Notes from Maine - 2023/04/23

It’s been years since I’ve been underground in a meaningful way. I mean, like, deep underground in a cave. I still have a strong affinity for the idea of caving, but it doesn’t compel me to go seek one out. When I was much younger, and I was actively avoiding things like studying, exploring caves was really compelling. Fortunately, my friend John was into joining clubs and he hooked up with the VPI Cave Club (in college). He learned the ropes and taught me what to do.

We used carbide lamps—cheap to buy and easy to maintain. You put rocks (carbide) in one chamber and water dripped down from another compartment. Then, like magic, acetylene gas came through a nozzle in the reflector. The flame made a decent light. You had to bring plastic bags to pack out the used carbide and, of course, flashlights so you could see while you were swapping out the spent fuel. It’s still hard to believe that we made it through all those expeditions without getting lost. John and I seldom went on Club sponsored events. Mostly, we just snuck into caves at off hours when nobody was paying attention. We only got caught once. In retrospect, I think it was probably Tim Kilby who was yelling at us in the woods one evening. He bought the property with the entrance to the New River Cave in 1989. When he yelled at us that it was private property, we just kept going into the cave. He wasn’t around when we came out. 

I would love to have a secret underground bunker below my house. Colin Furze on YouTube made a wonderful bunker under his back yard. The original entrance was from the garage, but I think they have another tunnel that connects to the house now. That bunker is steel-walled and lined with concrete. 

On the other end of the spectrum, there’s a YouTuber named Paleas who strips down to tiny shorts and digs and digs and digs. Paleas is the Buffalo Bill of tunnelers. The videos are often interspersed with Paleas playing original techno music for a full minute while Paleas gyrates in unsettling ways and stares down the barrel of the camera. The different rooms and alcoves of Paleas’ unground dwelling are given names like ‘The Pit’ and ‘The Torture Chamber.’ Maybe those names are a subtle joke? If that’s true, the joke is really subtle.

Last year in San Antonio, a house was on the market that almost made me want to move. When they were clearing the land to build the place, the builders noted a pretty consistent breeze coming from a hole in the ground. It turned out that they were about to build right on top of a house-sized cave. The pictures are very pretty. A big room full of stalactites is now lit with color. They put in a staircase that you access by lifting a panel of the deck. Obviously, if you bought the place you would want to remodel and install an elevator. You don’t want to have to go outside to go down to your cave. 

I don’t know too much about geology and water tables, but I think things would get pretty wet if I tried to dig under my house. It would still be fun to try. Half of my cellar is just a dirt floor anyway. There’s always the risk that I would get a few feet down and then find bones. It seems pretty likely that someone or something was buried down there at some point in the past two-hundred years, right? And then I would have to get the police involved I guess.

My friend in Portland was digging a fence post hole a few years ago when he found bones. The police investigation didn’t last long. They were human hand bones, but at some point in the past the house had been a private doctor’s office. I guess doctors used to bury amputations? Don didn’t seem bothered by the idea. I guess I wouldn’t be either.

When I lived farther north I used to throw all kinds of things into our old well. Moose bones, porcupine bodies, deer bones—everything went in the well. I didn’t want the dogs to get them. In the middle of a dry summer, you could lift the cover and see a tangle of skeletal remains. I wonder if the current owners of that house have ever done that… 

In case anyone in that area is reading this, I want to make clear that this newsletter is a work of fiction, and I’m in no way responsible for improperly disposing of carcasses in old wells! At the very least, I’m not the jerkface who poached a moose out of season and left the head and legs on the side of the Spaulding Bridge Road. My dog found those moose parts and dragged them back to the house one at a time. It was beyond gross.

In my first book, one of the characters hears a song playing on an intercom. The lyrics to that song were part of a poem that I wrote back when I was caving:

The feel of the sun on my back

Makes me want to burrow into the earth

Taste the soft, damp dirt

And be alone with the rocks.

Quiet and safe in the ground,

Much removed from harm’s way,

I’d hear distant footsteps above

That lull me into deep sleep.

I wasn’t into rhyming at the time.