Photograph Memories

I know what you're thinking. Great. A pre-teen girl's blatherings about growing up, about tottering on the precipice of adulthood. Nope. Pay no attention to the girl in white who clearly doesn't want to be in this photo. No, what I want you to focus on is that large pile of hay you see behind me. That hay was for a time a fort, a hideaway, a tunneled wonder for all Skyline kids for about 2 weeks. (The time frame could very well be off, muddied as it is by a memory embellished by the joy of the time) It could be a few days, it could have been a month.

The street was getting new sewers put in, and all the hay was piled in tall, stiff bales in the vacant lot beside our house. The first few days were spent climbing, jumping off, playing king of the hill. As the bales were used, the pile got a little lower and more spread out. Not able to withstand the constant barrage of youthful exuberance, the bales began to lose much, but not all of their rectangular structure, creating a sort of loose, yet sturdy environment, perfect for tunneling through, but maintaining some sort of walls underneath. In a few days, with many kids participating (again, memory may be exaggerating for effect) there was an "underground" tunnel system that went all over the vacant lot and I'm not sure if any parents knew about it. It was the most perfect plaything. Dozens of kids on their hands and knees, scooting around inside, going this way and that, giggling at the secrecy of it, the glee that bubbles up when kids have their own "place" away from home. I can remember the smell of it to this day, the dry, almost musty smell of hay, the tickle of the hay dust in your nostrils. One small drawback was the itchy skin you felt after emerging from its shadowed, spiky hallways, but that was fleeting and soon you were back at it. What a great memory - and whenever two or more Skyline kids get together now, the massive Hay Tunnel is recognized as one of the integral chapters in the 1960's neighborhood lore. We never fail to talk about it.

Of course, all good things come to an end. I remember a few good rains which turned the pleasant, dry smell into a mildewy, rancid odor that sucked most of the joy out of the experience. Also, as the construction crew continued to use the hay on their sewer project, the pile grew small enough to eventually cave in on itself, revealing the rats maze of tunnels beneath the straw "roof." I wish I could have eavesdropped on the worker's conversations when they discovered why their nice, neat hay stacks had deteriorated into mounds of unrecognizable yellow straw mounds. I'm willing to bet they cursed us kids for turning their work site into a wonderland of play, imagination and architectural ingenuity. It was a thing of beauty. I think I want to believe they were good hearted guys who knew a good playground when they saw it and just looked the other way.

As the pile grew lower and lower, a little lower and smaller than what's pictured here, the only thing left was to climb up on a small tank on the site, about 8 feet high, and jump into the soft, warm piles. That hay provided what I'd like to recall as weeks of total joy for our neighborhood, and as far as I have been able to find, this is the only surviving photo of it. I just happened to be photographed going to my first confirmation at church and luckily, mom chose the vacant lot as backdrop. Unaware viewers might scoff at the unfortunate "mess" behind me, and crop it out to bring the girl in white in proper focus. But let me tell you, the magic of the photo, to any Skyline kid who sees it, is the delicious invitation of the hay pile beyond.

ps. I'm trying to figure out if that small black hole like thing could possibly be one of the entrances. But the hay pile looks too messy at this point to sustain tunnels. I may ask my brother.

Edited to add comments from my brother: That was indeed an entrance, I believe, and perhaps to right and a little above was another. At this point all the tunnels had collapsed inward. The tunnels were initially made (as I recall) when everything was still in bales and you could use the bales like bricks. We'd haul them out and restack them accordingly. We made a large room or two (as I recall) .... at least they were large to us at our age.... and this required pulling a bunch of bales out and then restacking. It was way cool and, no, I don't think the workers would have been pleased....resigned perhaps.

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Quote of the day: At ten she had the breasts of a plump man. You could tell they wanted to be real breasts and would become real breasts if given half a chance. Mine were just pink disks stuck on a bony little chest with no promise or inclination to become anything more. They looked like the suction cups of two toy arrows. Willet - Winner of the National Book Award.
Chosen because how wonderful is this? Show of hands...who can picture this perfectly...the breasts of a plump man compared to her suction cup breasts. Love it.