three of us went into the cave that day now I get a little fuzzy on details but I know jimie was there CU he's the one who threw the Rock and I know my friend Terry was there because he kept going on about his watch my friend Terry was a techie before that was really a thing and he had just gotten this new watch Timex had come out with this in tolow watch line and this watch had this new cool feature you hit a button and it lit up this fluorescent bluish green color and a
funny thing I told some kids this story and they all wanted to know did the watch have GPS or could you play games on the watch I said no it was the 80s the watch lit up it's what it did they weren't impressed but we thought it was cool and since I was the only one who had been into the cave before with the older kids I had the flashlight and I led the way now now the entrance to the cave was a r of Passage all on its own it was less than 30 in
in diameter it was a 40ft claustrophobic crawl that not everybody could make but for those who did it was worth it because it then opened up into this massive Ballroom siiz Cavern and it had all these connecting tunnels that led to other Caverns there was a steep drop off section with a shallow ledge that forced you to kind of hug the wall as you maneuvered across there was even an underground river River and we had made it just about that far when we started to hear noises we heard these squeaking scratching rustling noises so I
shined my light to the towards the sound in the ceiling and there were bats there were 50 bats 100 bats there could have been a thousand bats hanging from the top of that cave and that's when Jamie threw the Rock now I don't know if jimie actually hit a bat but he might as well have cuz those bats got pissed and those bats descended into that Cavern like a big black bat tornado and I don't know where I got the thought I don't know if I read it in a book or if I heard it
in a movie but my only thought was that bats attack the hair of the head and so I fell to the ground and I threw my hands up to protect my head somewhere in the midst of all of that bat frenzy attack yelling screaming Calamity and commotion I dropped the flashlight it went out and it was dark it was Pitch Black jet black it was deathly black now apart from being home to some of the the most magnificent cave systems in the world a lesser known fact about South Central Kentucky is it's also full of
Ghosts no the ghost of a welltoo southern debutant who in her vanity and anger cursed the sky and God above and was struck down by lightning the ghost of a freed slave who was killed in a clearing at the end of a dirt road in the old County on one of my earlier four race into the cave the older kids told me another ghost story they told me a story about an awkward Shy Boy Named Lonnie who was lured into the cave by some of the older kids of his day kids who played a prank
a prank that went tragically wrong and according to the legend Lonnie never made it out of that cave and it was right then with my head full of ghost stories that something appeared before me there in the darkness I seen a face floating there in the darkness and I was frozen stiff and I reeled back in shock when the face spoke and what the face said was you dropped the flashlight in the river I had three reactions the first of which was confusion followed quickly by realization and relief I was relieved when I realized that
the face that I saw there floating in the darkness was not the face of the ghostly face of a boy named Lonnie but the face of my friend Terry illuminated by the glow of the in thlow [Applause] watch it would be eight years before I would become a soldier in the United States Army and get the kind of night navigation training I could have I could have used that day but I'd get a crash course because you know the light of the watch only allowed us to see a few feet in front of us so
we were forced to crawl most of the way clutching tightly to each other's belt loops and we encountered several Creepy Crawlers and it took us twice as long to get out as it did to get in but we were able to find our way out of the darkness by the Light of the iglow [Applause] watch and our adventures didn't end there at the cave there would be many more close calls and narrow escapes but somehow we managed to survive those restless and Reckless Southern Kentucky Summers and I don't know if there ever really was a
boy named Lonnie but if there was I hope he found his Guiding Light as well thank you
