Limestone Quarries and Pre-Responibility

Any kid who grew up in Bloomington, Indiana probably put some in time at at least one of the several local quarry holes. The abandoned limestone pits were essentially man-made ponds. There were even small fish in some of them. We'd get there however we could, on four wheels or two, sometimes even walked. We'd climb around, lay around, try to think of increasingly stupid and dangerous ways to enter the water.

You non-hoosier types have probably seen the movie "Breaking Away." Filmed in B-town when I was a lad of about 12, it features one of the larger quarries. Here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/toothpaw/2071110458/
We used to visit this one, but it got to be too well known. We favored a couple of the smaller ones, including one called "Icebox" (they all had names). The name didn't have anything to do with the abandoned fridge Dennis Quaid swam into in the movie. Icebox was colder than the others. Must've been deeper. It had a tower on one steep side with a cable hanging down across the quarry. On the other side, it hung at such a height that you could grab it and step off the wall, drop down towards the water, and the weight of the cable would pull you back up. There was also an end of the quarry that was composed of jumbled blocks of stone that went all the way down into the water, how deep I never learned. What we used to do, though, was dive down into the dark, cold, green water and swim through the gaps in the jumbled blocks. We used to try to find different ways through and do them in different combinations. It was really a very stupid thing to do, would've been easy for one of us to get stuck. People did get hurt in those places, but we never heard of someone biting the big one. Surely some local historian, or some kid at IU writing his or her thesis, has researched it. I don't really want to know. This is what I remember.

I'll probably never dip a toe in the quarries again, and I'd go nuts if my kids went and did the stuff I did. But it is a very, very good thing to have done.