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SLAM!
By D.Drake
From the April 1998 Flowstone
"You sure you don't want to take the caving GEO?" I asked, as I listened to the exhaust pipe putter as we pulled onto Hwy. 69.
"Naw, Ole Brownie may sound a little rough, but she ain't let me down yet," Vic replied, referring to his Chevy Scottsdale pickup whose driver side door al of a sudden flew open . . . SLAM
"What's the matter with your door?" I asked, halfway knowing what the answer would be.
"Aw, sometimes it doesn't latch," came the expected response. "I could probably get if to stay closed if I could get some force behind it, but the arm rest is about to come off and that's all I have to pull with."
Somehow the word yet still lingered in my mind. 'Ain't let me down yet is fine if you're going to Hooper's Well, I though as we continued down the highway, but we were on our way to South Pittsburg, TN, some two hours away. SLAM went the door again.
"Oh, by the way, you control the air conditioning" Vic informed. "Your window is the only one that will roll down. Mine is broke. Be
careful, your little vent window will fall out in the highway if you try to open it." SLAM
Vic and I had left Cullman at 10 a.m. and were to rendezvous with Patrick, Micah, and Evon in South Pittsburg. They had left earlier that morning and were going to Cedar Ridge Crystal Cave prior to meeting up with us to do South Pittsburg Pit and Cagle's Chasm Complex. At the pace we were going, I wondered if we would make it to South Pittsburg by nightfall. SLAM
"Why don't you give a little more gas to this Cadillac?" I urged.
"Well I don't want to go too fast" Vic replied. "The speedometer's broke." SLAM
By now it had become apparent that very little actually worked on this poster child for Ford trucks and it became a personal crusade of mine to find out just exactly what did work on Ole Brownie.
"Does the radio work?" I inquired.
"Oh yeah, it's got a good radio" he answered to my delight, as he leaned over to turn it on.
I wish I had never asked though, as Ferlin Husky or some other hillbilly came whining over the station he had dialed in. SLAM, SLAM
"Are you going to fall out over there?" I joked.
"Nah, I've learned not to lean on the door, and if I were you, I wouldn't lean on yours either." SLAM
By the grace of God, we made it to South Pittsburg, however, Patrick's troupe was not at the rendezvous place for South Pittsburg Pit.
"Maybe they decided to do Cagle's first," I speculated. SLAM
Upon arriving at Cagle's, we found no vehicle there either, so we returned to the afore-mentioned meeting place to see if they had since arrived. When there was still no sign of Pat's Isuzu, we decided to head to Cedar Ridge Crystal hoping to intersect them somewhere along the way. SLAM
As we journeyed down the Champs d'Elyse of South Pittsburg, Ole Brownie suddenly died.
"Oh hell, that ain't good" Vic relayed, as we coasted into the parking lot of Lion Beverages. Fortunately the liquor store was just off the exit ramp to I-24. We tried cranking Ole Brownie several times but to no avail. Yet had finally come into play. Ole Brownie had let us down. It appeared our only options were to hope that Patrick and Co. would see our vehicle on their way back from Cedar Ridge, or find a mechanic on a Saturday afternoon in a two-bit town, or go into Lion Beverages and get drunk. Vic's choice was obvious.
I stayed with the truck hoping to flag down Pat's Isuzu while Vic headed out in search of a mechanic. Fortunately, one was located. His diagnosis: bad fuel pump. About an hour-and-a-half later, we were back in business. We drove back to the parking area for S.P. Pit and found the Isuzu there. We parked the truck and geared up. Victor SLAMMED the driver's side door 17 times before finally propping it closed with a dead tree limb. (Now there's a theft deterrent)
S.P. Pit was Evon's first pit and a new depth record for her. She had done Painted Bluff before, but never a pit. She performed magnificently. We all bounced the hole once then left for Cagle's. A group from Indiana and a couple of cavers from Georgia were at the pit when we arrived, but they were just finishing up. The Indiana folks were heading to S.P. Pit.
We made it off the mountain before sundown, which is required at Cagle's, and ran into "Captain Caveman" (I swear that's what his printed cards said) who told us about Cavestock coming up in April at Smokey Caldwell's place. We finally bid the Superhero adieu so he could get on with his mission and we headed for the Liberty in Scottsboro to get some chow. SLAM
I begged Patrick to follow us but he declined saying he wanted to get to Cullman before morning.
"Do you smell plastic burning?" Vic inquired as we headed south on 72.
"Yeah," I confirmed, rolling down the only working window. "It's probably the fan belt." SLAM
"How do you roll this window back up anyway?"
"Oh, it's broke," came the now all too familiar response, "You'll have to pull it up with one hand while rolling with the other."
"By the way Vic, in the event that we miraculously make it back to Cullman, and should we run into some rain along the way, do your windshield wipers work?"
The answer should be obvious. SLAM!
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