" Life is either a great adventure or nothing." Helen Keller

In my elder years one thing that fills me with awe are the extraordinary adventures we can have as kids – which, at the time, don’t impress you at all.  It’s only after you’ve lived a few decades and look back that you realize how remarkable the experience was.

One such happening in my life was living in a railroad boxcar.  I wrote about it in my book, “Last Summer.”   At the time it seemed perfectly normal.  I suspect that is a common characteristic of kids growing up that, whatever the environment, – rain forests of Borneo, Auschwitz concentration camps , deserts of New Mexico – it is normalcy for them and they try to learn to cope.  Evolution demands it.

But I want to write about another spectacular happening in my life that I look back on in amazement.  During my High School years at Vaughn, the science teacher organized a Science Fair project.  Four of us students, with the teacher, were going to explore and map a cave on the ranch owned by one of the student’s family.  I’d give names and locations, etc., but some people are often sensitive about such matters – and it’s not really relevant to my story.

The cave – in the southeastern quadrant of New Mexico – had been explored somewhat but the tunnels went on forever.  This portion of New Mexico is where Carlsbad Caverns is located and I believe the whole area is riddled with undiscovered interconnecting caverns.

In terms of spelunking, what we set out to do was trivial.  After all we were teenage amateurs. 

The first phenomenon the teacher illustrated by having us turn off all of our flashlights.  We were far beyond the reach of any surface light so it was absolutely pitch black.  Then he asked us to take a few steps on the flat muddy floor of a huge “room” and look behind us.  As we stepped the mud clung to our shoes revealing small luminescent worms just beneath the surface.  In the total darkness they gave the eerie impression of a ghost walking.

In another room, – which until we found it, was unknown - a large body of water occupied most of the floor space.  Descending from the ceiling into the water was the bottom end of a working water well.  The kid on whose ranch we were on, said he knew exactly where, on the surface, the well was located.  I’ve since asked myself the question, “How many people in all of history have seen the bottom end of a working well?”  It’s not easily done.  We saw other attractions – a seemingly endless hollow 15-foot horizontal cylinder carved out of granite with wavy walls.  At the bottom of the cylinder was a three-inch stream of running water.  I suspect that at the end of the last ice age those tunnels were full of rushing water.

I wish I could say that from such depths my life has all been uphill.

© 2014 Lester C. Welch