For forty-five-year-old Josh "Rusty" O'Brien, it seems only a few years ago he was a young boy growing up in Oakwood Acres, Pennsylvania, a quiet suburb where everyone knew everyone. That thought takes him back to the summer of 1973, when he and his buddies were fifteen years old. Josh, Jake Thompson, Joey Flynn, and Walt McDonald were virtually inseparable; it was a summer to be treasured.

Their favorite pastimes were hanging out together and riding their dirt bikes in and around their small suburb, especially after Josh buys his 1969 Suzuki 250 Trail Bike. Bored with the same old track in town, the four plan a riding excursion that takes them farther from town into the rural area, past old man Simmons' place, and out to the abandoned mine.

While checking things out, the four unexpectedly tumble into a twenty-foot hole. They spend the night in the hole, hoping and praying their parents will find them. But what happens during their eighteen-hour ordeal changes their lives.

For forty-five-year-old Josh "Rusty" O'Brien, it seems only a few years ago he was a young boy growing up in Oakwood Acres, Pennsylvania, a quiet suburb where everyone knew everyone. That thought takes him back to the summer of 1973, when he and his buddies were fifteen years old. Josh, Jake Thompson, Joey Flynn, and Walt McDonald were virtually inseparable; it was a summer to be treasured.

Their favorite pastimes were hanging out together and riding their dirt bikes in and around their small suburb, especially after Josh buys his 1969 Suzuki 250 Trail Bike. Bored with the same old track in town, the four plan a riding excursion that takes them farther from town into the rural area, past old man Simmons' place, and out to the abandoned mine.

While checking things out, the four unexpectedly tumble into a twenty-foot hole. They spend the night in the hole, hoping and praying their parents will find them. But what happens during their eighteen-hour ordeal changes their lives.

This book is a study of communities that drew their identity and livelihood from their relationships with water during a pivotal time in the creation of the social, economic and political landscapes of northern Europe. It focuses on the Baltic, North and Irish Seas in the Viking Age (ad 1050-1200), with a few later examples (such as the Scottish Lordship of the Isles) included to help illuminate less well-documented earlier centuries. Individual chapters introduce maritime worlds ranging from the Isle of Man to Gotland - while also touching on the relationships between estate centres, towns, landing places and the sea in the more terrestrially oriented societies that surrounded northern Europe's main spheres of maritime interaction. It is predominately an archaeological project, but draws no arbitrary lines between the fields of historical archaeology, history and literature. The volume explores the complex relationships between long-range interconnections and distinctive regional identities that are characteristic of maritime societies, seeking to understand communities that were brought into being by their relationships with the sea and who set waves in motion that altered distant shores.