Urban Adventuring for 10-Year-Olds
There is no better way for a kid to learn self-reliance.
“When you were little,” my mother says today, “I’d send you out for the day, then cry because I was worried sick.” These were the days when playing outside was the default—we never played inside unless it was pouring rain (and even then, if it was warm, we’d probably be out in the rain getting soaked).
As far back as I can remember, almost every weekend, I’d leave the house in the morning, and not come home ‘til dark. This was in Charlottesville, Virginia, which was a much smaller town in the 1970s than it is today.
Sometimes I was alone, but most of the time I was with my best friend JB. We both had 10-speed bikes, and we rode as far as many serious adult cyclists. For us, every weekend was a time for urban adventure. We took it seriously, always on the lookout for new discoveries.
We’d take note of things while we rode—an abandoned house, a water tower, a storm drain—then follow up on these opportunities later.
One area on the south edge of town called the Woolen Mills was a top destination. Named after a Civil-War-era mill that made wool uniforms for troops, it was an urban adventurer’s paradise. There were two abandoned power plants, both crumbling and in ruins…an old dam across the Rivanna River (now gone)…a high railroad box trestle across Moore’s Creek…and a rusting water tower.
We spent countless weekends exploring the Woolen Mills. We picked our way through the hulking ironworks of the old power plants, marveling at the glass-faced gauges, chains hanging from the ceiling, and huge iron valves. At one point we laid claim to everything left in the plant, assuming at some point we’d figure out how to drag it all out of there.
We climbed the rusting water tower, carefully scanning the area to be sure nobody was watching…then scrambled up the caged ladder to the narrow catwalk around the base of the tank, where we’d sit and survey the area for other opportunities.
We crept across the box trestle, under the tracks, inching our way along six-inch wide beams a hundred feet above the creek. Sometimes a train would cross while we clung to the trestle beneath…and we’d hunker down and plug our ears against the roar.
My mother surely would have had a heart attack if she’d known what we were up to. But the important thing, mom, is that we were never careless. Every adventure was carefully analyzed ahead of time: we talked about the chance of failure, what might happen, how we’d escape; and were always cautious.
In this respect, I guess we were odd for 10-year-olds. As I said, we took this stuff seriously. We weren’t going to get hurt or caught—and neither ever happened.
We had a saying: Nothing is too hard for the average American kid.
Another favorite adventure was exploring storm drains. There was one in particular that was like a subterranean highway: two six-foot-high square, concrete tunnels that ran for a mile or two beneath Emmett Street past a busy shopping center.
We only did this on sunny days with no chance of rain. And we were well-equipped with rubber boots and flashlights (and extra batteries of course). We’d walk through the tunnels (which normally held only a trickle of water), and explore smaller side tunnels. We’d often have no idea where we were relative to the surface, but were always careful to remember exactly how to get back the way we came.
Sometimes we’d find a vertical access pipe and climb up, crack open the manhole at the top, and peer out to see where we were. Another time we scored a pair of walkie-talkies, and one of us walked through the tunnels while the other followed on the surface, describing the tunnels’ path.
Perhaps one of our greatest extended adventures involved the Paramount Theater down on Main Street. Now restored and a thriving community theater, there was a fire next door in the early 70's and the theater was shut down for several years.
A few years after it was closed, JB and I were poking around an alley on one side of the theater when we found a door that was chained loosely—loose enough for us to pull the door open about a foot and squeeze into the dark theater.
I’ll never forget the first time we entered. In the narrow cones of our flashlights, we saw chandeliers covered in spiderwebs and red velvet seats covered in dust. It was an ornate theater, with baroque, gold-leafed decor.
Over the next several weekends, we returned to the theater and spent hours inside, exploring everywhere. We carefully pulled the doors closed to ensure nobody thought they were open, and were equally careful to be sure nobody ever saw us entering or coming out.
The high point of this exploration was when we explored the projection booth, where we found the original projectors: hulking Motiograph AA models, which used a carbon arc as a light source. There was still electricity in the theater, and we found the operating manuals for the projectors. It was only a matter of time before JB and I—two 12-year-old kids—fired up the Motiograph and lit up the Paramount’s screen for the first time in years with nothing. The thrill was awesome.
Alas, our adventures came to an end when one Saturday morning, all geared up for adventure, we found someone had pulled the chains on the doors tight—and shut us out. We were crushed…but the memories are still vivid.
Occasionally our adventures drifted into the potentially illegal. One example was the University of Virginia’s McCormick Observatory, which houses an impressive refractor telescope built in 1885.
On one desolate winter Sunday morning, we were poking around the observatory when we found an open window—so of course we climbed through it, then stood in awe beneath the giant telescope. We did nothing (we were smart enough not to actually mess with anything), but for two little kids, being in the closed observatory by ourselves was an adventure.
It’s often said that kids these days don’t play outside. Or if they do, it’s highly-supervised (and/or confined) play. I hope that’s not really the case. The adventures I had as a kid not only fired my imagination, but made me self-reliant. I always knew there was nobody to get me out of a jam but myself—and that’s an invaluable lesson for any kid to learn.
Most importantly, kids can’t learn this lesson with helicopter parents. It’s just not the same. Kids are smarter than we think, and they’ll rise to the occasion when they know they have to.
And to my brave mother, who had the wisdom (yes, wisdom) to let me go on those mornings, knowing she’d have no clue where I would be all day, I say thank you. The worries may have been terrible, but you were teaching me self-reliance that has benefited me throughout my life.
