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Belgreen, Franklin County, Alabama

The new Alabama state highway 24 now lays over one of the finest dug caves that I have known.  In fact, the new highway is now where the house my family and I lived in from 1954 to 1956, in Belgreen, Alabama.

After turning off old 24 to 187, the house sat facing 187 just past and on the same side of the road as the Methodist Church.  It sat back off the road and the only way to get to it was from the road that went to the Church.  My family rented this house from the John B. Hester family.

In front of the house and parallel with 187 was a drainage ditch that was over head high deep to a nine year old.  In looking back at it now, the ditch may have been about 10 feet deep and the soil was hard sand, almost sand rock.

While playing in the ditch the summer of 1955, I found that as I dug into the side of the bank, I could make a little cave for the homemade cars that I was playing with.  The homemade cars were only old rocks but to me their shape represented some of the finest family sedans around.  As I continued to dig into the side of the bank, I kept making the hole bigger and bigger.  Soon it was as large as my head.

Then the idea struck me.  Why not dig a cave large enough to hide in.  I had always tried to dig a swimming pool, enticing the help of my younger sister Susie, in the back yard of every house that my family moved to in Franklin County, so why not dig a cave.  Therefore, I continued to dig the cave deeper every day that I could slip off to the ditch.

My mother, Ima (Hester) Glasgow, told me one day that my cousins from Florida were coming for a visit and would be here the following day.  This was my mother’s older sister, Ola Hester, who had married Wayne Black and they had two sons, Carl Keith and Danny.  Carl was about a year older than I was and we were the best of friends. I waited with anticipation for them to arrive because I just knew that Carl would help me dig the cave.

Finally, they arrived. I was so excited as I managed to get Carl away from the adults to tell him about my cave.  He became interested and wanted to see it right away.  Our mothers agreed to let Carl and Danny come to Belgreen to visit us the next day.

I arose early the next day, full of thoughts of adventures that might unfold.  It seemed like forever to me but finally, as I sat waiting in the yard, my Aunt Ola came driving up with her two boys.  After a casual greeting, Carl and I ran off to the ditch in front of the house while our mothers went into the house to catch up on their talking.

He seemed amazed at my attempts to dig my cave but assured me that he could greatly improve upon it.  We began to work hard, taking turns digging until we had an entrance into which we could crawl that was length of our bodies.  We continued to dig a bigger hole beyond that into which we coaxed my younger sister to crawl.  We found that she could stand up beyond the entrance and this made us even more determined to continue our quest.

We had to stop digging when mother called and said it was time for Carl to go.  They were staying with my grandparents, Walter and Jessie (Hooper) Hester down on Cotton Gin Road while they were visiting Alabama.  My Aunt Ola promised that Carl could come back the next day.

When he arrived the next day, we continued our endeavor on the cave.  I have heard an old saying that the “Lord looks after children and fools” and he certainly must have been looking over us during those delightful childhood days.

Carl and I decided to go to the house to get a drink of water.   Our mothers were engrossed in their talking and nearly missed us as we started out the door when one of them called for us to come back in the house.  We slowly went back into the house and stood in front of our mothers.  I am sure we both had sand and dirt all over us from head to foot.  They asked us what we had been doing.  We were so proud of what we had accomplished; we beamed with pride as we told them about our cave and how big we had made it and about how we could go inside.

To our astonishment, our mothers did not think it was such a good idea to be digging a cave in that sand.  They said, with horror on their faces, that what if the sand and dirt fell in on top of us and smothered us to death!  Now, we had not thought about that possibility and, being children, we did not think that would ever happen.  However, to our distress, we were told not to go to the ditch again and that was final!

As we ducked our heads and slowly walked to the front porch, we could see the outline of the entrance to our cave across the ditch in front of the house.  The dark hole in the side of the bank seemed to reach out and call for us to come back and play.  Nevertheless, our dreams were shattered, and we knew that we were not to disobey our mothers. So we just sat and stared at it and began to talk about what a good job we had done and what all we could have accomplished if we had been allowed to continue.  Then as all children do, we soon had other challenges before us and it was time for my Aunt Ola and her family to go back to Ocala, Florida.

We said our sad farewells and I waved slowly as they pulled out of the drive.  I will never forget the wonderful enchantment that I experienced while planning the cave that is now under highway 24 in Belgreen, Alabama.

By Ann Glasgow