I wandered down to Plainville this morning to check out some of the woods I used to hang out in back in my wild and reckless youth. It's probably close to twenty years since I've been in those woods. I was a might disappointed, though not very surprised, to find that woods look a little different now than they used to....

This used to be all woods here. The big square green thing at the end of the road is an old abandoned factory we used to hang out in. Those were the days. We'd get a couple cases of beer and go up on the roof and party.

Of course, for some odd reason, the authorities were always trying to keep people out of there. It was a four storey building with a big hole in the roof that went all the way down to the second floor. Every so often, someone would fall through the hole and get killed. Then they'd come and seal up all the entrances and we'd have to go party under the trestle for a while. Then someone would come along with a sledgehammer and open up the building again.

Doesn't look like times have changed too much.

Here's the view from the railroad tracks. It was a great party spot in the winter time. We'd a fire inside and be sitting around in our T shirts in the middle of winter. One time a train was parking on the tracks outside. We strolled over to the window to watch it. I set my beer on the windowsill for a few minutes, then took a drink. My lip froze to the can!

Of course, everybody thought that was hilarious, but I had to stand there like that until my body heat finally thawed my lip enough to set can down.

Ah, well, always happy to keep my friends entertained....

It's interesting that all my fondest memories from those days have to do with partying and hanging out with The Gang... Wes and Rob and Mike and Doug and Jerry and John.

Jerry and John were brothers. They would sometimes fight a lot. One of their fights led to Jerry holding off the SWAT team for four hours with a bow and arrow.

Kids....

This is the trestle over the Little Miami River at Clare Yards. This was another of our party spots. We used to party under the trestle. Sometimes fishing, but usually the fishing was just an excuse to sit around drink beer. There's a walkway along the side of the trestle. If a train would come, we'd go up and hop it and ride it across the trestle. Then we'd run back across the walkway, hop it, and ride it again. Some of those trains were pretty long and we'd ride them three or four times across the trestle. Sometimes we'd run across the tops of the boxcars, hopping from car to car, trying to stay over the trestle as long as possible.

It's a wonder we all survived with all of our parts....

Well, there were a few injuries. Doug actually broke his neck twice. Once he dove into the shallow end of a swimming pool. The other time he was running from the cops and fell off of another trestle.

Somehow, so many of our nights ended with us running from the cops...

I miss those guys. Haven't had any contact with them in years. I don't even know if they're still alive or in prison or what. I only know they're not in the phonebook.

We lost touch after I got saved back in the mid eighties. I used to say I lost half my friends when I quit drinking and the other half when they found out why. I can't really blame them though. I was a raving fundamentalist there for a while.

Besides, somehow doing all that stuff just didn't seem like as much fun sober....

Here are a few more pics from this morning....

Northern Cardinal

Carolina Chickadee

Northern Flicker

Little gray bird.

The Little Miami River.

Toad.

Little blue dragonfly.

Lizards were all over the place along the railroad tracks. Lizards aren't very common around here and this was the first time I'd seen one in years.

This little guy was keeping an eye on me. He'd run ahead to get away from me, then hide under the rail and watch me until I got close. Then he'd run ahead to get away from me again, hide under the rail again, and watch me some more. I was just following the railroad tracks back to the car. If he'd only run the other way, I'd have kept going and left him alone.

Green dragonfly.

The new lens, fully extended, though you can't see the end of it here.