Of all the stupid things we did as kids under the guise of adventure, sewer pipe exploration was undoubtedly the most idiotic.
Looking back on it, I can only think that at some point we must have ran out of intelligent ways to amuse ourselves to stoop so low (if you'll pardon the pun) as to crawl through sewer pipes.
It started innocently enough. On one of our expeditions through our neighborhood woods, we came across a sewer pipe drain. It was under a old bridge that crossed the stream that split the woods. The round opening was about three feet above the stream and maybe four feet high. A trickle of brackish water flowed from the concrete tube.
There were five of us in the woods that summer day; myself, my brother, and three of our friends. After staring into the dark void for several minutes, it was decided that two of us would venture into the hole while the other three waited at the opening listening for screams.
I, along with a friend named Mike, volunteered to check it out. We were given a couple of packs of matches, and I believe our last rites, then sent on our way.
Due to the confined space, we had scuttle crablike through the pipe, bent low at the waist and crouching. For a time the brightness of the opening provided enough light to see. After a while however, the pipe curved and we began to rely on matches.
We realized rather quickly that the match as light idea was ill conceived. They provided little illumination and only lasted a few seconds before burning a couple of fingers. And,, as if that weren't bad enough, in the darkness, between lightings, we would hear scurrying sounds and other weird noises.
At some point, after we had shuffled for some distance, Mike made an unfortunate reference to a movie we had just seen called The Time Machine. In that movie, an ugly race of humanoids named the Morlocks lived below ground and used sewer pipes, similar to the one we were in, to get around.
I became certain that those hairy hunchbacked Morlocks were now all around us, kept at bay by the tiny flickering flame of our shrinking match supply.
We decided to head back to the entrance as quickly as possible. As we got closer to daylight and freedom, we began to smell something funny. It smelled as if something was burning.
As we crawled nearing to the opening, the smell became more intense. Then we began to see wispy smoke in the gloom when we lit a match.
We found out later that our friends left behind found themselves bored waiting for our return. They decided to use the matches they had left to start a fire. It was our misfortune that the fire they started was at the entrance of the sewer pipe. As I said earlier, nobody ever accused our gang of being intelligent.
When Mike and I realized that our exit was blocked, and that the smoke was getting thicker, we had no choice but to turn around and shuffle back into the darkness.
With our match supply dwindling, we traveled a good distance in the dark, using our hands to guide us. The smoke had driven all thoughts of Morlocks out of our heads. We simply wanted to suvive to see the sun again.
We had traveled what seemed like a mile when suddenly we saw tiny streams of light from above us. We had left much of the smoke behind us, but the acrid burning smell was still in the air.
Several feet above us was a manhole cover. A rusty iron ladder set in the concrete tube led up to it. We climbed up, I led the way, and, with all our strength, pushed the heavy cover to the side.
We had found ourselves in an alley of a neighborhood we didn't recognize. Some kids, who were playing nearby, saw us emerge from the depths and were frightened enough to run away screaming.
We had made it. We survived the smoke, the darkness, and maybe even the Morlocks. We replaced the cover then tried to get our bearings. Mike and I discovered that we were in a community several blocks from where we began.
We hiked back to the woods, sore, smokey, and pissed-off. As we neared our departure point, we noticed that the guys had not only extinguished the fire, but were, in fact, in a relative state of panic, thinking that they might have accidently killed us.
They were much relieved (and a bit shocked) when we came upon them from the opposite direction. Some angry words were spoken and I'm pretty sure that Mike threw a punch at one of them. But before too long, all was forgiven and we resumed our trek through the woods.