The Water Tower

Every school I went to by the time I graduated high school (12) had tales, myths and outright lies that had become part and parcel of the soul of that school. Older students would regale younger students with the stories fed to them when they were underclassmen. Then they passed those narratives along, whether they were based in Reality or not. Let's face it, schools without the bullshit stories that go with them would just be sterile buildings we spent time in. 

The narratives came up wherever cadets gathered; the smokers, the dining room, at "Ten Hut' in the barracks hallways late at night when an officer had a hair across his butt about some nonsense or other.

Thankfully, where there are teenagers, there are many tall tales. All of them shared with each new student or cadet. The more they hear those stories, their version is likely to amp up the creepiness to a new level. Everything is fair game, including the stupidity and/or reputation of a past student, teacher or administrator. The Skin sure had some tales built around him. And don't get me started about the myth of Mickey DiMaggio.

Charlotte Hall was chock full of tall tales.  I have forgotten most I guess, but a few have stuck around. Some of my favorites were the whoppers I heard about the Water Tower.

The stories were wild and bizarre. So and so fell from it 30 years ago. A guy was so crazy, he danced on the ball at the top. And another guy climbed it every week for the whole school year. The creativity used building the legend was excellent.

What made the Water Tower so enticing was it had a ladder. Demerits and track time were issued if caught climbing that ladder.  The same penalties went for sneaking out after taps. Who could resist such temptation? Some of us at Charlotte Hall were still learning that rules were not meant to be broken. Climbing the Water Tower was the poster child of that learning curve.

I remember climbing the water tower at least three times in my three years at CH. Twice as a Junior and once as a drunken Senior, though that time was cut short when a wave of sanity came over me and I stopped about half way up. Apparently, I was not drunk enough.

The other two times were with troublemakers I hung out with. I climbed once with Snake and I think Gary Edwards. We made it to the catwalk that encircled the tower. We marveled at the view and smoked cigarettes for a few minutes and then came down. All of us decided that becoming famous and part of the school lore was not worth dancing on the ball at the top.

The tower climb that I remember best was the night Joe Kneas and I climbed the tower. He had come to Charlotte Hall as a Junior, so firing him up with tales that never happened did not phase him much. Seems I remember not much phased Joe.

One day he asked about the water tower and had I ever climbed it. I told him I had. He asked me if I wanted to do it again. That was my opening to fill him in on my version of the history of the water tower.  

"Okay, tonight, let's do it." He was dead serious, no fooling around. He had a mission now and John was going to come back, mission accomplished. His goal was to touch the ball.

That night we climbed the tower. Once we reached the catwalk I went around the back of the tank and lit up a cigarette. Joe did not follow. I became curious, so I snubbed my butt out and circled back to the front where the ladder that climbed the tank was. Scrawny Joe was at the top just climbing onto the slanted ladder that ended at the ball and the manhole at the top of the tank.

I was impressed. I was suddenly also very nervous. Instead of moments of false bravado and conveniently finding an excuse to go no further, here was Joe already on the slanted ladder. Damn! Now I felt pressure to climb that ladder also. So I did, a very slow rung at a time with hugs on each one in between. You know that ladder looked awful rickety and unsafe at that altitude. But since Joe had already disappeared over the edge of the roof and was nowhere to be seen, I followed him sure we were both going to go splat, flat, like a collapsed top hat.

 As I reached the transition from vertical to inclined, I could see Joe sitting on the ladder above me facing outward with a cigarette stuck in his mouth. Double Damn. I really felt some pressure now. I made it four or five rungs up the roof of the tank and stopped. That was as far as I was going to go. Meanwhile Joe casually finished his cigarette, flicked the butt out over the equipment shed below and turned around to climb down. I did not witness Joe actually touching the ball, I feel surely he did. 

I would later hang out with Joe some the next summer after graduation. He was one of the most interesting people I ever met. His last words written on his picture in my senior yearbook was , "P.S. See you in Vietnam."

I always wondered if he ended up there.

Keep it 'tween the ditches ................................