I was about 13 or 14—somewhere between 7th and 8th grade. Early 70s. Probably around ’74 or ’75.

Back then, we had space. Real space.

The kind where boys could disappear for a day—or a night—and no one thought much about it. Woods, creeks, lakes. Tents. Campfires. Bikes that took you farther than you probably should’ve gone.

One of those places belonged to a good friend of mine, Carl Childers.

His family had land out in Connelly Springs, tucked behind an old hosiery mill. Back in the woods sat a small cabin—what people today would call a tiny house. Maybe 200 square feet at most. One room. A front porch. No real comforts.

To us, it was perfect.

We’d spend nights out there—sleeping on the floor, building fires, doing the kind of things boys do when no one’s watching and nothing is scheduled.

Exploring. Building. Testing limits.

Behind the mill were these old concrete water pools, about three feet deep, fed by a creek. They used to be part of the mill’s cooling system, but by then they were mostly abandoned.

To us, they were something else entirely.

We could turn the old gate valves, fill them up, and swim, splash, and experiment. It didn’t take much imagination to turn those pools into something bigger.

And then one day, we found it.

An old tank. Heavy. Metal. Looked important.

To us, it was obvious what it was.

A scuba tank.

Now, at that age, I was completely fascinated with Jacques Cousteau. I watched everything I could. Read whatever I could find. I didn’t just want to see the ocean—I wanted to explore it.

And suddenly, standing there in the woods…

We had our chance.

We decided we were going to build a submarine.

Not a model. Not a toy.

A real one. One we could get inside.

The plan, if you can call it that, was simple. We’d build a frame out of scrap 2x4s, wrap it in chicken wire, and somehow coat it with fiberglass. That would give us a sealed structure. Then we’d hook up the “air tank” and breathe through tubes.

That was the extent of our engineering knowledge.

We didn’t know carpentry.
We didn’t know fiberglass.
We definitely didn’t understand air systems.

But we had an idea—and that was enough.

We started gathering materials. Scrap wood. Wire. Anything we could find. We hammered together a rough frame and began shaping what we were sure would become our underwater vessel.

We made drawings. Talked through designs. Imagined ourselves descending into those three-foot-deep “depths” like we were exploring the ocean floor.

We weren’t just playing.

We were fully committed.

I remember going home one night, excited, telling my dad what we were doing.

“We’re building a submarine.”

Now, that could’ve gone a lot of ways.

He could’ve shut it down. Told me it was dangerous. Told me it was foolish.

Instead, he said something I didn’t expect.

He told me he knew someone—a man he’d gone to school with—who had gone on to design submarines for the Navy.

Then he said, “Why don’t we call him and ask?”

And we did.

I don’t remember what the man said. I don’t remember if he laughed, or encouraged us, or tried to explain why it wouldn’t work.

What I remember is this:

My dad didn’t say no.

He leaned in.

Now, for the record—we never finished the submarine.

Summer ran out. Interest shifted. Something else caught our attention, like it always does at that age.

And looking back, that’s probably a good thing.

Because there’s no telling how that experiment would’ve ended.

But that’s not really the point.

What stayed with me wasn’t the failure.

It was the freedom.

The freedom to try something that big.
That unrealistic.
That borderline dangerous.

And the way my parents handled it.

They didn’t panic.
They didn’t crush it.
They didn’t shame the idea.

They simply guided it.

“Let’s do it right.”
“Let’s ask someone who knows more.”

That mattered more than I understood at the time.

Because it set a pattern.

A way of approaching life that didn’t start with fear—it started with curiosity. With movement. With saying yes, and then figuring things out along the way.

That same instinct followed me into bigger risks later on—traveling across the country at 17, stepping into unfamiliar places, trusting God in ways that didn’t always feel safe or predictable.

It all traces back to moments like that.

A half-built submarine in the woods.
A crazy idea.
And a father who didn’t shut it down.