5 Years Old Climbing a City Water Tower

Robert Finlay 5 Years Old Climbing the City of Westminster, Ca Water Tower

Climbing the city's water tank, I believe this was my first adventure. Well, the first adventure where I could very likely have died. I was five years old. 

The image above I created from memory. The actual water tower was probably not that tall, structurally it was an older type design, and likely a bit rusty. It's color was more of a silver-gray steel look. I don't remember there being a cage around the ladder. It was just a ladder that started right at the ground, went up, and curved with the water tank at the top. This city water tower was on Cherry or Cedar Street, between Westminster Blvd and 21st Street. It's no longer there.

Little kids those days could actually go out on adventures away from the house. You know, do things like walk to school by yourself which was about 1/2 mile away, cross busy boulevards, even go to the local market and pick up a few groceries or a half gallon of milk for your Mom.

But, my Mom was different than even most other moms of the time. For instance, I was the first kid on my block to be able to cross the street. She read to us things like "The Adventures of Tom Sawyer", "The Jungle Book", "White Fang", "Moby Dick", "The Last of the Mohicans", and many others. She read to us, she talked to us, she taught us values, personal responsibility, right and wrong. We went to Sunday School. I explored. I went on adventures. When I came back from adventuring, I had to give an account of my day. 

I always looked up to the red light on the top and wondered what it would be like to be up there. The property was fenced with chain link fence and the gate was locked with a simple chain between the two gate halves. All I had to do was duck under the chain and squeeze through the gates. These days, ladders are stowed above the ground and locked, so little kids like me can't climb them. But in this case, I just walked over to the ladder and started climbing.

And up, and up, and up I went all the way to the top of the ladder which was right at the red light. I remember bird poop on the light. For some reason, I traversed left around the light. I found that if I stepped on the rivet heads that bolted the steel plates together, I could move around and away from the ladder quite easily. So then I experimented with going down and going back up on the rivets.

And then - I slipped - sliding down - not fast - but definitely slipping. I looked down between my legs and aimed my feet for the next set of rivets - and came to a stop. I looked right to the ladder, traversed on the rivets, climbed down, went home, and I remember to this day telling my Mom about it. I think she said something like, "please be careful".   

My open palms must have pressed hard on the steel plates as I was slipping down, because to this day when I place my open palms on flat steel I get an ache in my joints and the memory of that fear returns.