Primordial

A hidden wilderness.

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Hidden in the heart of Parma, Ohio is a primordial wilderness. I don’t suppose I’m the only one who knows about it, but I’m certainly one of very few people who know about it. It’s surrounded by miles and miles of post WWII housing, and a population not much given to curiosity. I discovered it in the middle 1950’s.

At the time, my little brother, Rick, had just been enrolled in the nearby John Muir Elementary School. After I walked him to school, I noticed a wooded area about 100 feet south of the playground.

I walked over to investigate.

Trees in Parma were a rarity; a forest, almost unimaginable. After WWII, most of the town, including the trees, had been bulldozed to make room for returning G.I.’s and their brand-new families. It was remade with hundreds of nearly identical houses, new pavement, and tiny saplings on the tree-lawns. The carnage from the bulldozing included flattening the land, filling-in the low places, and knocking down hills. All this to make construction cheaper and easier. The result was soul-numbing. They could have left the landscape as it was and worked around it. They could have, but they didn’t.

The sight of full-grown trees seemed like a mirage.

I could see beyond the trees a sort of vague greenness. Looking more closely, I could see a deep ravine. I walked down and into it far enough to understand that this was a wide, deep gorge, stretching beyond sight, and filled with ancient, enormous trees. I wanted to explore more, but I had to catch my school bus to Parma Jr. High School. In the many days that followed I explored to my heart’s content.

My first trip was down the slope from the John Muir side. It was about a 60-degree incline, and easily walkable. The floor of the gorge was uneven. Small hills cut by rainstorm runoff created miniature ravines and valleys. Massive boulders were half buried all ‘round. Great hanging vines, ferns, and thick foliage gave it the look of a jungle. The gorge seemed as though it had been untouched for hundreds, perhaps thousands of years. To the west I could see a stream. It flowed from the south over a bottom of blue-gray slate which created a blue shimmer in the perfectly clear water. The stream ended in marshy wetland.

I pushed on south, following the flow of the stream.

There was a trail alongside the stream, and as I traveled southward, other trails branched off on either side of the water. All of these trails were narrow. They looked more like animal trails than human, even though I heard more animals than I saw. Birds I both saw and heard. They were everywhere.

The gorge was nearly a mile wide in some places. As I walked southward for about two miles I saw beyond a light-filled clearing. The open space was topped by a very large bridge 60 to 70 feet above. I walked under the bridge to the source of the stream. Four waterfalls fed the stream. The first waterfall dropped about 20 ft. from the rim of the gorge onto a flat landing where the water ran from east to west. The first landing was about 10 by 20 ft. From there the water changed direction flowing off to the south to the next three falls, each with similar drops, and similar landings, except for last landing. There the water fell some 30 ft. into the stream I’d followed.

I climbed to the rim. From there I walked back north toward the bridge road. There, I recognized the road across the bridge as Snow Rd. On the eastern side there was a meadow that ran from the rim of the gorge all the way to Broadview Rd.

The climb from bottom to rim had taken me from an ancient and exotic world back to a modern and mundane world. It was not where I wanted to be. I walked back to the falls and descended once more into the primordial.

Depressions in the landings of the falls were filled with shallow, still pools of clear water. The water from the falls, and throughout the gorge, was clear because it flowed over hard rock. In the many days I spent in this place, I often bathed in those pools. Well, I didn’t actually bath. I just sat, or waded.

The pools, when warmed by the summer sun were close to bathtub warm. I did my bathing naked, otherwise I would have had to walk home in wet clothes which would have required explaining to Mom, who would then have asked, ”What pools”? This, I did not want to start. Beside that, nobody cared about my nakedness. There was no one to see it.

I was completely enchanted by the gorge. I spent as much time exploring it as I could. Beside the waterfalls, pools and stream there was the overarching canopy formed by the tops of the gigantic trees which sheltered all below in mystic, and sometimes misty splendor. In the early afternoon the canopy would be pierced by stupendous beams of cathedral-like light.

In all the days I spent in this wonderland, I never saw another human. I’m sure someone must have known about this place, but I never heard anyone talk about it. I had it to myself – like Adam in Eden.

How, in the middle of Parma, Ohio - in this otherwise bleak post-war suburb, could this amazing grotto have survived?

I don’t know, but I have some ideas.

I think it was a matter of cost and expediency. Cutting those huge trees and removing those gigantic boulders would have been daunting and expensive. As would have been filling-in a gorge of that size. I think It was just not worth doing. Instead, they built up to the edge, and left it at that. The walls of the gorge were all steep, except at the John Muir side. The easy descent at that point was probably created by dumping the left-over rubble from the original bulldozing.

How it was ignored after that, I can’t imagine.

I wonder, too, if John Muir School was so named because the wilderness at its southern boundary was well known at the time of the naming? I don’t know, but it would certainly have been an understandable reason for connecting the new school to the famous old nineteenth century naturalist. It’s possible.

Times change. People forget.

I didn’t forget. In the mid-90’s I told my friend, Tom Simon, my memories of this fabulous place. We decided to see what it looked like now. A few days later, Tom got his camera equipment together, and off we went.

Since my last time at the spot, a small picnic-table sort of park had been built about a hundred feet from the west side of the falls. We left the car there. The falls were invisible until we were nearly upon them. They looked just as I remembered. We clambered down.

The going was a little rougher than I remembered from 45 years earlier.

Tom took some photos. We considered climbing down to the bottom of the falls, then re-considered. It was too steep, and we were too old.

I suggested driving over to the John Muir entrance. We were blocked there as well. The easy descent was gone. The slope had dropped, and over the years it had settled into a swamp - impassable without some kind of equipment. We gave up.

I asked Tom, recently, about the photos. He can’t find them.

A few weeks ago, I went back for another look.

The meadow I remembered was transformed decades ago into a shopping center.

A 10 ft. tall cyclone fence now prevents access to the falls. It was built some 20 feet from the rim. You can look through the fence, but you won’t be able to see the waterfalls hidden, just beyond.

Thomas Wolfe said you can’t go home again.

Maybe it’s the same for primordial memories.

By K. L. Shipley