Professionals are called “speliologists.” Amateur enthusiasts are called “spelunkers.” Bored high school kids from Pennsylvania are called “cavers.”

I grew up in the part of Pennsylvania that sits on top of limestone caves. My friends and I would go exploring the caverns between Kutztown and Reading.

Never mind what went on down there. Suffice to say, whatever county police department had jurisdiction above us, no law enforcement official ever got his uniform dirty following us down our hobbit holes.

You had to wear old clothes. Cave dirt cakes on and doesn’t come out. We’d bring down flashlights and candles, tunes (cassettes, or course, as CDs hadn’t been invented, 8-tracks were so-last-year, and radio was obviously out), lunch, and whatever else we needed. The acoustics were perfect for Rush, Foghat or Richie Blackmore’s Rainbow. There was a reputedly bottomless well of near-freezing spring water.

I wouldn’t say we were environmentalists, but we did endeavor to leave the caves pretty much as we found them. There were some kids — from the colleges I think — who didn’t have the same level of respect. Graffiti, cigarette butts, garbage — OK, this doesn’t sound so terrible to anyone who grew up in the five boroughs, but out in America it was kind of disgraceful.