On Goldenrod Road

Spring Cleaning

        When growing up, "spring cleaning" at my house signified a variety of things. Of course, it meant the usual: cleaning curtains and Venetian blinds, washing floors and woodwork, ridding drawers of unneeded items, and even beating rugs until they were dustless. But it also meant, on occasion – cleaning out the septic tank.

        For those only familiar with sewers, a septic tank is the country cousin of a city sewage treatment plant. Our tank held solid waste that flowed into the system through the assorted drains inside our house. The heavy wastes settled to the bottom. The liquid surplus flowed through a pipe into a sump, an earthen basin hollowed in the ground several yards away.

        Every few years, the septic tank required cleaning before the accumulated solid waste clogged the system. Usually homeowners hired companies to do this. An employee would back a tanker truck as close as possible to the septic tank. Then he would poke a long, bulky hose inside and suck out the muck into the truck. Thus, technology offered an easy way to empty a septic tank, a way much too easy for my father. He preferred doing it the old-fashioned way – with a shovel and wheelbarrow.

        I still can conjure up visions of my dad standing thigh deep, wearing his hip-waders, catapulting muck out of the hole with his shovel. I was afraid to get too close because of the smell, because of possibly getting plastered by the flying waste, and because of the toxic cloud of profanity spewing from the pit. When Dad finishing shoveling, he loaded the pile into a wheelbarrow, spread it in the garden area, and later tilled it into the soil. Thus, I discovered the underlying secret of our giant pumpkins and award-winning tomatoes.

        However, this pales in comparison to the “special” spring cleaning that happened when I was about eight years old. The sump was located in the back yard next to our expansive garden. This hollowed-out, underground pit received the liquid waste that flowed through the septic tank. Cedar posts and a layer of soil and sod covered the sump, hiding it from view. A rust red ceramic pipe protruded through its center, venting methane fumes. In the garden next to the sump grew two of the most gigantic, well-fertilized rhubarb plants that ever graced the face of the earth.

        Recently, Dad had noticed that the posts covering the sump were becoming spongy and bouncy when walking across the surface. Fearing the rotting cedar posts would collapse, he decided the time had arrived to replace the logs. So one Saturday in April, Dad scooped all the sod off the roof of the sump and removed the cedar logs one by one until only a couple remained. Then he took a lunch break.

        To my youthful eyes, what remained was not a two logs over a sump half full of smelly liquid, but a natural bridge over a watery gorge infested with crocodiles and piranhas. What great explorer could resist? The chasm deep and deadly, I decided to prove myself up to the task of crossing to the other side. As I shuffled slowly along the posts, the other side loomed closer. Closer. Almost safely across, the unthinkable happened.

        Slipping on a wet spot, I plunged down, down – not into crocodile, piranha infested waters, but waist deep into the fetid liquid. Try as I might, I could not climb or pull myself out. The sides of the foul pit proved too steep and too slick for a kid my age. I was stuck.

        So, my scrambling futile, I acted like any other child under the same circumstances. I screamed for help.

        “Help! Help me! Mom! Dad! I’m stuck!” When no one arrived to the rescue, my cries degenerated into bloodcurdling, gibbering screeches.

        After what seemed like an eternity, my dad came running.  When he witnessed my predicament, his gray eyes grew as large as doorknobs.

        “Son, are you hurt?” he asked.

        “No, I’m just stuck,” I whimpered.

        Maybe it was my imagination, but at that moment I thought I glimpsed a fleeting smile flicker across his face. Then, leaning down, he grabbed my arm, tugged, and released me from my putrid prison.

        I must have been a pathetic sight. From the waist down I was coated with gunk. My canvas sneakers hit the bottom of the garbage can – a total loss. My dad hosed me down and peeled off my Levis before I gratefully headed toward the bath tub. My sump exploring days having reached a sadder but wiser end, I learned the first lesson in tempting fate: mistakes have consequences.

        My dad finished covering that hole. But many years elapsed before I dared to walk across the sump. The terror of something far worse than crocodiles and piranhas lurked beneath.