Right now I'm listening to the debut album from The Black Crowes, "Shake Your Money Maker". There are some albums that I could never get sick of, and this is one of them. It was 12 years ago this month, probably a week or two before I would make the first phone call to the girl who would soon after end up being the high school girlfried I was with for over a year (2nd longest running relationship of mine). I was watching Mtv and a VJ introduced a video from a brand new band with "kind of a blues" sound to them. I really dug it. Then I kept hearing that same song, "Jealous Again" on the radio. It seriously grew on me. I had to buy that tape. So I did, and later on that summer I'd even buy a T-shirt. It always got the comments of "The Black Crowes? Who are THEY?"

But this is one of those albums that reminds me of those summer trips to The Void. That was a name I coined for a very special, secluded hang-out spot in my town. Bringing the boom box and selected tapes was always an insisted necessity. That Black Crowes tape was one of the ones I'd bring down often, along with Led Zeppelin (especially Led Zeppelin III) and Alice Cooper's "Love It To Death". In fact, I remember one of my best friends during those years saying that he couldn't listen to that Alice tape in other times of the year, because it depressed him, reminding him of the summer.

Off one of the streets in my town, there's some kind of fenced-off generator building next to a paved road that's extends completely straight into the 10-foot tall grasses. A yellow waist-high metal gate was at the front end of the road, locked and blocking the entrance. The road has been aptly referred to as "quarter-mile road". It was so straight and flat that it looked like it went on forever, into nothingness. That's why we called the whole place "The Void". A friend of mine and I would always ask each other "I wonder what's down there?" So one day we packed some things and went down there. I was 14.

There were railroad tracks parellel to the road, so maybe the whole thing reminded me of the movie "Stand By Me". The road ended and turned into a bigger paved area, next to another one of those odd buidlings. What is it with these buildings anyway? Or these locked storage palces you find in parks? You'll be walking along the woods, and suddenly find this building that's locked up and looks like it hasn't been accessed in years. Lots of room for crazy conspiracy theory here. I've seen city workers there on occasion, though. Likewise there was an electrical plant, completely fenced and looking abandoned. But the main hang out area was on the pavement in front of the water purification plant (or we at least assumed that's what it was, with the river running through it). Eventually we brought a marker and on the bricks (where there was some graffiti anyway) we started writing the dates we visited.

We obviously weren't the only people who knew about this place, though. There were some trips where I'd see a passing dirt biker, dog walker, or jogger. Still, if I can think of one physical place in my life that I've viewed as a sanctuary, it's The Void.

Further into the woods was the back of this next-door "bituminus" company. They did some mining and blasting; I'm sure exactly what for. But in the back, which you could see from the woods, was a canyon. It was a man-dug quary, with some ground water at the bottom. The water was green from the limestone (presumably). My friend dubbed this place "The Toxic Bowl". But wow, what an incredible view. The whole place was still fenced in, but there was a lookout point where you could see the entire quarry in all its glory. In winter you could sometimes get echos with at least a one second delay. But again, the main hang out was still back on that pavement part, just beyond the end of the quarter-mile road.

The weather's getting a little warmer. I think I'll go back there soon. Who knows, maybe I can even do some song writing down there.