or proving anything to anybody. When you’re just curious.

For me, that curiosity led me right back home to Leeds.

I’ve lived a lot of years, worn a lot of hats, and traveled a fair stretch of road—but there’s something about learning the story of your own hometown that settles you. Leeds isn’t just where I grew up; it’s a place layered with iron, rail lines, creek water, and quiet perseverance. Turns out, I’d been walking past history my whole life without stopping to listen.

I started small. Reading. Asking questions. Standing still in places I used to rush past.

Take the Leeds Depot. For years it was just there—a building you noticed without noticing. But once I learned about the trains that rolled through, the people who waited there, the lives that arrived and departed on those rails, the place changed. It wasn’t quiet anymore. It hummed.

I also found myself drawn to the darker, half-forgotten places—the old coal mines scattered through the hills, the long-gone brick yard out at Lola City, and stories of the Red Diamond mines that once burned underground, smoldering for years like the land itself was holding its breath. These weren’t places you’d find on a postcard, but they mattered. Men worked there. Families depended on them. And even now, when you stand nearby, there’s a feeling that the ground remembers.

And those old rail tunnels—cut straight through Coosa Mountain and Oak Mountain—well, those got under my skin. Dark, cool, and patient. Dug by hand, by grit, by men whose names don’t always make it into books. You walk near those tunnels and you can feel the weight of time pressing in from all sides. They don’t ask for attention. They wait for it.

 Learning about those places reminded me that history isn’t always neat or pretty—but it’s honest, and it’s ours.

The funny thing is, the more I learned, the more my imagination got restless.

Facts turned into questions.
Questions turned into what ifs.
And before I knew it, history had tipped me right over into storytelling.

I didn’t set out to write fiction. Not really. But late-life learning has a way of unlocking doors you didn’t even know were there. I found myself scribbling scenes instead of notes, characters instead of dates. Places like Leeds—its rails, its quarries, its quiet back roads—started asking to be remembered in a different way.

That curiosity turned into five published books. Five stories rooted in place, memory, and the unseen threads that connect people to land and to one another. And now, believe it or not, there’s a sixth one on the way. Still feels strange to say that out loud.

What I’ve learned from all this is simple:
Late-life learning isn’t about reinventing yourself. It’s about re-encountering yourself.

It’s about standing in a familiar place long enough to finally hear what it’s been trying to tell you all along.

So if you’re feeling that little nudge—toward local history, old photographs, forgotten buildings, or stories you’ve never tried to tell—lean into it. Take the slow road. Ask the questions. Sit with the answers.

You never know what might come walking out of the past to meet you.

LOST!

 

Once a vibrant shade of yellow, Benny the banana lay forgotten in the vast expanse of a Walmart parking lot, lonely and lost. With the bustling shoppers rushing by, he felt abandoned, his hopes of becoming a delicious snack fading with each passing moment. Beneath the gleaming mid-day sun, he dreamed of a home with loving hands to peel him and savor his sweet flavor, yet here he was, a small fruit adrift in a world of asphalt and chaos.

Photo Friday

PHOTO FRIDAY - TOWER

This is a night-time shot of the Heidelberg Materials plant in my hometown of Leeds, Alabama. I am posting this one here for the Photo Friday July 5, 2024 challenge "TOWER". If you are a return visitor to my blog  then you know that I love night-time photography. There is something about the light at night that transforms an object or scene, often giving them an almost magical appearance. 

Shot on an Apple iPhone 15 Pro  ƒ/1.78  1/5  6.765mm  ISO1250

Our little corner of the universe

I've been spending a lot of time tending to the garden and doing yard work, but I still managed to find a little time to fly my DJI Mini 3 drone and take a few photos. I'm getting better at flying the drone, which makes it even more enjoyable to use. Today I just took a few shots of our little homestead, which we love. I really enjoy flying the drone because it gives me a different perspective of our little piece of heaven.

Night Stalker-Photo Ops

 

Night time along side the tracks waiting for this freight train to move on so that I could get a shot of the train in motion. I got tired and gave up, promising myself that I'll do this again another night.

This is the old Railway Depot in my hometown of Leeds, Alabama