The Longest Running Clandestine Operation in the History of the Zakes Family - Part III
Part III – The Room
This is the third installment of a three part story from my childhood. If you missed part one or two, please go back and read it now. (Click HERE for Part I or Click HERE for Part II).
The tunnel hadn’t taken as long as the shaft, and the room would form even faster. Since the tunnel was only long enough to reach the front wall of the room, we had to continue to tunnel another foot or two in order to begin to dig up. And that is when things got fun.
To dig the room, especially initially, required the digger to punch his digging screwdriver up into the ceiling above his head. Obviously the dislodged dirt would fall directly down – most often directly onto the face of the digger. This is when the snorkel and scuba mask actually helped. It was extremely hot and sweaty work. The humidity from being underground, surrounded by moist dirt walls, was stifling. Add in the exertion of pushing mounds of dirt down the tunnel over and around your body to be loaded and hoisted by the non-digger, and a couple of 100-watt light bulbs, and it was bordering on ridiculous. The loosened dirt clung to your body and as time went on and little critters found “the hole” it became a dwelling filled with spiders, cockroaches, and crickets. Claustrophobia was overcome daily.
In a short time though, there was enough room to sit Indian-style in the “room” and then progress began to really pick up. Before long we could both fit and then shortly thereafter both stand.
Soon the room was large enough for four people. Sure that wasn’t big enough for my entire family, but really it was bigger and better than I had ever conceptualized. And with the project complete in my mind – and just as the project had quickly been initiated by the imagination of a 10-year-old – something else had caught the imagination of my now 13-year-old mind – the bicycle. And just as quickly as we’d started, I pretty much just walked away – tired, filthy, and satisfied.
For the first several years, Dan and I had kept the entire project completely secret. As we finished the shaft though and then the tunnel, the secret became too great and we each had introduced a friend or two to the project. Dan and few friends soldiered on briefly, enlarging the room slightly by digging benches out of the walls, but it was really “our” project, and when I left, we essentially both left.
In 2005 my parents sold the house. A year before selling the house my dad replaced the pool shed floor because over the years dripping wet kids going in and out to get pool toys and inner tubes had weakened the plywood floor and eventually someone was going to fall through and get hurt.
When they sold the house, to my knowledge, they didn’t tell the buyer about the tunnel. The pool shed floor no longer had a secret trap door and what they didn’t know wouldn’t hurt them. To this day though, every once in a while I’ll wonder about the reaction of the next guy to replace the floor of that shed.
“Honey, you’re never going to believe this…there’s a shaft going down underneath the shed floor – it’s so deep I can’t even see the bottom…”
My dad was the one who enabled all of this. He didn’t laugh at my fears or attempt to brush them aside. He didn’t tell us it was too dangerous or too…anything. Instead he supported and loved and encouraged. He did the perfect thing – he created memories and experiences for Dan and me that will be recalled with fondness and shape our lives for decades.
You can follow me on Twitter @eddyzakes
This is the third installment of a three part story from my childhood. If you missed part one or two, please go back and read it now. (Click HERE for Part I or Click HERE for Part II).
The tunnel hadn’t taken as long as the shaft, and the room would form even faster. Since the tunnel was only long enough to reach the front wall of the room, we had to continue to tunnel another foot or two in order to begin to dig up. And that is when things got fun.
To dig the room, especially initially, required the digger to punch his digging screwdriver up into the ceiling above his head. Obviously the dislodged dirt would fall directly down – most often directly onto the face of the digger. This is when the snorkel and scuba mask actually helped. It was extremely hot and sweaty work. The humidity from being underground, surrounded by moist dirt walls, was stifling. Add in the exertion of pushing mounds of dirt down the tunnel over and around your body to be loaded and hoisted by the non-digger, and a couple of 100-watt light bulbs, and it was bordering on ridiculous. The loosened dirt clung to your body and as time went on and little critters found “the hole” it became a dwelling filled with spiders, cockroaches, and crickets. Claustrophobia was overcome daily.
In a short time though, there was enough room to sit Indian-style in the “room” and then progress began to really pick up. Before long we could both fit and then shortly thereafter both stand.
Soon the room was large enough for four people. Sure that wasn’t big enough for my entire family, but really it was bigger and better than I had ever conceptualized. And with the project complete in my mind – and just as the project had quickly been initiated by the imagination of a 10-year-old – something else had caught the imagination of my now 13-year-old mind – the bicycle. And just as quickly as we’d started, I pretty much just walked away – tired, filthy, and satisfied.
For the first several years, Dan and I had kept the entire project completely secret. As we finished the shaft though and then the tunnel, the secret became too great and we each had introduced a friend or two to the project. Dan and few friends soldiered on briefly, enlarging the room slightly by digging benches out of the walls, but it was really “our” project, and when I left, we essentially both left.
In 2005 my parents sold the house. A year before selling the house my dad replaced the pool shed floor because over the years dripping wet kids going in and out to get pool toys and inner tubes had weakened the plywood floor and eventually someone was going to fall through and get hurt.
When they sold the house, to my knowledge, they didn’t tell the buyer about the tunnel. The pool shed floor no longer had a secret trap door and what they didn’t know wouldn’t hurt them. To this day though, every once in a while I’ll wonder about the reaction of the next guy to replace the floor of that shed.
“Honey, you’re never going to believe this…there’s a shaft going down underneath the shed floor – it’s so deep I can’t even see the bottom…”
My dad was the one who enabled all of this. He didn’t laugh at my fears or attempt to brush them aside. He didn’t tell us it was too dangerous or too…anything. Instead he supported and loved and encouraged. He did the perfect thing – he created memories and experiences for Dan and me that will be recalled with fondness and shape our lives for decades.
You can follow me on Twitter @eddyzakes
Labels: adventure, Boyhood, Childhood, Dad, Dan Zakes, Digging, Ed Zakes, Eddie Zakes, Eddy Zakes, Fatherhood, The Great Escape, Tunnel, Zakes
posted by Eddy Zakes at 5:38 PM
1 Comments:
Eddy, you are a master storyteller! And you are right... Your Dad is very unique in the amount of freedom he allows his children. There is NO WAY I would ever let my kids dig so far underground without support beams and a plithera of other safety equipment while I stood watch over the whole operation. So amazing what you and Dan did over a 3 year period... I love how you just climbed out of the finished hole and "rode off into the sunset" on your bike!
So Kid-typical!!!
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