On
a recent trip into the Ozark National
Forest my son and I set out to do some
fishing and hunting and after a brief
and failed effort at both we decided
to do some exploring. As darkness
crept upon us we rolled toward a fork
in the road to find that the county road
signs we had been following were suddenly
gone like so many bread crumbs that had
been thrown out by the forest service,
only to be eaten by the locals as a reminder
to us city folk to keep out of their
woods. All that remained was a
post where the sign had been mounted. Knowing
my son had an important engagement that
evening I bluffed that we didn’t
need any signs, and assured him that
my compass directed us to go left, which
I did without hesitation. Silence
permeated the cab and anticipation mounted
as we bounced over the road which went
from gravel, to dirt. Without saying
a word I looked confidently ahead and
sensed his side-glances shooting my way,
revealing his angst that Dad had taken
the road less traveled. Time slowed
down while we barreled ahead, and I quietly
hoped that around the next curve or over
the next rise, we would be met by a paved
road that would lead us back to civilization. It
was not until the road suddenly ended
and I stopped abruptly next to an old
cemetery, that I turned to meet my son’s
gaze. With a banjo playing in the
back of my mind I finally confessed what
we had both known for a while. We
were lost.
My
son pulled out the new cell phone he’d
just gotten for Christmas and flipped
it open. Mind you, I have resisted
urgent pleas from him for the past few
years that he needed a cell phone. After
countless arguments and criticisms of
those who must be tethered to this modern
technology that deprives its users of
the serenity of ever being alone, I finally
succumbed, not because I felt I was wrong,
but because I was tired of fighting. This,
he told me, was one of the reasons he
wanted such a phone. Always denying
my charge that the only reason he wanted
one was because everyone else had one,
he confidently began to dial.
I
guess we all need a crutch from time
to time, but it’s getting to the
point where none of us seem to be willing
to do anything on our own anymore. People
walk into the woods with a GPS and never
get lost. People walk into a business
meeting with a Blackberry with the confidence
that if anything comes up in the meeting
they don’t know, the answer is
available to them at the click of a button. It’s
as if creativity has become obsolete
because the right answer is just a cell
phone call away.
After
a few seconds my son folded his phone
back into his pocket and said he couldn’t
get a signal. I smiled and turned
the car around and doubled back to the
lonely signpost and recalibrated my inner
compass, and after a while on the right
tine of the fork we hit glorious pavement. As
we sped home I asked my son whom he was
trying to call in the midst of our impending
peril. He said he was going to
call home and tell Mom we were lost. I
wondered if he thought she could have
done anything about our plight. Sure,
she would have been compassionate and
could have called out the National Guard. But
sometimes we have to look within ourselves
to get out of a bad situation and no
one else can help us.
In the immortal words of that old
hymn, I told him to tell his mother when
we got home, “I once was lost, but
now am found.” And tell her
you did it without a cell phone.
By Robert Ginnaven
You
can E-Mail at: 
dickson@twinsprings.net
Max
Floss 
