Help! My Rope Is On Fire - So Is your Hair!

I have had the joy of being able to laugh easily and see the humor in the smallest of things. May you have the ability to laugh throughout your lives!

Laughter has been shown to release opioid compounds from the brain that induce a feeling of euphoria. It also lowers pulse and blood pressure and helps in healing and recovery from illness.

Philosopher John Morreall believes that the first human laughter may have begun as a gesture of shared relief at the passing of danger.

To illustrate this theory of Danger, then Relief when the danger has passed, and finally terminating in laughter let me relate an experience that occurred while teaching a speleology ( caving) course at Glenville State College.

Our class explorations took us to Poor Farm Cave in Pocahontas County.
A friend of mine and his son went with me to the cave early in order to check out routes and activities that we had planned for our students.

Lighting is essential in wild caves - I have always used battery headlights, but my friends used the carbide lights. Remember you chemists - that the carbide light is powered by carbide and when water is added - a flame of acetylene lights the area around you.

I was convinced by my friends to use the carbide light in order to see the differences between the carbide flame and battery generated light.

Here's where the DANGER comes into the story.
There was a room in the cave where one had to descend with a rope. My two friends were already down below and I was descending when I heard, “Oh no!!” coming from the lower level.

What I had not realized was the flame from the carbide headlamp had ignited my climbing rope. My anxious friends below reached up to catch my legs and brace me from falling from the burning rope. One held my back to stabilize me and proceeded to burn a hole in the back of my coveralls.

I turned around quickly to thank him for his help.. Something else surprisingly happened. My young friend possessed this impressive mass of hair which stuck out all around his caving helmet. In the swooch of my turning, the carbide flame once again showed its brilliance in the cave when it ignited his hair.

All fires were extinguished quickly without harm except to our pride.

Twas RELIEF and now LAUGHTER as we share the story.