{"id":7186,"date":"2018-07-10T21:07:56","date_gmt":"2018-07-11T02:07:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/?p=7186"},"modified":"2018-07-10T21:19:27","modified_gmt":"2018-07-11T02:19:27","slug":"big-bad-saman","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/?p=7186","title":{"rendered":"Big Bad Saman"},"content":{"rendered":"

I\u2019m glad to read that the rescue of the boy\u2019s soccer team<\/a> (the Wild Boars) that became stranded in a flooded cave in Thailand was successful. <\/p>\n

This is one of those slow-motion rescue stories that draws public attention now and then. Every so many years here in the USA, there is (or used to be) a mine incident where workers get trapped, and rescuers race against the clock to get them out alive. The drama of these situations<\/a> is like catnip to the masses, and when it works and the rescue is successful (the more dangerous the better!), everyone feels a bit of a lift. Humankind shows that it can still come together when nature threatens one or a small group of its members, and we all feel better about our tribe. Perhaps a rescue incident helps us to forget for a few minutes about all the rotten things that we do to each other in the normal course of events. <\/p>\n

So, the public got what it wanted from the Tham Luang Cave<\/a> rescue. Except that there was a bit of tragedy, one brave diver died in the effort. I didn\u2019t see too many articles about the man, a Mr. Saman Gunan<\/a>, in the US press; to read about him, you had to seek out the various tributes published in the British, Australian and New Zealand press.<\/p>\n

Way back in the 1960\u2019s when I was a kid, mining disasters were more common; over the past 25 years, machines have largely taken the place of humans in dangerous mines, and unless you own stock in a coal or mining company, you really don\u2019t care much if a slate wall caves in on a bunch of robots. So it\u2019s not terribly surprising that in 1961, a song by country singer Jimmy Deal eulogizing a brave miner who gave his life helping his comrades to escape a cave-in became popular. I remember the song well, it was played regularly on the AM pop radio stations (WABC being the main station that you listened to on your little plastic transistor radio in the New York metro area). The song was called \u201cBig Bad John<\/a>\u201d. <\/p>\n

Here are the verses<\/a> that summarize Mr. Dean\u2019s story about Big John:<\/p>\n

Through the dust and the smoke of this man made hell
\nWalked a giant of a man that the miners knew well
\nGrabbed a saggin’ timber, gave out with a groan
\nAnd like a giant Oak tree, he just stood there alone, Big John<\/p>\n

And with all of his strength he gave a mighty shove
\nThen a miner yelled out, “There’s a light up above”
\nAnd twenty men scrambled from a would-be grave
\nNow there’s only one left down there to save, Big John<\/p>\n

With jacks and timbers they started back down
\nThen came that rumble way down in the ground
\nAnd then smoke and gas belched out of that mine
\nEverybody knew it was the end of the line for Big John<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Now that everyone at Tham Luang (which means “great cave of the sleeping lady<\/a>“) is safe, a lot of things need to be resolved by the bureaucrats and lawyers. I\u2019m sure that the soccer coach who led the team into the tunnel is in a lot of trouble; supposedly there were signs at the mouth of the cave<\/a>, warning explorers not to go in during the rainy season (which it clearly was). <\/p>\n

Reportedly, the Thai government plans to \u201ctake extra security measures\u201d<\/a> at the cave. To be honest, though, if I were a cave-explorer (which I might have enjoyed back when I was young), I\u2019d feel kind of creeped out about walking down into a cavern where a good man died — kind of like walking into a tomb. I think that the Thai government should ponder the last verse of Mr. Dean\u2019s song, as a fitting tribute to the bravery and humanity of \u201cBig Saman\u201d:<\/p>\n

Now they never reopened that worthless pit
\nThey just placed a marble stand in front of it
\nThese few words are written on that stand
\nAt the bottom of this mine lies a big, big man
\nBig John<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I\u2019m glad to read that the rescue of the boy\u2019s soccer team (the Wild Boars) that became stranded in a flooded cave in Thailand was successful. This is one of those slow-motion rescue stories that draws public attention now and then. Every so many years here in the USA, there is (or used to be) […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7186"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=7186"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7186\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7189,"href":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7186\/revisions\/7189"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7186"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7186"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7186"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}