The location where the gully meets the creek is called “The Bogs Hole.” This spot used to be the Sunday afternoon gathering spot for the local folks.  They could picnic, swim, pitch horseshoes and the like. Now I know you can’t imagine swimming in Spring Creek, but remember, Spring Creek is so named because it was created by springs!

A few yards from this intersection is a spot where people would cross the gully to go a little farther to another location called The Caldwell Hole, named after another family that lived in the woods. All along the gully the Mueller boys and I would spend many days of our summers exploring the woods.

Bobby and Charlie were generally too old for us middle aged guys, and Tomato Head and Billy were a little too young to tag along. Most of the time it was me, VOP and Rotten Cotton that would make our rounds on the gully, and Bimbo would sometimes be there.

The rest of this story begins with another warning: Kids, don't try this! It's very stupid and dangerous!

One day during the 1960s we got a bright idea about digging a cave in the side of the gully walls. I can blame it on the Mueller boys ’cause they had started it before I was shown it’s location, and besides, I write the articles, so it’s real easy to blame them. (Sorry guys, I just had to throw that in!)

In my mind the sides were 40 or 50 feet high, but I’m sure 10 or 12 feet was more like it.

Several days of hard labor had been spent digging this cave and, of course, shoring the walls was an UN-thought-of idea. We were kids and kids didn't think! Especially boys! Boys are indestructible! We never die and never get hurt!

That's why shoring the walls or any other safety factor was totally out of the question! I don’t know whose idea it was, but we decided that our digging process was a bit slow. We had already created a good size area of about 4-by-6 in the side of the wall, but we decided it was time to blast our way a little deeper.

We went up to Uncle Johnny’s gas station and got several gallons of gasoline in a jug. We felt if we could plant these jugs of gasoline inside our cave we could create an explosion to loosen the dirt making the dig much easier. We had these dreams and ideas of a cave large enough to live in if we ever needed to leave home. We saw no need of school, and doing chores was the pits, so we figured we could hide away in our new home.

We took these jugs of gas and carefully placed them in the hole. We then saved one jug and backed our way from the entrance, pouring gasoline as we moved away anticipating using this trail of gas as our fuse. I don’t remember how many jugs of gas we had, but I'm sure it was more than just one! I mean, what's the use of only a minor explosion with one jug when three or four would have caused a bigger blast?

As we exited and poured, we soon lit the match and took off running. Down the embankment, through the water filled gully and up the other side we ran with hearts racing in anticipation of a tremendous explosion! We hit the dirt on the other side of the gully and laid behind a log awaiting the big bang.

Ten seconds turned to 30 and 30 turned to 60 and one minute turned to two and soon we wondered what went wrong when a small trickle of black smoke began to emerge from our cave. Nobody ever told us we had to compress the jugs of gas to make them explode.

We had simply put large open jugs of gas in the hole and the jugs simply burned like a large coal oil lamp.  We waited awhile hoping for an explosion, but it never occurred.

I think that was the last time we ever went down to our cave. It became black and soot-filled and occupying the cave any longer was next to impossible.

I think me and all the Mueller boys ought to get our sons and  make a trip down there soon  to see if our cave still exists after 20-plus years. I'll just need to remember to carry plenty of soap and water.

Clifford.

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