Wednesday, June 10, 2009

I Can Identify

While I never actually fell down a mine shaft and thus am unable to honestly say that I can identify with the dog in the previous post, I did grow up surrounded by abandoned shafts and developed a healthy respect for them. They are dark and deep and seem to unexpectedly appear. Or at least that's the way it was in my childhood. We were told, my brother and I, simply to not fall in them. That was good advice. Luckily for us, though, had we actually fallen in one of the many abandoned shafts dotting the landscape, our parents would definitely have not shot us. They might, however, have simply never found us. That's the thing about abandoned mine shafts. They are dangerous and abandoned and so often hard to spot even as the ground under foot is disappearing.

2 comments:

Marnie said...

You were at least lucky not have Calle's owner as your mother or father otherwise you wouldn't be here. If the person who responded that they knew the owner personally and Calle was hit by a car before the family went on vacation, then that person needs to report this to the authorities and have that owner punished.

Tom Walker said...

My gosh, I nodded off briefly and missed these mineshaft blogs -- my specialty. Anyway, I know a guy who has lost several dogs to mineshafts. Dogs apparently are very good at sniffing out dog poop on the ground but not so good at sensing holes in the ground.