Me and Quarries. . .

. . .apparently have a history.  In my play WEIRD SISTERS, a girl dies at a quarry.  In TISHA AND THE GIANT, a wild party takes place at one.  In ZOMBIES ARE US, well, something really kind of spooky happens at quarry side.  I'm apparently haunted by quarries, although I've never even seen one up close.

So why do these large holes in the ground keep slipping into my fiction?  It's because, I think, when I was a little kid, (I mean really little like 0 to 5 years old.), there was a quarry near where we lived, and high school kids used to die there.  They used to party and drown.

     I'm sure I don't really remember this event, but I've heard about often enough to believe I do.  In the middle of the night there was a knock on our door, and a policeman was there to ask my day to come help them at the quarry.  My dad knew how to use some kind of air compressor or something that might help save the high school kid who was missing.  So, my dad went with him, but when he got back, he told my mom that" there was nothing that anyone could do."  I don't even know if he had to start the machine.  Anyway, that's a pretty terrifying statement.  I didn't want to ever be in the position where THERE WAS NOTHING ANYONE COULD DO.

The quarry scared me, and when we'd drive past the road to it, I'd imagine it dark and deep and swallowing kids on purpose.  But pretty soon we moved away from there, so we didn't pass the quarry that often, but when we did, I'd always remember it and shudder a little bit.

But there is always progress!  Where the quarry was is now a country club!  Good restaurant!  We've eaten there.  And a golf course that winds through the trees that once surrounded the quarry.  I don't do golf.  Like Mark Twain, I believe it's just a way to ruin a perfectly good walk.  I definitely wouldn't play there.  Maybe sometime, I'll write a story about the quarry, waiting just off the ninth hole, waiting, waiting, just to swallow somebody.