NOTE: This park is in memorial of children killed and injured when a bomb shelter in the town exploded in 1972. The following news story is repeated from the Middlesboro Daily News Kentucky, 31 May 1972: OLD BOMB SHELTER EXPLODES, 5 KILLED. "Valdese, N.C. (UPI) -- A backyard bomb shelter built during the Cuban missile scare 10 years ago exploded Tuesday evening, killed five children who were playing on its steps. A sixth child was injured in the blast which authorities speculate may have been caused by leaking gas from a butane gas tank or fumes from large quantities of gasoline stored in the shelter. The powerful explosion blew the body of one child 300 feet onto a road and big pieces of the foot thick, steel reinforced concrete shelter were scattered over a wide area. The children, police said, were playing "kid's games" on the steps leading down into the 15-by-25 foot shelter textile executive ED GARROU had sunk into the side of a steep hill about 70 feet to one side of his $40,000 brick home. GARROU, during the shelter-building frenzy in the 1962 Cuban missile crisis, had stocked the shelter with large quantities of gasoline for an electric generator and also installed a butane tank. Keither Seigall, 19, a member of the Valdese Rescue Squad, said the explosion shook his trailer home three quarters of a mile away, and "when I got here, I smelled the gasoline fumes real strong." The dead included GARROU'S daughter, JEAN ANITA, 12, DONALD ROBINSON, 13, his sister REGINA, 10, GLORIA HAMMOND, 12, and MIKE POWELL, 10. The only survivor among the neighborhood children playing at the shelter was BEA PICOU, the GARROU child's cousin, who lives next door. The state bureau of investigation (SBI) was called in to look for the cause of the explosion that rocked this small town in the foothills of the Blue Ridge mountains. The force of the explosion went mostly downhill, through the door. The heavy roof caved in, burying the bodies of three of the victims under such a pile of rubble that authorities had to bring in heavy equipment to uncover them. Seigall, one of the first on the scene, said when he arrived, "the PICOU girl was in the grass, and she was alive." Authorities said there were very few such shelters in Valdese, and Garrou"s was expensive to construct. Family friends said he "kept it up" and frequently changed the water and food stored inside. However, Deputy Fire Marshal Sherrill Brittain said there were "a good many" bomb shelters in Valdese."
The actual genesis of this cache, rather than its location, was an "obligatory" mariachi show that we attended on one of our earliest vacations in Mexico, many more years ago than I care to mention. The show was fully booked, and we shared a table with a very pretty woman who was on a delayed honeymoon with her six-year-old son and the son's new stepfather. The boy grew restive as the show went on, and he would dart out onto the dance floor every time the band started a new dance number. The band leader first stopped him saying, "The next one's for the kids!" and the boy came back to the table and excitedly told that to his mother. But the child was the only person under the age of 14-or-so at the show, and the band leader kept putting him off until the boy went to sleep in his chair. Leaving him under our eye, the woman and her new husband ventured out onto the dance floor, and in the middle of a frenzied salsa number, she had a very brief, but very entertaining "wardrobe malfunction." That alone made it impossible for me to ever forget the evening -- or at least I hope so -- and this one's for the kids!
[This cache started as a two gallon plastic jar stocked with a couple of dozen individual packages for young children. As successive containers have been muggled, along with their stash, I have replaced them with successively smaller containers in successively less accessible locations in the park. The current contain is a pint-sized plastic jar covered with duct tape. For the current location, plan for all usual woodland conditions, i.e. the possibility of briars, poison ivy, snakes, insects that sting and bite, etc. For best access to the current hide, use the route shown in the hint. There will be poison ivy, briars, and a strong possibility ticks, chiggers, spiders, mosquitoes, etc. Due to muggling, this new hide in a little way up -- or down, depending -- a bank covered with moderately thick undergrowth and lot of mostly smaller briers. You can get to the cache from the field level below or a service road above. You probably will spot the likely hide very quickly and if you carefully pick a roundabout way to it, you can avoid the briers and also help to avoid a telltale trail to the cache. There are restrooms and picnic facilities, as well as a playground, on the premises. Normal park hours and regulations apply..]
*/*/*/*/*/*/*And the FTF goes to Firedriven. STARS 'N' BARS for Firedriver!*/*/*/*?*/*/*