Please listen closely because I don’t want you to miss anything. Being squished flatter than a pancake by a 20-ton rock in the middle of the night is something that can easily be avoided. Just obey your parents. Don’t believe it? Neither would I except it happened to me while growing up at 110 Flamingo Street.
Let’s face it. Parents, at times, can be overbearing, irritating, and their motives impossible to understand. Yet, they actually do want the best for you.
I should know. I was a kid who grew up under those types of parents only to become one myself. Just ask The Boy. Growing up, he thought I kept him “under my oppressive thumb.” My thumb may have been at times oppressive, but it was a kinder, less oppressive thumb than my dad’s back on Flamingo Street.
Oppressive thumb or not, it’s a parent’s job to raise their children, keep them safe so they can live to a ripe old age, and perhaps even have children of their own who will one day think they are overbearing, irritating and have motives that are impossible to understand. I thought my dad was all the above when he said I couldn’t check in and sleep just one night at Cliff Condos.
Cliff Condos was the three-year dig into a wall of sandstone. The vacant lot next to neighbor Thomas’s house was flat, stretching for some 20 feet from the street before dropping off in a sheer cliff. It was deemed unbuildable by the developer, but not by us.
I must admit, the first time standing at the bottom looking up at the 30-foot wall of sandstone, I knew it was gonna be an impressive undertaking. Still, no one knew it would take three years to finish and be completely destroyed in less than a minute.
With eight kids armed with picks and green army shovels, we had almost unlimited kid power and resources. Digging hand- and foot-holds in the soft sandstone, we carefully scaled up the wall about 20 feet.
Just like the Pueblo Indians of past, we carved out room after room. The carving was slow going, but the soft stone gave way under the relentless picking and shoveling. By the end of the first summer’s dig, the huge main room had been excavated along with the start of a kitchen and two hallways leading to future four bedrooms.
Sandstone excavated from the dig was simply tossed out behind us, tumbling down the face of the cliff. At first it collected into a small pile at the bottom, but over many months, the pile of loose stone and dirt slowly grew. By the end of the second summer, we had completed the kitchen and three bedrooms. We also had something else, a large pile of sandstone and dirt sloping down from the entrance of our cliff-dwelling.
During the third and final year of the dig, the last bedroom, my bedroom, was finished. By mid-summer, a wood ladder replaced the hand/foot-holds in the face of the wall, and a small deck had been built just outside the living room.
We spent the rest of that summer diving off the top of Cliff Condos. No, we weren’t crazy. Landing and sliding down the pile of sandstone and loose dirt to the valley floor some 30 feet below was almost as fun as the three years of digging.
The last weekend of summer I asked Dad if we could camp out at Cliff Condos. He said no. He thought sleeping in a cave was too dangerous.
Even though I was only 8 years old, I knew my dad was wrong. How could he deny us the rewards of all that hard work? Guess I argued with him so much that he made me promise to do what he said. I gave my word and went to my room determined to sneak out as soon as my parents went to sleep.
By midnight they had gone to bed and it was finally time to sneak out with my sleeping bag — except I had promised not to do so. I had given my word to obey my dad.
Sitting in the dark, I argued with myself for the longest time, eventually putting up the sleeping bag and going to bed. That decision saved my life.
The very next morning I rode my bike down to Cliff Condos to start another day of diving off the cliff and perhaps digging another room. Neither happened. What I found at the vacant lot took my breath away.
Cliff Condos was no more. Unbeknown to any of us, the ceiling had been one huge rock held up only by the interior walls we had left standing between each room. The entire complex had collapsed in on itself.
Dad’s oppressive rules, or his intuition, kept me safe that night even though I couldn’t understand them at the time. The danger of a 20-ton rock hanging over our heads was something none of us saw, but the danger was still there nonetheless.
So for kids who read this column, please listen closely because I don’t want you to miss out on anything – like the rest of your life. It’s what you don’t see that can hurt you.
Like it did for me that night I wanted to campout at Cliff Condos back on Flamingo Street, doing what your parents say could actually save your life. It’s what they foresee that you don’t that keeps you safe, and perhaps getting squished by a 20-ton rock.
[Rick Ryckeley has been writing stories since 2001. To read more of Rick’s stories, visit his blog: storiesbyrick.wordpress.com.]
