Editor’s note: This is another column in Bill Boyd’s new series, “The Way It Was,” about growing up in Marysville. Bill continues to work with the Union County Historical Society to obtain information for his stories.
–––
It was sometime in December of 1949, and our MHS basketball team had a game scheduled with Delaware that night. After eating our pregame meal, Coach Warren Widner wanted us to take a short walk. He said he didn’t want to see us running or playing games, just a leisurely stroll to help us stay loose for the game.
One of my teammates, Bud Hoffman, and I had our meal at my house on West Fifth Street. Then we decided to take our short walk down Maple Street to Mill Creek. The city had recently completed a new storm sewer line under that street to carry rainwater to the creek. It was a much larger line than the previous one, almost six feet in diameter. We thought we would walk to the bridge and see where it emptied into the creek.
Bud wanted to take a flashlight with us. He said we could shine it into the end of that line to see what that big sewer looked like inside. That sounded like a good idea, so my dad gave him a flashlight.
It was a nice day for a walk, and when we got to the bridge, we went down to the creek level and looked into the big sewer line. We weren’t the first kids to do that. We could see several initials and graffiti written on the concrete walls.
We stepped into the sewer line to get a closer look at the graffiti. There were some hearts with initials inside, and one of those “Kilroy was here” drawings. Then we decided to walk a bit further into the sewer. We had to bend over a bit as we walked. It was uncomfortable, but we could do it.
We didn’t need the flashlight at first, but when we got about 40 yards inside, it was dark and that flashlight came in handy. Bud led the way with the flashlight, and I followed close behind. We must have been about 100 yards inside the sewer line when Bud suddenly stopped and let out a yell. Then he turned around and yelled, “Run … run.”
I had no idea why we were running, but I sensed urgency in Bud’s voice, so I ran. Boy was it hard to run when we were bent over. We occasionally banged our heads on the concrete wall, but we kept on running until we were out of the sewer.
Then we sat on the creek bank to catch our breath. I asked Bud why we were running. He said we had come upon a giant rat, and he used both hands to show me how big it was. As soon as he did that, I would have bet the farm it was a possum. I had seen possums many times along the creek. In the dark sewer it would have looked a lot like a giant rat. And I bet that harmless possum was even more frightened than we were.
When Bud and I entered the locker room before the game that night, Coach Widner told us he saw us walking down Maple Street. He said he was glad we weren’t running. We didn’t tell him about our underground experience with a giant rat, or about running through the sewer.
But everything worked out fine, and we beat Delaware that night. It was just one of 23 games we won that season.
Those wishing to contact Bill Boyd can e-mail him at williamboyd514@gmail.com