Hells Hole

The most favorite place for the Mullins boys to hang out while on Okinawa was the boonies. It was like our playground. There was always something to do or someplace new to explore. One such place that we found was thick with trees and always felt much hotter than it was on the street. That is why we called it hells hole, it was hot as hell!

It was while we were in hells hole that we discovered another aspect of the island. When people would move from the island and they did not want to take their dog with them and could not find anyone to take it, they just turned it loose. The dogs formed packs of feral dogs that roamed the boonies. We referred to them as boonie dogs.

One day while we were down there the dogs caught our sent. They were not afraid of us in the least. Before we knew it we were surrounded by a pack. There must have been 15 to 20 dogs. There was no place to go. That’s when Donnie shouted “up, go up”. And that’s what we did. We all scrambled up the trees as high as we could go.

Before we knew it we were at the tops of the trees and out of the dogs reach. We were trapped! There was no place to go and the dogs were not going anywhere. So I continued to climb up. Up and out the top for the tree. I looked around and it was a sea of green. There were vines growing across the tops of the trees and was binding the branches together. I lay flat as I pulled myself completely out of the tree. It was like I was floating!

I stuck my head down and shouted for the rest to continue up and out the top. Before long everybody was lying on top of the trees and poking our heads down to see if the dogs were losing interest. They were still sniffing and roaming around. We could either stay where we were or we could try to move away. It was decided to see if we could travel the tree tops.

We started off spider crawling across the tops of the trees. It was slow at first but then we got the hang of it. Before we knew it we were a distance from where the dogs were. In fact we were having so much fun we had completely forgotten about they dogs! We poked our head through the trees and the dogs were gone.

That was the first time we had encountered the dogs and it wouldn’t be our last. As that was our first time “tree crawling” but it wouldn’t be our last either. It was so much fun to travel the tree tops and explore the boonies from a new perspective. It amazes me how we were so inventive back then and dared to think outside the box.

Think outside the box. There is no telling what you can accomplish and no telling what you may find out about your self. You might be surprised!