For those of you know an old-timer caver named Harry Walker, here is his status:
Thanks to caver, Jim McLane, I was able to make phone contact with Harry last Thursday night. I offered my assistance to Harry and his wife, Dorothy, and they accepted. Harry had a stroke a few months ago and he can barely walk with the aid of a 4 legged walker. Dorothy requires a 4 legged cane in order to walk. As of tonight, their neighborhood does not have electricity, and probably wont until 2 more weeks or more. They live in Dickinson. Their neighborhood has a whole lot of tree damage. Their 1 1/2 acre wooded lot lost a couple of trees and a whole lot of branches and leaves, pine cones, etc. But their house miraculously was unscathed. I volunteered 2 days of hard labor in a mosquito infested environment cleaning their yard. And I also went to FEMA several times, and got them and myself some MRE's, water and ice. They are not sleeping in the house, but they are spending the day in the very hot house without a fan. They have hired me to clean up the rest of the lot. Unfortunately, I don't have the kind of tools it is going to take to do this. I will be over there all week during the day raking, and pruning and hauling everything ( that I can ) from the back of the property to the front which is almost a 100 yards. ( a small tractor or Bobcat with claw attachment would have been much more efficient. ) Harry is extremely hard-headed and stubborn and doesn't realize what the hurricane did to his property. He can't hear; and his hearing aids don't work well. Dorothy is struggling to take care of him, and they don't see eye to eye on everything. I would have got lots more work done had they not been in the house. I have been driving them back and forth to their son's house which is about an hour away depending how bad the traffic is. This is very inconvenient, and I wish they would stay put at their son's house for 2 more weeks. ****They need a battery powered fan.**** ( and batteries ) ****They need ice.**** A generator would not help them, because they couldn't operate it. They need sandwiches, but don't seem reluctant to pay for me to go get them some, and I don't have any money. I am going to try to get the neighbors to bring them some food. I need to borrow a big chain-saw, and a lawn-mower capable of chewing threw pine-cones, twigs, pine-needles, occasional branch etc. Another pair of xx-large canvas/swede garden gloves would be nice, as I have blisters from raking with my leather rappeling gloves that I am using. They are probably going to have to hire a professional to clean up the place. I told them that I would do what I could. Their property has been neglected recently. The pool has not been cleaned in 5 years I think, and their shrubbery and landscaping is overgrown with poison-ivy and poison-oak. Their roof is covered in pine needles, pine-cones, twigs and I think I need a gasoline-powered blower to get it all off in order to do it quickly. Otherwise, I will just rake it or sweep it all off. Did I mention the mosquito's are ferocious, and the heat has been miserable. There is now a huge mountain of debris in front of their house waiting for the county or the state to come by in 18 wheelers to get it all. All the streets in their entire neighborhood are wall to wall debris from trees. They are supposed to have health care people visiting them, but I haven't seen one yet. ( probably disrupted by the hurricane ). I have a strong feeling that I am going to become involved in assisting them for the next 2 weeks. If anybody is interested in donating to this effort, please let me know. It is my opinion, that Harry's caving days and mountain climbing days are over. It would be extremely difficult to take him to a caving meeting or a TSA event. When my grandfather was in Harry's current condition, he passed away about 2 months later. However, Harry is determined and tough. Harry's house is not designed for handicapped people. If he and Dorothy stay there, somebody needs to build a ramp on his front door and they need to rearrange some furniture, but they are too set in their ways to let anybody help them with that kind of stuff. Otherwise, Harry needs to be in a assisted living environment, and maybe even a nursing home. I think his son and daugher-in-law are overwhelmed with taking care of them, and they seem rather excited to have discovered that I have an interest in helping them. Harry was a one of the people in my life who I admired. It was his advice that caused me to finally marry Magdalena, and although I regret that every minute of my day; I have a precious daughter, that I can't imagine life without. She named her pet turtle after him. On a somewhat related note, I visited another old-timer caver, James Manning, who lives just about 1 mile from Harry and upstream on the same bayou. I have only met James twice in my life, I think. His house had 2 foot of salt-water in it, and 4 feet on the patio room. They had to haul out everything, and gut part of the house. They didn't have electricity either the last time I checked. He told me a story about a Huastecan artifact that he found in a cave in Mexico, and reported in the NSS News in 1957. He later found that the artifact had been removed from the cave. And then later he spotted it in a museum in Ciudad Victoria and told the director where it had came from. Another interesting story was that his house has a very long hallway and the previous owner had set up a rifle range in the house. It looked like about 150 feet or more from one end to the other. James is Mary Kay's dad, and she is a park ranger in Big Bend. Many of you know her from her winning the rope climbing contest at TCR. I think James has everything under control. My personal opinion, is that he needs to build his house a few feet higher off the ground. I didn't know this until yesterday, but normally living with your back door right on Dickinson Bayou is a great lifestyle, if you can afford a house on stilts, and a boat dock and a good boat, and have the spare time to kick back and enjoy it. The traffic in the Houston area is now hellacious. Don't come here for any reason, especially anywhere south of Webster, Texas. David Locklear 832-633-9744 10219 Antelope Alley Missouri City, Texas 77459
