Chapter 1. The Idea

“What a load of crap!”

That’s what my friend Win said as he and I and Tom stood on the corner of Prospect and Summit Streets, across from the school.  It had been the worst year of school any of us had ever had, and it had just gotten worse, especially for Tom.  This morning, Mr. Brinker, one of our most-hated teachers, had pulled Tom into the cloakroom next to his classroom and pinned him up against the wall, threatening to beat the shit out of him if he didn’t straighten out.

This was a Friday afternoon in late May, and we could not wait for summer.  Of course, every kid felt that way this time of year, but the three of us had just had it.  In 1964, you didn’t report teachers for what Mr. Brinker had done; teachers could do whatever they wanted, especially in a cloakroom with no witnesses.

“Man, I wish we could just not go back!” Win shouted, in a fury.

An empty threat, a futile gesture; but it planted a seed, and, well, you’ll see what happened.

The next day, a beautiful warm Saturday, I went exploring, as I often did.  I rode my bike out Old Colchester Road all the way to the end, to Big Rock.  Big Rock was one of my favorite places, and a favorite of many other kids, as well.  It was behind the State Tree Nursery, and it featured a big cliff, dangerous, slippery, rocky trails, and a deep woods behind the clifftop.  And, of course, down on the slope in front of the cliff was a Big Rock.

I often went there with friends, but I went alone a lot, too, and this day I was alone.  My parents didn’t mind if I was gone most of the day; they knew I would be safe, unless I did something really stupid.  I left my bike by the side of the barn at the Tree Nursery.  In Essex Junction in 1964, nobody had to lock their bike.

I went up the usual trail to the clifftop, paused for a while to gaze towards Burlington, where three church steeples and a water tower were clearly visible, then I turned and walked into the woods.  I took my usual route, stopping after about fifteen minutes at the place we used as our campsite.  It was a semi-clearing, with enough space between trees and saplings to pitch a couple of tents.  We had a fire pit, and, a suitable distance away, we had a latrine.

I didn’t linger long; I had things on my mind today.  I headed north, farther into the woods.  This whole area was elevated above where the village was, like a plateau.  The ground was a series of rocky ridges, some high, some low, running east to west, and in between the ridges were intervals of deep soil covered with trees; pines, spruce, birches and maples, mostly.  Some of the ridges had exposed rock, but most were covered with moss, and some had enough soil that there were trees growing on them.

Small brooks wound through the flat spaces between the ridges, all flowing east to west, and, I imagined, eventually making their way to Indian Brook, on the south side of Route 2A and into the river from there.  Lots of places were muddy, even swampy, but I knew my way around, and my trail was mostly dry.  I liked to think I knew this woods better than anyone.

I kept going for at least an hour, and I got into territory I hadn’t explored before.  There was a man-made corridor for power lines, which I had only passed once before.  I kept going.  I passed a small clearing that looked like a good campsite, went a little further, then turned back and sat down on the rocky ridge overlooking the clearing.  I had a can of orange soda with me, and some potato chips in a brown paper bag.

As I sat munching my lunch, I assessed the clearing in front of me.  It was dry, and wide enough to accommodate several tents.  Pretty secluded, too.  There were no signs that anybody ever came here.  Right in front of me, along the edge of the rock I was sitting on, was a line of young spruces, almost like a hedge.

After I finished my lunch, I scrambled down from the rock and walked around the clearing a bit.  On the south side, just before the next ridge, was a long, deep gully.  There were tall trees at both the east and west ends of the clearing, but only a few saplings and some shrubs in the clearing itself.  I turned around and walked back to my rock ledge, and stood and stared at it.

The spruce hedge was almost up against the rock, but not quite.  The left-most spruce was about eighteen inches from the rock at its base.  Curious, I easily squeezed in between the trees and the rock and found that the ground sloped down gradually for a few feet, then dropped off into a deep crevice.  I thought at first that I had found a cave, but it was just kind of a hole that ended about eight feet below ground level.  There was solid rock below me and behind me as I turned away from the ridge.  Plenty of space to turn around.  I was facing a wall of solid earth, with the line of spruces above it.

I spent a few minutes in there, pondering, then I climbed out and did some more exploring, now with a specific purpose.  I had crossed a small brook not long before reaching the clearing, and I went back to it and walked upstream for a little ways.  Sure enough, it started from a spring, and the spring was less than fifty yards from my clearing.

Now I had to head north again, to figure out exactly where I was.  In less than ten minutes, I came to the edge of the woods. To my left, the woods went on, but right in front of me was an open field, and, a hundred yards away, what had to be Lost Nation Road.

I went back to the clearing and walked around a bit, testing the ground.  Plans swirling around in my head, I made sure I had my empty paper bag with the empty can in it (that was the rule – if you bring it in, you take it out) and headed back home.

I called Win when I got home, but I couldn’t really explain much.  With two parents and nine kids in the house, it was impossible to have a private phone conversation, except for my oldest sister, who was a freshman at UVM and sometimes demanded that the whole family go upstairs or into the kitchen so she could talk to a boy.  Anyway, I told Win I had to show him something after church the next day, and that it was really important.

I was able to explain some of it to Win after Sunday School and during the church service.  Enough that he agreed to meet me at Big Rock that afternoon.  We always had Sunday dinner at one o’clock, and I was out of there by one-thirty.  Win and I arrived at the Tree Farm about the same time on our bikes.  Much to his surprise, I had a shovel with me.  Don’t ask me how I carried a shovel on my bicycle; to an adult it seems unlikely.  But when you’re a kid, there’s no limit to what you can carry on your bicycle.  If you need it, you find a way.

As we headed up the slope towards the woods, I explained further that I had found a perfect new campsite, and that it had possibilities we had only imagined before.  He was intrigued, of course, but I didn’t want to fully explain my plan until he had seen the place.  I was afraid he would just dismiss it as impossible and turn around and go back.

Win had been my best friend since we both started Sunday School at age four at the First Congregational Church.  First Congo, we called it.  We shared a lot of things, including an un-dying devotion to the New York Yankees and New York Giants.  But, even though he was pretty short, Win could actually do things, like hit a baseball and catch a football, that I couldn’t do.  And run – boy, could he run!  He had lived close to Tom when they were younger, and I met Tom in first grade.  Since then, the three of us had been in every class together and were really close.

When we got to the clearing, he was pretty impressed.  He had never been this deep into the woods, either, and it was obviously a great find.  Then I pointed to the spruce hedge and told him to go squeeze behind the first tree and see what I had found.  While he was doing that, I began doing a little exploratory digging in the soil to the south of the spruce ridge.  The soil was really easy to dig.  There were no big trees near, so no big roots to deal with.  The biggest saplings were only an inch across; easily disposed of.

“Wow!”  That was Win.

“Wow!”  That was Win again.  He came up out of the hole and saw what I was doing.  “What have you got planned?”

I asked him to climb up on the rock with me so I could explain this all logically while we had a soda.

“The concept is simple, but doing it is going to be really hard.”

“Okay.  Tell me the concept.”

“We dig a pit.  Right there where I was digging.  We make it big enough for the three of us, say ten by twelve feet…”

“Are you kidding?”

“No, I’m not kidding.  Look, I know it’s a lot of work, and we’re going to need lots of help.  It’ll be you, me and Tom, and as many friends as we can trust.  Your brother Jim, Larry, maybe somebody else from your old neighborhood.  We’ve got all summer to do this.”

“Why all summer?”

“Okay, listen.  We dig the pit first.  Then we connect it to that hole behind the spruces.  Remember in The Great Escape how they shored up the tunnels with boards?  We make a short tunnel between the pit and our little cave, shore it up with boards, and that becomes our entrance.  Then we figure out a way to roof over the pit and cover it up with dirt, leaves, and brush.”

He shakes his head.  “That’s not going to be easy.”

“I know, but, like I said, we’ve got all summer to figure it out.”

“Okay, again, why all summer?”

“Because, the last week of the summer is the Fair.  We all go to the Fair on Saturday, the last day, and we never go home.  School starts on Tuesday, and we’re not there.  We’re here.”

“Ah, ha, ha!!!” Win rolled onto his back and laughed like crazy.

“You said you didn’t want to go back.”

“I know, I know!  How long do you think we could last?”

I shrugged.  “I don’t know.  We’re going to have to really plan this out.  Of course they’ll find us eventually, but every day we can last before they find us is a little victory.  We’re going to stick it to them, one day at a time.”

“I love it, I love it!  Have you talked to Tom yet?”

“No, not yet.  I wanted to show you first; I figure he’ll be harder to convince.  I know he doesn’t want to go back, maybe even more than us, but we’ll have to convince him we can do it.”

“Look, I’ll call him when I get home and tell him we’ve got something working.  Then we can spend the whole week talking him into it.  We’ll get him out here on Saturday.”

“Yeah.  We’re only going to be able to work on it weekends until school is out.  It’s too far to come out here after school.”

Then I brought him around the area, showed him the gully where we could hide all the dirt, showed him the spring, then took him out to where we could see Lost Nation Road.

“When it’s time to bring stuff in, wood mostly, this is where we carry it in,” I said.

“How are we going to do that?”

“Larry’s brother, Karl.  He’s your friend, right?”  Karl had just turned sixteen and had a driver’s license.

“Yes, yes!  Karl will love this!  This is just the kind of thing he would do!”

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