{"id":113,"date":"2008-10-20T19:19:00","date_gmt":"2008-10-20T19:19:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/2008\/10\/20\/113\/"},"modified":"2014-09-22T19:58:03","modified_gmt":"2014-09-23T00:58:03","slug":"113","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/?p=113","title":{"rendered":"The Water Tunnels of Youth"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>It doesn&#8217;t take much to make an eleven year old boy happy.  A water tunnel beneath a suburban neighborhood will do just fine.  We didn&#8217;t have any such tunnels in my neighborhood, but my cousin Mike had one not too far from his house.   Mike told me about it and I immediately wanted to explore it.  But my mother was somewhat protective.  So my Uncle Joe (Mike&#8217;s father, my mother&#8217;s brother) volunteered to take me, Mike and my brother for a walk through the subterranean wonders of Varmint Brook one weekend (name changed so that I won&#8217;t be accused of suggesting unsafe activities for local youth).  Uncle Joe was just that kind of guy.  <\/p>\n<p>Well, Uncle Joe made good on his word.  I recall having a great time walking along the tilted concrete floodway with a flashlight guiding us through the dank underworld.  The tunnel went on for about a mile, from whence Varmint Brook proceeded through an uncovered causeway for another mile.  Then there was another tunnel, and finally the Brook found its way into a river.  Mike told me that the second tunnel was pretty messy.  But the first tunnel was relatively walkable, and provided all the adventure that an eleven-year old boy needed for a Sunday afternoon.  <\/p>\n<p>Obviously, the exploration of such tunnels is strictly prohibited in today&#8217;s world.  And obviously, some kids still do it.  I recently visited the entrance of good old Varmint Brook, so here&#8217;s what it looks like today.  I certainly wouldn&#8217;t encourage any kids to do what we once did, unless you&#8217;ve got a really good uncle or father willing to go along.  Unfortunately, such really good, down-to-earth uncles and fathers are getting quite rare in this day and age.  And that&#8217;s a real loss.<\/p>\n<div align=\"center\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.jimgworld.com\/beta\/wbrook1.jpg\" \/><\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.jimgworld.com\/beta\/wbrook2.jpg\" \/><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>It doesn&#8217;t take much to make an eleven year old boy happy. A water tunnel beneath a suburban neighborhood will do just fine. We didn&#8217;t have any such tunnels in my neighborhood, but my cousin Mike had one not too far from his house. Mike told me about it and I immediately wanted to explore [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6,5],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/113"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=113"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/113\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4722,"href":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/113\/revisions\/4722"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=113"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=113"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=113"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}