The Taj Mahal of Enterprise South

Took a walk with family this afternoon.  We went to the nature trails over near the new Volkswagen plant in Chattanooga.  The plant was built in Enterprise South, a large parcel of property that had been a WWll era munitions manufacturing facility.  The Enterprise South Nature Park is part of that old property.

There are several remnants of the facility that remain.  There are many underground ammo dumps that are still able to be seen.  The locked steel doors are in the hill sides and the 25 miles of trails wind their way around them.  For many years, this entire area was idle, and off limits to the public.

We walked up to one of these underground storage facilities, and noticed that the steel door had an opening with steel bars across it.  This one was labeled number 35.  I walked up to the door, bent down and looked into the opening that was thigh high.  I peered into the blackness and noticed that the dim light from the opening revealed yellow lines painted on the concrete floor.  The lines stretched from the door back into the darkness farther than can be seen.  No way to know how large the area was.

So I did something that was completely intuitive.  And I executed without thinking.   As I remember it now, it is exactly what I would have done if I had pondered it in advance.   It seemed to be a natural way to test the size of the room I was trying to see.

I howled.  Literally howled right into the opening.  And then received a huge surprise.  The surprise?  An echo that lasted a full 20 seconds!  It's true, I did it a 2nd time and timed the echo.  Never have I heard an echo that lasted that long!  In fact it matches the daytime reverberation in the Taj Mahal!

I remember the jazz flutist (yes I said flutist, not flautist - more later . . . ) Paul Horn.  He made a solo recording in the Taj Mahal, and actually played trios with himself - in single takes with no multi-track assistance!

I still do not know how large the space is inside number 35.  But it sounds VERY large!  If you ever have a chance to walk to ammo dump number 35, give it a howl.

If you wish to do it just as I did, however, make sure no one is looking!