The Drainage Ditch Gang

Growing up in Nederland, Texas in the 70's was no more typical than any other town across America at the time I am sure. But we sure thought so. Nederland had not reached the population it is today. It consisted of vacant lots and large expanses of land and forest dividing the different neighborhoods. So our hood was truly our hood. And one thing that we had in our hood was the levee and the drainage ditch system. A 10 year old boys ultimate playground to be sure! We owned this maze of cement lined ditches, tunnels, and pipes. And if someone from another hood invaded our territory we fought for it. And many a war was fought on our battleground playing Army and Cops and Robbers. We called it Starsky and Hutch. LOL! The history of the levee according to Mr. Blocks historical website is that it was once a railroad between Beaumont and Port Arthur. When I was growing up it was the Gulf States Utilities main right of way with the high voltage power lines. And it still is. I remember when they changed the old wooden poles out with the ones that are in place now. There was not a single one that I haven't been inside and crawled all the way through it from end to end on our stretch of the levee. Oh the stories I can tell of our gang of kids and our playground. Where to start?

In the beginning

The Entrance now days



The Exit

This culvert was in my front yard growing up. It ran underground beside our house from our ditch to the drainage ditch. The entrance was open then . A perfect spot for a 10 year old boy! Man the summer days we spent inside this dadgum pipe. It was cool and dark in there. You could only see light at both ends. We would have flashlights and just let our imaginations roam. One day we were tired of all the sludge in the bottom of the pipe. We all had Frisbees and proceeded a drudging operation raking the mud and gunk from one end to the other ultimately dumping the sludge on the drainage ditch side. All day long we did this. Covered from head to toe with sludge but ultimately victorious. The city never said thank you as I am sure it helped our neighborhoods drainage issues! And what was in that crap we Frisbeed out anyways. If we were in a modern world I am sure that my Dad and me would have been indicted by the EPA for oil contamination. I'll just leave it at that!

Stitches

The pipes in the pic above still make me cringe. On the very first day we moved to Nederland in the second grade I cut my foot in the drainage ditch on a piece of glass. I think I needed stitches as I still have a nasty scar but Momma and Daddy just butterflied it and dumped a gallon of mecuricome on it. The second time and involving the pic above was my nastiest incident with the ditch. Everybody else had shoes on and I was barefooted. So me being the gallant man I am I volunteered to go down in it first to see how deep the mud was. Well it turned out to be about 2 foot deep! Everything was fine until my buddy hollered that I was bleeding. I looked down to see my blood boiling out and being carried by the current. They say that I came out of that ditch and hopped home all on one leg! Well it turned out that it was a triangle shaped piece of glass and it went clean through my foot. 50 something stitches in all inside and out. The drainage ditch had won this battle but I would be back for more!


The Clubhouse

The clubhouse was located in the backyard of the Ritters house off of 17th Street. The bush's in their backyard were very thick to say the least. We all had "borrowed" tools of the trade for making our clubhouse. Complete with axes, saws, picks, and shovels we proceeded to destroy the bush's from the drainage ditch/levee backside. We carved out a complete middle section with only one very small opening barely visible. There we had us a headquarters for waging our wars and a hiding spot from our mischievous ways! We had the bright idea one day to dam up the drainage ditch. So we dug a huge hole down the side of the drainage ditch creating a huge foxhole and damming up the drainage ditch in the process. Well apparently a city worker discovered it as our dam was doing its job pretty damn well! Pun intended! Needless to say we were the ones who had to un-dam it. Now there is a concept for you. Kids repairing the damage they caused. Anyway we started getting older and our attention turned somewhat towards the ladies. A page out of a Playboy book was treated like gold to say the least! We had a zip lock baggie full of one page pics. I fell in love with more than one maiden that is for sure! If we were to have the luck of someone stealing there Dads stash and come away with a complete book then words cannot even describe the days of pure joy that lay ahead! But the books and pics would get damp and we would have to carefully pull them apart like performing brain surgery! When I took the pic up above I was straining to see some remnant of our days at the clubhouse. Some hole in the ground or perhaps if I was lucky an old stash box with some photos of the ladies or an old baseball card. But there was nothing visible. Perhaps buried along with all the other memories. But if I listened real closely I could hear boys laughing in the wind.

We would ride our bikes on these "sidewalks" and out on the wall. The pipe was made for crossing!