Were we really in a cave?
By Margery McCurdy Plummer

For people who have lived in White House for a long time and even in recent times, they recognize it as a place where the citizens cooperate with each other, working on civic events.

I think one of the first things we worked hard on together was anything involving the P.T.A. (or now P.T.O.). The monthly meeting was very important and parents were urged to attend.

There was great excitement when parents representing classes their children were in and were asked to stand as each class was called. The children showed great enthusiasm when the parents that they had dragged to the meeting stood and helped the winning rooms win an insignificant amount of money to be used to help buy a few items for the rooms that the county wouldn’t supply.

There were a few other events that brought large groups together, but the one most looked forward to was the Fourth of July picnic held on the old High School grounds.

Tables were assembled and cold watermelons were served from ice cold tubs of water, “cold drinks” were brought up from other tubs of ice water and there was plenty of food on hand.

It was a night of fun, capped off with a square dance inside the gym. Occassionally some of the dancers participated in something called “round dancing.” These were usually more sophisticated, well dressed couples. It took me quite a while to understand that round dancing was not just square dancing in a circle. I finally got it figured out though, and did my unprofessional part, mostly square dancing.

All this togetherness is not unusual where small towns work and play together. However part of a town once took a trip together.

I was rummaging around in my somewhat disorganized trunk of pictures, and in it I found a picture of a large group of people standing in the opening of Mammoth Cave, Ky. On the lower part of the picture was printed, “Mammoth Cave, Ky. 1936” I think.

I know I went on that trip, because my picture was in it, but I don’t remember how we went, or what we did or how we returned. There were four children in the picture, dressed in dress clothes. There were several picutres of people that I now recognize, including my mother and father, other people dressed, of all things, in suits and ties, women’s dresses, with some women wearing large hats of the kind that they would wear to church.

Tell me about this picture if you know. How would people navigate the slippery cave floor and go through “fat man’s misery” look at the stalagtites and stalagmites and dine in the snow ball dining room among other scary sights?

Did we go on a bus, did we really go into the cave? Was the cave picture just a back drop for the real picture? I think we all played and navigated the cave just as we always did things together and still do. But please, please, tell me about these townspeople and why they were in the picture and how we got to Mammoth Cave and why.

Always together...even in a cave!