Rick Houser
In the years when the Marshall brothers and I played together we spent many days playing in the woods that were behind their home and belonged to their Uncle Richard Davis. For Herb, Charlie and me his woods were a place where boys our age could play endlessly as the woods went from gently rolling ground near their home to some deep hollows and very high hills right beside a creek named Maple Creek. There were huge trees and small grubs and land laid out in a variety of shapes and angles. It was a place where cowboys and Indians were played and many battles from WWII were carried out.

From the ages of 12 to 14 we almost became residents of what I call the Hundred Acre Woods, after the woods Winnie the Poo spent time in. Playing there gave an endless variety of things for us to do. One such event came one early summer day when we were at the top of a high spot overlooking Maple Creek. Maybe 20 feet below the edge of the hill ran the creek. I’m not sure who spotted it or thought of using it but we saw hanging from a huge tree a very large grape vine that was easily two inches in diameter and had grown through the tops of several of the trees on the hill. After a brief study we all came to the same idea. Let’s cut the grape vine off at the ground and swing out over the creek.

With a very brief discussion we took out an Army Surplus hatchet and began to chop the vine off at its base. It wasn’t long until it was cut off and then we had to decide who would swing on it first. My guess is it was Herb as he was the oldest. He got ahold of the vine with both hands and walked away from the ravine and then jumped upward as high as he could, grasped the vine with both hands, ran towards the bank and swung out a few feet from the hill and out over the creek below. Once he returned to the edge and was on solid ground he smiled and said that this was awesome. Charlie yelled he was next and he grabbed the vine and did as Herb and swung back to solid ground. Having seen them both return smiling and laughing I couldn’t wait for my turn and as I ran toward the edge I thought I should swing out a little further and did and returned thrilled from the adventure. That first morning we took many turns and it wasn’t long before we realized how this reminded us of the Tarzan movies, that at the time aired every weekend, because Tarzan traveled through the jungle on grape vines, swinging from vine to vine effortlessly and giving out his Tarzan yell. Of course we each gave out our version of the yell and had the time of our lives.

We returned to the grape vine for weeks and of course with each swing our courage increased until we were almost to the other side of the creek from where we took off at and almost to a parallel position at our furthest distance. We were becoming true kings of the jungle. We referred to each other as Tarzan, Boy and Cheetah. These were some of the best days we ever experienced in the Hundred Acre Woods. That is until the later part of summer.

One thing none of us knew was that after a grape vine has been cut off the vine and all of the stems that were running through the trees eventually dried up and died. This we learned one morning. When we got to the vine I yelled dibs to be first and beat them to the vine. I ran back up the hill with the vine as far as I could go so I could get a good run and make as long of a swing as I could. As my feet left the hill and I was swinging into the parallel position the loud sound of the vine snapping and the vine beginning to lose height quickly made me aware I was in real trouble. Before I could think I had dropped 20 feet landing on my back in a dried up creek bed on flat limestone rocks. I thought I had met my end as I couldn’t draw air into my lungs and I could hear Herb and Charlie yelling at me asking if I was alright. I couldn’t speak at first but I wanted to answer to them (heck no I’m not alright!) I could hear them hurrying down the hill to help me and as they were coming I began to draw some air in and then worried if I had broken my back and all along thinking there was one good thing to all this: the creek was dry, as I can’t swim!

Once the guys got to me they slowly checked me out and after a pretty good checkup we all decided I was shook up but I hadn’t been hurt badly. This brought us to thinking about what had happened and how would we explain this to our parents. We had never told them about the grape vine or what we were doing. (I guess it must have slipped our minds and we forget to mention it to them.) As we walked away from the creek we talked more about the accident and the vine and how lucky we all had been not to be hurt and I was thanking my lucky stars I was in one piece and no adults were needed to come help us. So as we walked back toward our homes we all decided that it was probably the best thing to continue not to mention any of this. As far as I know to this day our parents never heard about the time we went into the woods and thought we were all Johnny Weismuller.

I have watched Tarzan movies old and new ones and never in any one of those movies did I ever see Tarzan have the grape vine break. I guess that proves me not Tarzan!

Rick Houser grew up on a farm near Moscow in Clermont County and loves to share stories about his youth and other topics. He may be reached at houser734@yahoo.com.