My friends, Bernie McMahon, Stan Taylor and I were high school sophomores.  We had another winter Saturday to go down to the old quarry and scramble around on the rocks.  It was about a two mile hike to get there, following the creek through the woods, past Frog Rock, to the B&O Railroad tracks at Forest Glen, then along the tracks to the abandoned quarry that held so many adventures for us.

            On our usual visits, we would climb up rock faces that were perhaps twenty feet high, not particularly dangerous, but we imagined as the Matterhorn.  We really did not understand that there was a "right" way to do this, that came a few months later when we saw a Disney movie about mountain climbing.  We just climbed around on rocks and thought we were mountain climbers.  We had no idea of how to use real mountaineering techniques like belaying a climber for safety, or using a body rappel to descend a cliff on a rope.  Besides, the only rope we owned was a hundred foot length of venetian blind cord about an eighth of an inch in diameter; not what you would trust to support your life.  

            But on this particular trip, we found a long piece of rope hanging from a tree in the woods.  The rope's weathered appearance indicated that it had been there for a long time. 

            The rope was about sixty feet long and almost an inch in diameter; the size you would expect to tie a pretty big boat to a dock.  Of course, the weather had been hard on it so in some places it was not as thick as in others.  But it looked to us to be strong enough to hold a person's suspended weight, so we took it.  As we continued toward the quarry, we determined that if we folded the venetian blind cord in half and used it in parallel with the thick rope, it would be several strands of security long enough to reach all the way down the highest of the quarry cliffs.    

            The pond in the quarry was about as long as a football field running parallel to the railroad tracks and about thirty yards wide.

The far side from the tracks was a vertical cliff about forty feet high with level wooded ground at the top.  The ground sloped down from the tracks to the right of the pond forming a small peninsula and reaching the base of the cliff where it was only about fifteen feet high.  Further to the right, a grassy slope lead up to the top of the cliff with a few evergreens scattered about before reaching the heavy woods along the top of the cliff. 

            At the left side of the quarry was our Matterhorn, a jumble of boulders and rock faces at differing slants that gave a challenge to help our skills grow.  What was a challenge the first year, was easy the next year.  But there was always something a little harder to try.  Eventually, we were climbing up nearly vertical pitches with hand and foot holds only visible once you were within reach.  My favorite was a chimney between the rocks that took you up twenty feet to a pedestal that felt like the top of the world.    

            Over the years, as we gained our confidence, we kept eyeing the massive eighty yard long back wall, a forty foot high vertical cliff that plunged right into the water.

            Except at the island as we called it!  Half way along the base, there was a small mound of earth touching the cliff.  It supported two huge oaks on it's meager ten foot by four foot surface.  It was at least thirty yards from the nearest water level land you could stand on.

            We were never brave enough to swim over to the island, the water was so cold and so black and deep that we probably imagined terrible creatures within. 

            We once tried to launch a raft made from straw, but it sank a few feet from the track side shore.  Sometimes in the winter, there was ice strong enough to hold a boy's weight, but it never formed all the way to the base of the cliff.  There was too much residual heat energy in the rock.  So you could not walk over the ice all the way to the island.  This was one of those cold winter days.  Most of the surface of the water was covered with a layer of ice about a quarter of an inch thick.  At the shore near the tracks, it was thick enough to shuffle across carefully if you kept both feet on the ice.  But it thinned out to just water by about ten feet from the island and cliff.      

            We wanted to get to that island.  There had to be a way.  Then came that winter day that we found that frayed boat rope.  Perhaps we could lower one of us down the cliff with the rope. 

            We had some supplies with us in our surplus army packs: a hatchet, a pocket knife, a camping cook kit, matches, a can of baked beans, several peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, and a few canteens of drinking water.  And of course, our boat rope and venetian blind cord.

            Stan said he wanted to be the one lowered to the island.  He was always a bit more bravado that the rest of us, and was sure he would have the courage to overcome the fear of looking straight down forty feet while we lowered him. 

            We circled around to the right and up the grassy slope to the top, then along the rim path to the spot directly over the island.  Somehow, while we were laying out the ropes at the top of the cliff, we got into betting Stan that he would chicken out.  Teenage boys are stupid, they get themselves into "dare ya" situations that then leave them difficult choices to make.           

            We helped Stan tie the ropes around his chest, then Bernie and I went back along the rope to find likely grip points.  Stan started over the side on his hands and knees, feet first.  It actually was not vertical at first, there was an eighty degree slope of about ten feet with a number of exposed tree roots to hold onto before the vertical section began. 

            Stan never got as far as getting his head out of our sight.  He still had his arms on the level ground when he made the mistake.  He looked down.  In his terms, using a quote from somewhere, "Discretion is the better part of valor".  In our terms, "Stan chickened out."

            Stan's only defense at this point was to put us in the same spot, "All right, one of you guys do it... if YOU'RE not chicken."  I was dumber than Bernie, so I volunteered next.

            Getting into the rope harness, I resolved to not look down.  As long as I looked just at my hands holding onto the rope going up from my chest, I would not be aware of how high it was.  Sounded like a good plan at the time.

            I used the same ungraceful technique of crawling backwards, feet first, over the edge.  I was able to use hand and foot holds on the tree roots at first, but would be depending on Stan and Bernie to lower me the last thirty feet.  I had complete trust.  Complete ignorance, also, of the difficulty that Stan and Bernie would have trying not to drop me.

            As my feet passed the last roots, I held on to the roots with just my hands.  The rope was snug and secure around my chest, pulling up under my arms.  I kept going down, my feet dangling and at last, no more roots to gasp, I let go of solid connection to the cliff and grabbed the rope with my hands. 

            Gosh, they were lowering me so fast!  My knuckle banged against the hard rock.  One knuckle began to bleed, then another.  "SLOW DOWN.", I yelled.  Still dropping too fast, not a fall, but the gleaming rock continued to rip small bits of skin from my hands.  "S-L-O-W-W   D-O-W-W-N.", I repeated.  No change in speed.  My adrenalin was pumping through my veins, but there was nothing I could do but "hang in there" and not look down.

            For an eternity I plummeted at something less than free fall speed.  At last, my feet slammed onto a horizontal surface.  I stopped, the rope went slack, and I heard a voice from far above ask, "Are you okay?"

            And of course, if you have read the short story, "Cliff", on this same website, you know I was just standing on a ledge, not at the bottom yet.  It really happened that way.  I had not looked down the whole time, so when I stood there on that ledge and did look down, the surprise was enough to send the adrenalin rushing again. 

            It looked a long way down, but was really only another six feet or so.  When I relayed the fact that I wasn't all the way down yet to Bernie at the top, his answer was that they would lower me the rest of the way, but his voice was quite uncertain. 

            They did lower me, but at the same rapid speed that I dreaded would happen.  At last, I was on the bottom, the island.  I was there.  I was shaking all over.  Fear had been running rampant for too long.  Taking the rope off, I sat down to try to regain my composure.  

            I was supposed to use a knife to carve my name into one of the big trees, but I knew that the only thing I could handle was to get some food in my system.  I asked the guys to get my sandwich for me.  They did the logical thing.  They called down to me, "Catch" and dropped my Peanut Butter and Jelly sandwich over the side.  I could see it coming right to me, a speck at first, then a small square.  I held my hands out at waist level to catch it.  SPLAT!  It hit so hard that the contents splattered out in all directions.  It left a line of brown and purple across my shirt.  There was peanut butter and jelly stains on the rock wall.  There was a crumpled wad of white bread stinging my palms. 

            I ate the wad, licked my hands, wiped peanut butter and grape jam off my shirt.  It tasted  great. 

            Meanwhile,  my companions had walked back down to the peninsula where we could converse easier and they could eat their lunch.  They built a warm campfire and cooked the can of beans.  I was envious, no, jealous of their warm place.  I was shaking partly from the cold and partly from the situation.       

            During a lull in the talk, I heard an unusual noise out on the ice.  Just a quiet ping.  I could not see anything as the cause.  Later, another ping, this time my ears told me it was about twenty feet out and to my right.  I looked and saw nothing.  Another ping and motion on the ice.  I saw a tiny glint of copper coming to a stop.  Then I saw them up on the hill far across the tracks, where the trail comes out of the woods and overlooks the quarry; two boys with sling shots.  They were shooting B-Bs at the quarry ice. 

            At first, I guessed that they were doing it just because of the neat ping sound it made.  Then as the pinging sound seemed to hit the ice closer to me, I felt threatened.  They didn't seem to be aware of Bernie and Stan who were hidden from their view by some bushes.  I called, "Hey, there's someone with slingshots aiming at me from up there!"  Stan pushed his way through the brush to get a better look.  At the same time, Bernie called out something and the two strangers got spooked and ran back into the woods.  They didn't seem to be coming back.     

            I was finished eating and set about the task of carving my name into the tree trunk.  I was looking forward to getting pulled back out of this cold place.  I was hard work, as the trees had huge, thick bark that did not carve neatly.  I don't remember if I finished before my buddies said they wanted to get on with pulling me up before it got much later.  I had not realized how much time had gone by, but the gray overcast sky seemed to be getting darker. 

            I tied the rope around my chest and grabbed the line to the top with both hands.  I called, "READY!".  The rope tugged up into my armpits.  My heels came up off the ground.  My toes did not. 

            "PULL HARDER", I screamed.  I felt the rope move a bit more, but my toes were still on the ground.  Then the rope slowly went slack and I was back flat footed on the island. 

            "We have a problem."  was the call from above.  "We need to think this out.  Give us a minute."

            The two of them were just not strong enough to overcome all the friction of the rope over that slope at the top with my weight at the bottom. 

            We discussed the prospects of calling the fire department, and how much trouble we would be in if we did.  We talked about me taking off my clothes and trying to swim to the ice, and try to get up on it.  We knew that was a worse option.  Then we decided that if I were to use the hatchet to cut down the tree that leaned toward the peninsula, it was tall enough to bridge from the island to the peninsula, then I could just walk across.

            They said they would drop me the hatchet.  Remembering the sandwich, I asked them to lower it on the rope, please.  While they were lowering it I heard a ping.  Yep!  Those sling shots were back up on the hill across the tracks.  NO problem.  It was obvious to me that they did not have the range to reach me.

            I got the hatchet and began to work right away.  The hatchet was dull and the tree was about two and a half feet thick.  I switched arms now and then, but soon felt the utter frustration of knowing that it would take me hours to get through that tree.  Even if I could keep it up, I would not finish before dark.  This plan had used about an hour already and my arms were exhausted.  There was now way I could finish it even in the dark. 

            Bernie suggested that there was a smaller tree on the peninsula that he and Stan could take turns chopping.  It was tall enough to reach the island if they could just get it to fall in the right direction.  He described how he could tie a rock onto the end of the venetian blind cord and toss it from the top of the cliff into the top of the tree.  Then, as Stan finished the last wacks at the tree trunk with the hatchet, Bernie could pull from the top of the cliff to make the tree swing toward the island.  Sounded like it might work. 

            It took them quite a while, even taking turns, to get the notch in the trunk to where the tree began to creak.  Bernie went up to the top of the cliff and tossed the rock.  It was a perfect shot.  The rope got all tangled in the upper branches of the tree.  Bernie gave a tug and the tree seemed to rotate his way a bit.  Time for Stan to finish it off.  I crouched behind the trunk of the big tree on the island so I would not get hit by the falling tree. 

            At last, as the hatchet struck, the tree gave out a loud CRACK and began to fall.  I was peering out around the trunk to see it slowly pivot first toward me, then as it lost altitude, back toward the middle of the pond.  I saw the rope up top being pulled tight and out with the tree. 

            Bernie discovered that he was being pulled right toward the top of the cliff.  If he didn't get clear of the rope, it would pull him over the edge and forty feet down to a likely death.  As he let go, the rope whipped around his ankle, then off, and shot out over the precipice.

            I saw the rope end come shooting over the edge far above my head.  The tree fell where it willed to fall, not where we tried to make it fall.  It hit the ice well out away from the island.       

            Then began a long eerie high pitched whine that sent piercing chills all through my body.  As the tree penetrated the ice and crashed into the water it created a large wave.  The wave proceeded under the ice and cracked it continually until the wave reached the other end of the pond, the length of a football field away.  Then the wave came back causing the thousands of broken pieces of ice to collide with each other continuing the high pitched wine and the chills and fear in my very bones.  I knew another plan had failed.  I would not walk across that tree to get off this island.

            The sound continued to loose amplitude as the waves got smaller and smaller.  But none of us could say anything as the vibration continued to hold our emotions.  At last there was silence.  For a long time, I looked at that tree. bobbing up and down, with the venetian blind cord tangled in its branches.  Now we only had the fat rotting rope left to use. 

            I looked up at the sky.  Although I could not see the sun, I could tell that it was only about an hour until dark now.  It was definitely getting colder.  It would take most of that time just to go get help.

            "Ping!".  The sound was different.  There was no sheet of ice any more, the B-B had hit the wall of rock behind me.  The boys had come part way down the hill to get closer and were shooting at me.  Where could I go?  What could I do?  I don't know how I thought of it.  It just came out of my mouth and I heard it for the first time the same time every one else did. 

            "You guys want to help pull me off of here?"  A brilliant strategic maneuver.  Turn the enemy troops into allies. 

            "Sure!" they accepted. 

            Bernie, Stan, and the two boys all went up to the top of the cliff while I clambered back into the rope sling again.  I expected to get further than getting my toes off the ground this time.  I even expected to be pulled all the way up to the top.  I did not expect to be launched with the speed of a model rocket.  I left the ground so fast that I did not even have time to rest my feet on the ledge.  I just dragged knuckles over the sharp hard rock even faster than on the way down. 

            "SLOW DOWN", I shouted.  But within seconds I was approaching the slanted pitch at the top with all the roots.  I bounced over the roots wincing at the bruises on my arms and legs.  I found myself past the top of the cliff and was being dragged rapidly across the level ground away from the cliff.  At last, they stopped, and I lay there breathing hard as they came back yelling and screaming in delight. 

            Stan asked me, "Do you want to come down and help finish off those hot baked beans?"  I was up and walking on wobbly legs right away.  I was so tired and cold and shaking that I had to be hungry.  We asked the two sling shot boys if they wanted to join us for some beans before we cleaned up and headed home, but they declined with few words. 

            These days I have a craving for baked beans far more often then is reasonable, and I suspect it may have been reinforced by how wonderful they tasted that cold winter day sitting beside a few thousand square feet of shattered ice.           

            While we were siting there getting the energy to pack up our stuff, the cooking pot gave out a loud PING.  We looked up to the top of the cliff from our campfire on the peninsula and spotted the sling shot kids taking aim at us from directly above.  We were at a total disadvantage.  We could not ever throw a stone that high much less do anything about the attack. 

            Without discussing strategy, the three of us got up and ran to the railroad tracks., picked up several ballast stones apiece and then headed up the slope around the right of the cliff.  As we were moving, we saw the two boys maneuver along the top of the cliff to meet us at the top of the slope where the evergreen trees were spaced out in a grassy field.  They were out of our sight for a few moments but we knew where they would be. 

            Stan said. "We better not leave our stuff unattended, they could circle down an steal it."  So he headed back down to the peninsula.  Bernie and I reached the top of the slope and spotted them about fifty feet away behind a fir tree with low branches.  They took a couple shots at us but the evergreen we were behind stopped the B-Bs easily.  We tossed a stone apiece at them, with the same result. 

            We knew we only had three rocks apiece left and we did not know how much ammunition they had.  We could not retreat, as that would put us back down hill from them again.  There was no way to get closer without exposing ourselves to direct fire.  Bernie whispered a plan to me then turned toward the woods to the left of the boys and shouted, "OK, Stan, NOW!"

            Of course we knew that is not where Stan was, but the boys did not have any idea of where Stan was.  They both turned to fend off an attack from their flank.  At that instant Bernie and I burst into a full sprint toward them throwing rocks and yelling and screaming. 

            It worked.  The boys were so flustered at not knowing what to do that they both dropped their sling shots and ran as fast as they could away from us and "Stan".  We stopped at their abandoned weapons, but they did not stop.  We never saw them again.  I still don't understand the motivations of their actions.  I do know that they can find their sling shots tied to rocks in the bottom of a very icy quarry pond.

            I got home before dark.  When asked where I had gone today, I replied, "Oh, just down to the Quarry."