They were primarily concerned for Gary and Richard.  They seemed to be afraid that they would get lost in the sewer, and I worked hard at explaining to them that there was no way that they could get lost.   I assured them that Gary and Richard would call and let them know that they were safe.

They finally gave us stern warnings and turned us lose.  They also said that they wanted to talk to our parents.   This did not bother me much, since I didn't live at home, but Gary's dad and mom were furious.  They told Gary in no uncertain terms that I was a troublemaker and that he and Russ were not to associate with me ever again.

Richard, instead of letting the police call his mom, took it on himself to call the police.  "I understand that my son was involved with some trouble involving a sewer…" said Richard.

Gary ignored his mom and it was not long before he and I were involved with exploring the Los Angeles City Storm drain system...

In 1954 Hollywood produced a low budget Science Fiction picture entitled "Them."
It was a story about Giant Mutant Ants invading Los Angeles through the LA storm drain system. 

It was some 8 or nine years after the movies release, but this film inspired Richard into goading us into another adventure. 

Richard discovered that the Los Angeles storm drain system was constructed during World War II and had a secondary purpose.  The drains were designed to move troops and equipment through the city.  Most were interconnected and constituted a subsurface maze. 

The procedure for entering the storm drains was fairly easy.  My brother-in-law worked for City Public Works, and I borrowed several flags from him.  We would put up the flags, and enter the drains.  This procedure seemed to work well for us and no one seemed to pay us much notice. 

We made several exploratory trips and then made a big mistake.  We told a number of our friends about it.  Before long, we had a large crowd of young people wanting to become urban cave explorers.   We decided that the best time to explore would be after dark. I know that is a silly way to think, but that is how our minds worked at that time. 
We took our friends down to a culvert with a sidewalk manhole.  I put up the flags, lifted the manhole cover and waved to our friends.  They came running with their lights and miners hats, bottled pop, and other snack food.   They noisily jumped down the culvert man hole, and waited in a small box like room situated alongside the road.  The room served as a drainage catch basin with an open slit at curb level.  We then crawled down a 3 ½ foot round pipe to a 6 foot square drain.  The six foot drain emptied into what appeared to be a huge drain.  It was large enough to accommodate two freight trains.  The large drain had numerous junctions where it met with other large drains.  This was not our first time exploring these "caverns" and we noticed that if you walked long enough in one, that the gradient would change and that the water would drain in different directions;  in some places draining into the Los Angeles River, Centinela Creek or other Drainage Channels.

I thought to myself "No wonder giant ants were able to invade the city."

We walked a good distance, ate our snacks, and then decided that it was time to return. We had a coin toss to see who would go back and get the cars.  Gary and I won the toss.  Richard and the others decided to stay and wait for us to pick them up.

Gary and I crawled through the 3 ½ foot round pipe into the square room under the sidewalk.  I peeked out from under the cub and I was not pleased with what I observed.

"Gary" said I. "Cops."

There were police all over the place; cars, both marked and unmarked. 

"I think we had better get out of here," said Gary as he started sliding down the 3 ½ foot diameter pipe.

No sooner did Gary say that, then a cop spotted me peeking at them from under the curb.

"Hey you guys," said the police man.  "Stop!" 

I was down the hole faster than I thought possible.  Gary and I started running.  I could hear the sound of someone removing the manhole cover.  I knew that we needed to move, to move fast.    We ran down the main channel for some distance and were surprised to see Dickey Dietz, another of our friends walking toward us.

"You are going the wrong way," I said, "I think that there are cops behind us."

Dickey told us that things did not look good on his end either. "Chuck and I decided to leave the room under our culvert and buy some snacks.  We bought our snacks, and then climbed back into the man hole.  Someone saw us and called the cops.  The cops have Chuck and Richard.  I ran down the main tunnel.  I don't think they wanted to come after me."

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