The Cracked Acorn: Louise

In the beginning, God created heaven and the earth. (Genesis 1:1)

Where I was born and raised in Kentucky, it abounds in sinkholes and small to large caves.

One such cave opened on a nearby county road and went several miles underground to the town of Franklin when pulling people out of the cavern it was voted and decided that it was time to call the local concrete company and close off the entrance to the subterranean area, it was interfering with the progress of mankind!

As for the sinkholes that pop up in farm fields and are a pest to harvesting, they are left to mother nature, and it happened this way:

Louise, a member of the church, confided in me about their sinkhole. On a rainy day, Louise had things to do, and it required to leave the farm for town and to go down a list of to-do items. First, she had to carry off several bags of trash/garbage to somewhere, the usual routine was to use the large sinkhole on a backfield to complete that odorous task.

No problem, so she drove to the field and parked the car, opened the trunk and grabbed the bags and walked across the field, still raining some, having almost reached the sinkhole, she made a big swing and a heave, off went the bags down to the mouth of the sinkhole, but Louise lost her footing and began to slip/slid down toward the sinkhole’s cavernous’ mouth.

Louise told me that it was the most frightful few moments of her life; if she slid into the sinkhole, no one would ever guess where to find and discover her body for years and years, if ever. An all-out search for her would start at her distant car and assume she was kidnapped. That thought helped her to develop strength that she never had, and she started to grab at the tall fescue and attempted to dig her heels into something, like a stone, which would help.

When she made several attempts to stop the sliding and failed attempts to offer hope, she prayed to God, “LORD! don’t let this happen.” At the Amen, her shoe caught the end of a protruding rock; it stopped her downward journey, and she began to think, I am going to get out of this and “I promise never to get near a Kentucky sinkhole the rest of my life.” So, the end left Louise rescued by her own efforts, with muddy knees and soaking wet, she told me that she wanted to tell me how thankful she was.

“Way down in Georgia among the swamps and the everglades
There’s a hole in Tiger Mountain
God help those who get lost in Miller’s Cave
There was a girl in Waycross, but she had unfaithful ways
I couldn’t stand the way she was, and I showed her I was brave
Now I’m the most wanted man in the State
But they’ll never find me, ’cause I’m lost in Miller’s Cave.”
(Jack Clement, circa 1960)