Don't Kill the Cow

The Dayton Underground Grotto
of the National Speleological Society

Landowner Relations
Don't Kill The Cow
by Debbie Moore

Reprinted from the March 1998 Electric Caver of the Greater Cincinnati Grotto

There are no stereotypical landowners. They run the full gamut, molded by their upbringing, education, spiritual views, their participation (or lack of) in society, and probably genetics (just like cavers). I am not a cave owner, I am a caver. I am always immensely grateful when I am allowed access to a cave. Given today's society and the propensity towards lawsuits, even with my background as a caver, I am not so sure I would allow huge herds of strangers to come and go at all hours of the day and night.

Part of this story comes from experiences my friends and I have had over the past decade, some of it comes from being in the "landowner" seat on my parents' farm when hunting season opens up and the herds of big-city hunters come barreling across the property, with or without permission. The stories I've heard of rude cavers and the experiences I've had with rude hunters seem to be pretty parallel: leaving gates open, driving over crops to get to where they want to go, parking in my mother's way, upsetting the dog or the baby, not asking permission when the landowner requires it.

One rude person gives an activity a bad name.

THE CONTACT PERSON

The first person to make contact should have some basic qualifications:

"People" personality. A loner with shifty eyes generally is not a good person to send to the door. Have a vocabulary larger than 13 words and a broader mind than one topic. Usually you just can't strut up to the door and say, hey, I hear you have a cave, mind if we check it out? Sometimes you can, but at least say "hello" first. If more conversation is required, fish around for something, but not politics or religion; inquiring as to their health might be a safe bet, although if they are very old, it could become a long-winded monologue but that's OK. If you can only talk about body noises and Bevis & Butthead, or have no words in your vocabulary containing less that five syllables, somebody else should be responsible for initiating conversation. It helps to be a well-rounded person and able to be flexible in conversing.

Looks: clean cut but not overly preppy, not that there are a lot of preppy cavers anyway. I used to cave with a guy who had a great personality and was a real "people" person, in the right situation. He looked like an albino sumo wrestler, complete with waist length hair that he occasionally tied into a top-knot of some sort. We always made him sit in the car.

Dress "relaxed", it seems to be a middle ground. Once in a while you will find a landowner whose house is sterile and your muddy boots and camouflage clothes are going to terrify them. Once in a while you find a landowner with chickens running through the house, and dishes from a month ago and beer bottles with chew in them strewn everywhere. Your LL Bean clothes are going to piss them off. The albino sumo wrestler didn't seem to own anything but neon spandex, another reason he stayed in the car.

The same sex. With the "man of the house" out, the woman may be more inclined to talk to another woman and grant permission, but tell a man that you will have to ask her husband. Remember, some people's cultures are not the same as yours. Don't be judgmental.

BASIC RULES:

Watch the weather. If it is threatening to rain, don't worry the landowner by asking to go in when the only entrance is prone to flooding shut, even if you know there is a safe place to stay inside. No amount of explaining will ease their worry and it would be most embarrassing if you were wrong and your body gets flushed out into the local lake via an unknown and under-the-water's-surface hole.

Be friendly to the dogs. Most caves are in the country, and most rural landowners have dogs. Be aware however, that some dogs are guard dogs and they might be guarding more than the house. One time some of my caver buddies accidentally found a previously unknown entrance from the inside of the cave after an exceptionally long, grueling trip, and decided to exit out of it since it was well after midnight and it would be much faster to get back to the vehicles overland.

However, they popped out on somebody else's property and the Rottweilers and Dobermans weren't exceptionally friendly. Neither was the landowner, at that hour of night, or that season of the year, or on that particular location on his property. Refer to the part on "non-discernible" sources of income and try to hear the shotgun going off. True story, I swear.

Do not run over children playing in the driveway. Drive slowly and cautiously, there is no way to compensate for this type of damage and all cavers may as well forget about the area.

Don't have beer on your breath. Maybe you like it for breakfast, but the landowner might not be too impressed. Also, don't go up to the door stoned. If you naturally look stoned, stay in the car and let somebody else handle the situation.

Don't fake the local accent. If you're a "damn yankee" in the south, you aren't going to endear yourself to them any more by trying to act like you're their long lost buddy.

Have a good answer prepared to the question "why do you do it?" I once had a landowner eye me suspiciously and ask me if I were a Fed or something. I just shrugged and said, nah, it was closer than climbing a mountain and he was satisfied. I once had a woman who looked severely harassed by several little children running around ask why I did it. I told her it can be a nice, quiet experience into adventure. She looked very wistful, like she wanted to knock all of her kids into the nearest pit, but she smiled and said to be careful.

Be cognizant of your income. Your nice new $60,000 SUV isn't going to endear yourself to the landowners if they are driving a 72 Chevy pickup (minus muffler) being held together with baling wire and duct tape. The reverse is also true.

Be cognizant of the time of year and THEIR income. Fall might not be a good time to ask to go ridgewalking, especially if the landowner has a fairly nice place, but no discernible source of income.

Wave. At everybody outside in the area. Use either a full hand with one left to right motion only (no flapping), or just point one finger with the same motion. If you use the latter, remember you are in the country and not the city. Use the INDEX finger.

THINGS TO FIND OUT:

Their bedtime and when they get up. Early morning to them may be the pre-dawn hours where to me, generally anything before noon is "early". If they mention time frames, try to be specific in a general sort of way, oxymoronic, I know, but how about "10:00, give or take an hour or so" . . . some landowners worry, you know. Also, remember that in some cultures, dinnertime is noon. The evening meal is called supper. Brunch is uppity.

Do they oppose seeing one woman with 5 men? It could give the wrong impression as to just exactly what goes on underground.

Do they go to church? What time? A lot of churchgoers find it offensive to try to get out of their driveway on Sunday morning only to have it clogged with naked cavers. Some, of course, might find it entertaining, but I doubt it.

Does bizarre hairstyles bother them? (See the line about the albino sumo wrestler. I do know one landowner however, who found the girl with half of her head shaved and a tattoo of her dog above her ear to be very entertaining.)

Does young people going underground seem too dangerous to them? Young, of course, is a matter of perspective, but you might not want to take your 7 year old up to the door with you, or let his head be seen bobbing around in the car, if you are asking permission from nervous landowners to drop a pit. The moral implications of dropping that 7 year old into their pit is another problem.

Will they always want to talk to the same one or two people every visit, or do they want to meet everybody on the trip, or even more to the point, are they going to welcome great herds of cavers? This goes along with limiting the number vehicles and the number of people on the trip. Several vehicles squealing into the lane may give the impression of a raid. (See paragraph about no discernible source of income). Sometimes landowners who have caves that are known require you to call ahead. Do it, but at an appropriate time, like during daylight.

Try to find out how they get along with their neighbors. The Hatfields may welcome you but the McCoys might shoot out your tires when you drive down the road after exiting the cave at 3:00 a.m. The impact of caving is rarely felt solely by the guy with the hole on his property, especially when there are several occupied residences on the tiny gravel road, all of which have noisy dogs and most of which have noisy children. Cavers' presence may be a good thing, or a bad thing.

Do they want to know when you come out? If they do, change your clothes (discreetly) first. One landowner I know always wants people to stop by after the trip because he wants to make sure we "had a good time" but another one just has us honk the horn when we drive by. There is another one that always wants everybody out by dark (which seems kind of strange to me since we've spent the whole day in the dark but oh, well.) Others don't care at all and figure they get your vehicle and its contents if you don't return.

THINGS TO LEAVE AT HOME

ATTITUDE:

It is their property, not yours. They don't owe you a damn thing, so don't act like they do. YOU ARE THE OUTSIDER.

BRIBERY:

Presents are always appreciated but make sure it doesn't offend them, and is something they can use: a fifth of Jack should go to somebody who drinks, and Death By Chocolate cake should not go to a diabetic, and never ever give zucchini to anybody. It multiplies like crazy and if anybody in the community raises it, everybody in the community has it. It is even better if you can make something yourself, or pay somebody to do it and pretend you made it yourself like home-made bread. A holiday ham or turkey is appreciated too.

ADVERSE EFFECTS OF BRIBERY:

A lot of landowners like maps and photo albums, and even complimentary grotto newsletters, but it can backfire. What if the landowner's cave goes under the property of his next door neighbor with whom he is having boundary disputes? (Been there, done that.) What if the photos show a setting that appears dangerous? What if the newsletter tells about a cave accident or harrowing experience in another cave somewhere? Uh-huh, you get the point.

BASIC POLITENESS:

Be receptive to their mood. If they are talkers, don't cut them off in your hurry to get underground, even if you've had a bad week at work and have driven 10 hours to get there and a flat tire on the way. Even if they've always let you go before, they might be having a bad day themselves and want to talk about it, so try to put your adrenaline aside for a little bit.

Are they interested in what you find? Some landowners could care less, others are very interested. Try to ascertain why they would be interested and how far any news will travel. We once found some really nice quartz crystals is a not-too-difficult location and mentioned it to the landowner. He mentioned it to someone local who mentioned it to someone else, and they later came up missing. I remember hearing of a similar incidence in a saltpetre cave with some artifacts.

DO NOT BRING UP LIABILITY UNLESS THEY DO AND APPROACH ENVIRONMENTAL TOPICS WITH FINESSE.

Yes, there are people out there who dump their trash in sinkholes because God takes care of it when it rains. Never mind that it is being flushed into their water supply, or that these are the very same people who won't let you enter the spring because you'll muddy their drinking water. It is a very dicey situation to contend with: a caver's love of the environment vs. the landowner's "practical" views.

BE HUMAN:

The Central Indiana Grotto sends Christmas cards to landowners. The cavers from the Long Hollow Project went around to each landowner one year at Christmas and gave scented candles to them, whether or not they allowed cavers in the entrance on their particular patch of ground over the system. It was appreciated by the ones who do allow access and an invaluable gesture of good-will to those who worry about liability and don't allow access. It said the cavers understood their position.

In time, you just may find an invaluable friend in a landowner, not just somebody with a cave. You'll help them work on their vehicle (or they'll help you chase down parts late on a Sunday afternoon for yours), and they'll let you crash on the floor if the roads get bad. They'll stop your nosebleed and laugh at your screw-ups and accept your strange but well-meaning gifts. They'll bail you out of jail when you get tossed in for running a stop light in some hick town or drinking a beer somewhere where you weren't supposed to. They'll help the local EMTs rescue you. You'll pick something up in the city on the way down to see them and help put new gravel in the driveway when you've worn it out. You'll help them build a gate and check the water line to the spring. You'll help them fight against their local environmental atrocities, and help in some subtle way if they become financially strapped. You'll take time out to attend a local festival with them and share a few meals and buy baby presents and send birthday cards and bring the latest book by a favorite author. Your kids will play together and you might even take some family member underground. They'll be your buffer when the locals don't understand you.

And you'll attend their funeral and mourn the incredible loss.

Debbie Moore
NSS 28444
In memory of Cathy Crockett