I had prepared a tirade against television yesterday, but a) I saw that it was too abrasive (someone might conceivably have found some use for television, somehow, perhaps) and b) I’ve already tiraded against it, in a somewhat more equanimous tone. But I did want to post this image, which I created with help from freephotosbank.com (thank you). And also to mention that the Dish Network dish has been removed from the tree to the north of the house. Now if you ever come visit, you’ll see no evidence that I ever acquiesced to the demands of a puerile medium.

Meanwhile, back at the silver mine …

Two springs ago I was biking down a quiet country road when I saw a man-sized hole in the slope beside the road. I set down my bike and climbed up to investigate. It was obviously man-made, perhaps four feet in diameter; and it went back further than I could see.

I was surprised that an old mine so close to a public road would still be open. Most of the old mines around here are blasted closed so that nobody gets sued. I know of one mine twenty feet up a rock face that’s boarded up and has a waterfall issuing from under the boards. And one time Becca and I were hiking in the backwoods near the lake when we came across a half-submerged mine, closed off by bars. (How do they keep them from rusting?)

But whatever the reason, this mine begged for exploration; so a few weeks later I took the kids on a stroll, carrying flashlights. I thought that if we were nonchalant about our investigation nobody would pull over to tell us we were being illegal.

We came up the road and scurried into the hole. The younger ones were content to reamin near the entrance, peering out at the bright daylight; but Emma and I went up into the darkness. We came over a muddy rise and stepped into water: transparent, with old timbers on the bottom, and was it cold! A bend in the tunnel shut out all light, and as we proceeded the water rose over our shoes and up our legs. We kept sloshing into the close, echoing darkness, but the further we went, the deeper it got, until I decided we’d gone far enough.

Emma has wanted ever since that day to keep exploring that mine. And since this was her week for a date with Dad, that is what we did.

We were well armed with flashlights. We waited for afternoon traffic to clear before darting into the familiar hole, greeted this time by a toadstool eight inches in diameter. We flicked on our lights, climbed stooping over the rise, stepped into the water, and sloshed forward into the darkness.

And ended. Before we had gotten fairly started, the mine ended in a solid wall of rock. Whoever dug this mine must have given it up for a more promising prospect (pun intended). Or maybe he just got tired of swinging a pick in so tight a space. And maybe that explains why the mine isn’t boarded up: it’s too tight and too short to be truly dangerous.