The old forbidden places

Here’s the portion of Greg Nelson’s letter that I saved for its own post, a few lines about the secret, and possibly dangerous, places near Pomona that kids of the ’50s and ’60s liked to get into. Take it away, Greg:

“As far as tunnels under Pomona goes, there were real tunnels, but they were the storm drains, and we used to break into them in Ganesha Park and travel miles around the town underground. My pal Phillip O’Brien was always talking me into going down there with him. I heard he died in a hang-glider accident somewhere around San Dimas Canyon years ago. I remember his parents were fanatical Catholics. They said a rosary together as a family every night. If you spent the night at his house you had to do it with them.

“Those storm drains were a forbidden place, and we stopped going once we saw the movie ‘Them’ about the giant bees that built nests in the Los Angeles storm drains.

“The other forbidden place to go was Walnut Falls, on the far side of Puddingstone, behind the dam. We loved to hike out there early on summer Saturdays and jump from the cliffs surrounding the pool created by the falls. In the summer there was just a trickle of water over the falls, and around noon the local L.A. Sheriffs would raid the place and chase us all away. It was too dangerous a place to let kids play, I guess.”

Your turn, readers: What risky stunts did you pull as kids? Where did you go that you knew you shouldn’t?

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