Hmmm. Rock climbing. The statute of limitations may have run out on this, but back in the 40's I could stand in my front yard and look at Big Rock. Actually in was a group of house-sized rocks on a ridge overlooking the North Fork of the Kentucky River. Half a mile away, along the ridge crest, there was Eagle Rock, and as a kid, I climbed both.

Well, that's not exactly true of Eagle Rock. We climbed a rock next to it and then jumped a gap about 4 feet wide over to the top of chimney-shaped Eagle Rock. One missed step and you fell about 30 feet. No one that I knew ever fell, but there were stories. Not once did I ever see an Eagle near ER.

Big Rock was not much of a problem. I remember that they were not over ten or twelve feet high on the uphill side and it was easy enough to get up on the flat top. We had picnics up there. There were three of them, and a few other smaller ones. You could see them from almost any where in town. They were also visible from the next town downriver, where they were called Town Rock.

Peters Peak was about mid-way between BR and ER. It was named for a family named Peters who once owned the land. It was the high point on the ridge, so this is where the radio station built their broadcast tower after the war. Three or four people, or one radio tower, could stand on the very top of Peters Peak. It was rocky, but no problem to climb.

One story about that ridge bears repeating. During the war, long before the radio station came to town, it was possible to hear music on top of the ridge. It was much to far from town to hear anything but a few car horns and train whistles. Few radios would pick up a signal in that area during daylight hours. There was really no logical source for the music. But if the wind was still, and if you stood on a high place and listened, sometimes you heard the music. I never heard it anywhere other than the tallest point on Big Rock. I could stand and hear it, then sit down and it was gone. Sometimes it sounded like Glenn Miller playing his theme song. Other times it was too faint to recognize the tune. Other people heard it on Peters' Peak or Eagle Rock, and some never heard it at all.

One other spot up there held our interest. Not far from Big Rock, on the path along the crest, there was a crack in the ground. It was about a meter long and maybe ten or 12 centimeters wide in the middle. You could drop a rock in there and it was several seconds before it hit anything. It would bounce and take a couple of more seconds to hit again. Some people said they heard a third bounce faintly as much as ten or twelve seconds after it was dropped. I never heard more than the first two. Obviously, there was a cave down there, because air seemed to be flowing into it. We tried to drop a flaming match down there, but it always blew out immediately.

I haven't done much rock climbing lately. I hike a little but mostly in level places. Two or three miles is about my limit, but I don't try for distance records anyway.
Howard