Readers are reminded that Squire Lewis authored (and Old Man Wisdom
illustrated) a wonderful book titled Chronicles of the Old Reading Grotto. The
passage Bill Mixon quotes about Lew Bicking appears on page 73-74 of that book.
This 1993 work is still in print and has occasionally been available at Texas
caver functions. It's a great read! I commented on the book and about
Squire's passing in a short article for the Texas Caver many years ago. Here
is the text of that article:
Squire
Squire Lewis passed on this last spring. I didn't know about it at
the time and got the news only after all the dust had settled. At the same time
I learned of a piece he had authored called CHRONICLES of the OLD READING
GROTTO which details an incredible odyssey in the summer of 1966. I just read
this work, cover-to-cover; non-stop. It's wonderful! This journey, made with
two companions, spanned almost 17,000 miles coast to coast and Pennsylvania to
Acapulco. It's not the trip that is important, it's the way they did it. It's
how they traveled, what they saw and did and the conclusions they formed
thereby. This is a tale of the shifting values which lead up to the era later
known as "hippie-time." But it's before hippies; before long hair and beads.
It's about a time when questions were being asked about the way in which we
lived, which things were really important, and how we as individuals fit into
the larger puzzle. It's about the realization that suits, ties, and the
"establishment" aren't always right, or at least that they represent only one
way of doing things.
Squire does a wonderful job of describing the era. If you were
there, you'll understand completely. If you weren't, or were a little young
(or old) at these times, you'll still come away with a good feeling as to what
it was all about. In a way, it's almost an anthropological source book. Its a
catalog of most of the things that regular folks never experience. My family
always did things the normal way. On trips, we traveled eight hours in a
normal day, took our meals where there were waiters or at least people in
uniforms, and slept in vermin free hotels. Had it not been for my association
with caves and cavers, I might have completed my life without sleeping the
night in the parking lot at Cueva de Cacahuamilpa or dining in a mosca infested
"restaurant" in San Luis del Cordero, or. . . .
Because of people like Squire, I learned an alternate life style;
another way to view the planet. After 30-odd years, I have yet to meet
people other than cavers who embrace that style, although I suspect that some
of the climbers and rafters may come close, and I imagine that those outside
the U.S. must commonly fall in step. The difference is, in "second-world"
countries, they are born to it in most cases and we, in the U.S., must come to
it somehow. The thing is, if you must have a soft bed and a hot shower and a
"store-bought" meal on each occasion, you'll miss a lot and probably never know
you missed it.
So. . . you ought to buy, or at least read, this classic piece of
caver-oriented literature. It's 146 pages of great reading and wonderful
illustrations by Charlie Loving [who is able to do to society with a cartoon
what Squire did with text].
Squire and I were not friends. Nodding acquaintances is about as
close as we got. That not withstanding, I'll miss him considerably because of
what he represented. As they say in certain other circles upon the death of a
respected elder: "We are diminished."
===Carl Kunath
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
-----Original Message-----
From: Mixon Bill
Sent: Saturday, August 06, 2011 9:32 AM
To: Cavers Texas
Subject: [Texascavers] book review: Lew Bicking
"Lew Bicking: A Legendary American Cave Explorer." Edited by David W.
Hughes. National Speleological Society; 2011. ISBN: 978-1-879961-40-1.
7 by 10 inches, 324 pages plus plates, hardbound. $36; discounts for
NSS members.
"Solo" Lew Bicking was an enthusiatic and hard-charging caver from his
novice days in 1961 until his early death in a motorcycle accident in
1966. He gave his name to the NSS's annual Lew Bicking Award for the
exploration and mapping of a cave or group of caves. (Originally,
documentation--publishing--was also a requirement, before the secrecy
types got to it.) Bicking was best known for exploration in the East,
especially the Friars Hole Cave System in West Virginia, but he went
west a few times, including for the 1964 NSS convention in Texas and
the 1966 convention in California, after both of which he did some
post-convention caving in Mexico.
David Hughes's recent book on Vertical Bill Cuddington (NSS, 2008) was
written to be read. This book is a compilation that can only be
browsed. It contains what appears to be everything ever written about
Bicking's caving, by Lew or anybody else, mainly trip reports from the
heyday of the Baltimore Grotto News. Included are a number of
obituaries and items concerning the collection of the Lew Bicking Fund
and the creation of the award. There is a section of twenty-nine black-
and-white photos on pages not assigned numbers (shame!). Many of the
articles are well written and interesting, but there are an awful lot
of them. Finding the ones most informative and entertaining to you
will be a matter of supernatural persistence, or luck. My favorite
summing up was written by Squire Lewis on encountering Bicking in
Mexico after the 1966 convention: "Lew's only traveling and survival
equipment consists of a small Kelty pack whose sole contents are the
largest Spanish dictionary every printed--about a 20-pounder--and a
box of Mexican crackers. . . . His only clothes are those he wears,
and he obviously has some warped goal of not taking them off--ever--
for washing or any other purpose. . . . He has gotten all the long way
from Baltimore to California to [Mexico City] with nothing but his
great dictionary and his crackers. We have never seen him spend any
money--not any--he may well not have any. Yet he calmly proceeds
intact through all the chaos of the byways and accomplishes his goals.
He is the true stuff from which cavers are made."--Bill Mixon
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