Walk Down Memory Lane: Truth or Dare in Tunnels and a Run-In with the 'Law'

This first part is off topic a bit, but on my walk, down the road from my parent's house, I came across this:

I am still puzzling over them, since there is no sign to indicate what they're telling you to walk to, though the shape of them is somewhat ghostly, so I would have thought they might be indicating the graveyard nearby...except they're not pointing in its direction.

So for now, it will remain a mystery. I will let you know if and when I solve it.

The destination for my walk was two-fold. And unfortunately the place where I'm standing is the actual tunnel entrance I needed a picture of, but it didn't come out. Ah well, at least this side offers a view of the lake :) Anyway, I intended to show you the starting point of a tunnel we used to climb through when we were kids.

Armed with flashlights we would crawl for a bit to the point where the tunnel was larger and we could do a kind of crouch walk. It's an uphill journey, and as long as there hasn't been any big rains, usually the water wouldn't be much more than a trickle, particularly in the middle of summer. What you see in the picture above is generally dry at that time.

Midway is where we would generally stop, and depending on the number of us we'd play one of two games- truth or dare, or spin the bottle. In fact it was inside this tunnel where I played these games for the first time, and also was the site of my first french kiss.

Again, depending on the group, there were times that once the games were finished, we'd go back the way we came. Because to continue on to the end, meant coming out a half mile up the road...smack in the middle of the Willard Asylum grounds. (Though at this time the facility was called the Willard Psychiatric Center)

Whatever the name, it was a place where if we were caught, we could have gotten in some trouble as there were signs in all directions stating Authorized Personnel only. However my dad was the Administrator of Nursing at the time, and being a respected member of the staff he likely would have gotten us off with a warning.

Years later I told him about these excursions and not only was he amused, I think he was secretly proud that his 'goody-two shoes' daughter had a rebel streak.

Seriously great memories :) Also somewhat bittersweet.

One of the friends involved in these excursions made a serious error in judgment just out of high school, doing whippets while driving with some buddies down the thruway. He passed out at the wheel, and when he woke it was in the hospital where he learned that he'd careened into another car, killing everyone with him as well as a father and son in the other vehicle.

He spent the next ten years in prison for manslaughter. Some might call this justice. I call it pointless. He was a sweet kid, the knowledge that he'd killed his friends and caused such a tragedy was already a torturous repercussion. Ten years spent with actual criminals...yeah, I'm sure he came out of that better than when he went in. (Sarcasm)

And it makes for a good lead in for the second reason for my walk. This pier (which will appear (ha) in another post, but with a different story attached) is the site of my second encounter with 'the law', (the first is a story for another day).

My friend Maria and I were about fourteen at the time and her brother had taken us out water-skiing. Maria had recently learned how to drop a ski and do the water version of snowboarding called slalom.

Unfortunately the ski she dropped disappeared, and we thought it was possible that it had ended up nestled against the old pier-(it was not in quite as bad a state of disrepair at the time as it is now.)

So we jumped off the boat and swam over, climbing onto the pier to search. This is when Mr. Big Shot showed up, and using a megaphone commanded us to come to the shore.

Maria had been terrified, I'll never forget how she trembled and cried as the bully in a uniform practically shouted at us, first threatening to arrest us before "settling on the warning", informing us that he was writing out names down in his "Black Book", and if we should be caught out there again, we would be in serious trouble.

As for me, I was pissed. It was more than obvious that we were not trouble makers, we had a reasonable excuse for being there, and he could see Maria's brother waiting out on the water in the boat. If Maria had not been with me when this happened...if it were someone driving my parent's boat? I probably would have ignored the megaphone using jackass and jumped off the pier and swam back to it.

Well, I hope you enjoyed that trip with me down memory lane, just thought I'd share a few anecdotes with you on this fine Saturday morning.

Hope everyone is having a great weekend!

Generously created for me by @son-of-satire