In my recent searches of YouTube caving videos, I overlooked this one.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_baD0NIba-E I assume it was recorded about a month ago. The video features some A.S.S. cavers getting wet and muddy in Whirlpool Cave. I could not help but to reminisce that Whirlpool Cave was probably the 4th or 5th cave I went in with the Aggie Speleological Society around November of 1984. Since then, I can only take a wild guess that 350 Aggie Cavers have ventured into this cave. And I can only assume that many more were there long before I went in. So it would be safe to say that 500 Aggie Cavers have probably been in Whirlpool Cave. ( now please hit the delete button ) Anyways, back to reminiscing. I think I went into Whirlpool Cave twice, the 2nd time around 1995. I am glad I got to see the cave, when it was still in a rural setting, with no gate on it. I can only imagine that a thousand cavers had been in it prior to our visit and many of them probably pushed leads that I as too large to crawl down. There were quiet a few caving-related road-trips that I went on from College Station ( especially in 1987 ), that I would have been better off to have stayed home and studied instead. But for me personally, the real problem was I did not belong in College Station. I would have been better off to have gone to a smaller school, maybe even Sul Ross. In those days, we did not have college campuses all over Houston, or on-line courses. I just did not know what I wanted to do with my life back then, and caving seemed to take some of the stress away. Here I am now, almost 55, still not knowing what the h*ck I plan to do. But crawling around in a cave, is not going to fix the pickle I am in now. If I had a time-machine, there is little I could do to fix anything, as I have a wonderful teenage daughter. I never could have predicted that. There was a old-timer, whose name I will not mention. Around 1986 or 1987, he mentored me, and adamantly encouraged me to focus on getting my life together, and postpone caving until a later time. I just could not see how caving was preventing me from accomplishing normal goals. Most of my caving was actually not underground, but just misadventures related to trying to go caving. But in hindsight, he was right. And more recently, a caver who I admire, has publicly encouraged me to get my life together, often offering cash to discourage me from caving or actually skipping attendance at caving gatherings. I actually listened to him once, but that was only because my road-trip home from the Rio Rancho Convention, really put the final nail in the coffin. David Locklear P.S. Sul Ross sent an acceptance letter to me into their Geology program in the fall of 1981 to begin in the fall of 1982. I chose not to go there, in part because my step-father had lived in Marfa for many years, and he told me that I would go stir-crazy living so far from the city. I had no idea then, that I would become interested in caves or socializing with cavers. But the main reason was that A&M came to my high-school with a booth about Ocean Engineering being the future of energy. And I bought into that, and so I completed my freshman year, as an Ocean Engineering major, with outstanding grades. It all went down hill from there, mostly because I got engaged. Man, was that stupid. My fiance attended the 1986 TCR with me. A few months later, Mr. Jasek, took a nice photo of us near the Squid Room in Inner Space Caverns, around 1987, which she later poured gasoline on and lit with a match. Fortunately, he gave us each a copy, and I still have it somewhere. I never heard from her again after that day, but the rumor was that she got married 6 months later and had 4 kids. As bad as that nightmare was, it was necessary to prepare me for the H*ll, I entered into in 2001, when I said those ill-fated words "I do."
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