Trust in a Sewer

When my sons attended their private school, part of their freshman orientation involved a
weekend trip away with their classmates to engage in various relationship-building
experiences, and one of those exercises involved building trust among their peers.
Like most people of the Boomer generation, I learned the meaning of trust from a variety
of sources. My parents and family, my church, my scholastic experiencesthese all
contributed to helping me to define and hone the meaning of the word trust.
But the streets I grew up on also made a major contribution, and, oddly enough, I
reminisced about it while looking at sewer grate the other day. My mind flashed back to
my old neighborhood of Dublin in Perth Amboy, NJ in the mid 1950s.
Absent cell phones and video games (and in some cases, TVs), we played outside. From
Tag, to Chase to Hide n seek to sandlot football and baseball, to swimming in the notso-clean Raritan River, we found ways to occupy our time. We even played in an
enchanted place called The Gullies, which was usually forbidden and which could be
dangerous. Unfortunately for us, that just made it all the more alluring.
Wed play punchball on the intersection of Gordon and Sherman Streets, with the four
corners serving as ready-made bases, and Julies Store serving as the refreshment stand
when we got thirsty. Sure wed have to stop when cars came through, but all the kids in
the neighborhood understood the deal.

On each of those corners was a sewer which led into a sewer-well covered by a heavy
manhole cover. As you might expect, the Spalding balls we punched would sometimes
find their way into those sewers despite our best efforts to get to them before they
disappeared into the gaping maw of the city ball-eater.

Since there was usually only one Spalding ( or Spaldeens, as some called them), that
circumstance required us to retrieve the ball through one of the best trust-building
exercises I can remember.
First, we had to remove the heavy manhole cover. This was usually accomplished as a
team effort. Somebody would grab a broomstick and insert it into the covers finger hole,
designed for grown men to lift with a special toolnot seven year olds with just their
fingers. Once prised up, two guys would get their hands under the lid to pull it back an
away from the hole. That was the first trust point. You trusted that the guy doing the
prying had a good bite on the lid, and that your partner pulling it up wouldnt let go.
But the real trust part was next. One guy, usually, but not always, the lightest kid around
and often the initial pryer, would crawl on his belly head first into the hole, while each
of the lifters grabbed an ankle. Then the light guy would be lowered into the foulsmelling drain to snatch the bobbing pink ball.
How far you went down was determined by how much stink water was in the well. If it
was after a recent rainstorm, you didnt usually have far to go. But going head first after a
dry spell would often require the holders to inch ever closer to the hole to get the hanger
even lower, so much so that two more kids would be required to anchor the holders by
latching on to the back of their blue jeans. It was like an urban trapeze act with no net.
If anybody in the holder chain let go, the hanger would literally be in deep sh*t. After the
ball was retrieved, the process was reversed: heavy manhole cover was pryed up and
targeted by the guys, and after careful, eyeball assessment of trajectory it was let go to
fall into place. If we measured right, it took one shot, coming down with a heavy clang. If
not, and a lip protruded above the hole, we kicked it in place.
It was trust-building, Boomer style, for city kids. And I doubt the suburbs had anything
like it. Roles often changed, too. Hangers became holders and vice versa. And no matter
where you were in the process, you understood what trust was all about when you
eventually emerged from the smelly well.
Of course, the now wet, smelly ball would be wiped of on your shirt or pants, as would
the hands that participated in the operation. Youd need your hands at least wiped
partially if you were going to go into Julies for some candy, potato chips and a Coke
directly after the game, right?
When you got home and Mom asked, Why are your shirt and pants so dirty and
smelly? you simply replied, The ball went down the sewer, and I was the hanger.
Nobodys mom ever freaked out, and nobody elses mom ever called DYFS. Because
there was no such thing.
While Im sure the exercises my sons had in school had good effect, I somehow suspect
that ours were just as effective. And we didnt have to travel far away to learn them.

There are guys from the old neighborhood whod hold the ankles of their friends today,
should circumstances warrant it.
And thats what trust is.