Chicago Tribune from Chicago, Illinois • 19

Chicago Tribune, Sunday, March 26, 1989 Section 1 19 Nationworld lafe-sex proposal Folk hero's burial ends 3 generations of anguish has Berkeley abuzz i Xi i While searchers hand-dug a shaft to reach pre- 10,000 spectators created a circus-like atmo-mier cave explorer FloycT Collins in early 1925, sphere in Mammoth Cave, Ky. 3y Casey Bukro iicago Tribune MAMMOTH CAVE, Ky vThey buried Floyd Collins on a bright Kentucky morning, 64 years after the desperate attempt to rescue him from the inky darkness of a cave riveted the nation's attention. The coffin settled into the ground of a hilltop Baptist cemetery Friday as 40 members of the Collins family watched, hoping it was the final chapter of a bizarre history in which the cave explorer's body was snatched from an earlier grave and put on public display for 34 years, to the anguish of three generations of Collinses. Though the nation has seen many rescues, none was conducted in the circus-like atmosphere that drew 10,000 spectators to the scene in 1925, at a time when Americans seemed to thirst for morbid excitement. The only modern parallel would be the saga of Jennifer McClure, the 18-month-old girl rescued after she was wedged for 2'2 days in a pipe in a Texas well in October, 1987.

But the atmosphere was different; the nation watched that on television. Collins, who was 37, died of exhaustion and exposure 60 feet underground in Sand Cave. Two weeks earlier, his left ankle had been pinned by a boulder that was dislodged as he made his way toward the surface in a vertical crawlway hardly bigger than a man's body. By the time rescuers using pickaxes reached him via a hand-dug shaft, historical accounts say, he had been dead a few hours to a few days. Collins is a folk hero in Kentucky, in part because of his daring cave exploration exploits and in part because of the posthumous insults to his body.

In graveside ceremonies under a green canopy, Rev. Gary Talley described Collins as the region's pre-eminent cave explorer, a loner who often went spelunking "with nothing more than rope and lantern." "As remarkable as Floyd Collins' exploits were," he said, "it was his entrapment in Sand Cave that seized the minds and hearts of America, bringing about an outpouring of both courage and By Bruce Buursma Chicago Tribune BERKELEY, Calif. The daytime desk clerk at the Travelodge Motel thought this progressive university town had worked the quirks out of its civic consciousness during its convulsive 1960s. She saw the antiwar riots on the University of California campus and the love-ins in the city parks, but now Doris Flood is wondering, whether her beloved Berkeley is "headed ofl-the-wall again." Flood, a plain-spoken, gray-haired woman, is angered by a proposal that would place "safer-sex materials, including condoms, right next to the Bible on the bedstand and the mint on the pillow in every hotel and motel room in the city. "Wackiness is back," signed Flood, who voices the fear of many in the city's hotel and motel industry that placing prophylactics in rooms would embarrass or offend some guests and invite potential legal claims in the event of a defective condom.

"It's as if they want us to put up a sign next to the condom, saying 'This will save your and a sign next to the Bible, saying 'This will save your said Flood. The controversial measure, currently under study by a City Council subcommittee, was first put forth as a preventive health suggestion by a nurse practitioner involved in AIDS clinical research. But as it has wound its way toward becoming a city ordinance, the proposal has provoked sharp debate in a town where unfettered public discourse is deeply cherished, It also has attracted the concern of lawyers for the California Hotel and Motel Association and drawn a dour reaction from corporate officials at Marriott, which operates one of Berkeley's largest hotels. That chain, owned by a devout member of the morally rigorous Mormon faith, provides a copy of the Bible and the Book of Mormon in each guest room, and the general manager of the Berkeley Marriott, Steve Rodri, said there is no room for condoms at his inn. The growing opposition to the plan, which galvanized in two hours of public hearings, has moved some city officials to propose placing in hotel rooms only informational bro chures about AIDS and sexually transmitted diseases.

Hoteliers would have the option of providing condoms at the front desk or sending patrons to the nearest drugstore. "We have promised to have more discussion on the provision of equipment condoms," acknowledged Vince Spencer, the secretary of Berkeley's Community Health Advisory Committee, the city agency charged with drafting the proposed ordinance. "Condoms do seem to be an issue with respect to implied liability." The legal counsel for the California Hotel and Motel Association, in a letter to City Council members; warned that such a law made it "logically and legally possible for a guest to bring a claim against the hotel if he got AIDS because the supplied condom was San Francisco attorney Jim Englese, who drafted the letter, also noted that hotels "are in the hospitality business and not everyone finds it hospitable to encounter a condom in the room." The association members do not object to offering "informational materials" about AIDS, he said, provided the city bears the cost of printing and distributing the pamplets. Berkeley, located across the bay from San Francisco, has been in the forefront of offering educational materials about AIDS. Free condoms also are available at City Hall.

The hotel and motel operators' negative reaction has surprised and dismayed Leland Traiman, 36, the nurse who advanced the idea for safer-sex kits late last year, and other proponents of the plan. "What's sad is that they come up with all these absurd arguments against trying to deal with this very serious public health threat," he said. "I know that the Marriott may be owned by religious Mormons, but they're running a business to serve the public. If they can't in conscience agree to this, they shouldn't be operating a business; they should open up a church." Traiman noted that at least one hotel, the Shangri-La in Mon-trealjias provided condoms to its guests for nearly two years and has received only a few complaints from patrons. Rev.

George Crespin, the chancellor of the Roman Catholic Diocese See Safe-sex, pg. 20 compassion that spread from Cave City to New York City." The Collins story has been told in books, a movie and songs such as "The Ballad of Floyd Collins." The rescue drama was considered one of the biggest stories of the 1920s. A young aviator named Charles Lindbergh flew film and news dispatches to Chicago from the rescue scene. One Louisville newspaper man, fortunate enough to be small, squeezed down the crawlway to interview Collins and won a Pulitzer Prize. At the height of the frenzy, The Chicago Tribune was getting 4,000 phone calls a day from people asking for the latest news on Collins.

It is not a pleasant story. It was the day of the "Cave Wars," in which private cave operators competed for tourist dollars any way they could. Collins himself had discovered Crystal Cave on his father's farm. He was trapped in Sand Cave trying to find a connection between Crystal Cave and the renowned Mammoth Cave. That would have given him an added Bowling Green, and a local expert on Collins.

At first, Collins' family decided he should be buried where he died. But then rumors began that the rescue attempt was a hoax, and the family decided the body should be recovered to prove there was one. Collins had gone underground for the last time on Jan. 30, 1923, and was pronounced dead on Feb. 16.

In April, the body was removed from Sand Cave and buried in a plot on the family farm, which later was sold to a local dentist. The dentist unearthed the body in 1927 and put it on display in Crystal Cave as a tourist attraction. "This was a time of the cave wars," said Bob Ward, a local park ranger. "They all tried outlandish gimmicks. It seems ghoulish by our standards; maybe in the 1920s it wasn't.

People paid money to see him." In 1929 Collins' body was stolen. Local legend has it that the jealous owner of a rival cave tried to toss it into the nearby Green See Collins, pg. 20 Floyd Collins' misfortune was only beginning when a boulder pinned his ankle in a cave. edge by promising tourists a new entrance to Mammoth Cave, which became a national park in 1941. "The whole thing from start to finish dealt with people making money," said Patrick Thomas, a police polygraph technician in i i 5 4 'l: V- WHEN ill ill if The stunning new fragrance by Joan Collins JOAN COLLINS CREATED A i.

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