Throwback Thursdays: Annamaniacs - Dazed in the Maize
The day of things I wrote several years ago.
This piece was written for my column back in 2001
*****
Last week I had the opportunity to go with my 13 year old son to The Maze.
The Maize is a corn maze several acres big, a couple of miles outside of Lacombe Alberta. A brilliant idea really. Corn grows quickly and tall. It can be harvested, and the maze can be changed each year. I love mazes. They remind me of romantic English gardens during the middle ages. Or horror stories by Stephen King. This was going to be fun. This was going to be easy. We’d compete against each other. The maze was set up into three different parts. He was going to go one way, and I would go the other and we would see who would get done first. After all, he was my little kid. I could beat a 13-year-old. I win at games all the time. My family hates playing board games with me because of my victory dance. I could win this easy. I’m good at puzzles. The fact that I have no sense of direction shouldn’t slow me down. They set it up so that you can choose “passports”. These passports have a series of questions. When you reach a numbered marker you stop and answer a question. Questions like, “Sing the hokey pokey. What word is the 29th? If it’s hokey - turn left, pokey- turn right, left- turn right, right- turn left, shake - turn upside down and backwards.”
Figuring out the correct answer is supposed to help you through the maze. Except several times when I answered left I would proceed that direction only to find myself approaching the same numbered marker from the right hand path. I started at number 1. My son began at number 8. He would do 8,9,10, and then go to 1. He caught up with me when I was still on number 3. So then I decided that this was too lonely to do alone, and we would do it together. After all, this was not a competition. This was about togetherness.
“Okay, you go down that path, and I’ll go down this one. We’ll call out to each other every now and then. And don’t call out ‘Mom’ or you’ll have 50 other women answer you."
Minutes later... “Anna, I found the next number.”
“Where are you?”
“Follow the orange tape.”
The entire maze is held back with orange tape.
My mother said I would end up with children just like me.
One of the questions involved making up a song about corn. If you performed it at the end of the maze, you would get a treat.
“Hey you want to do that? We could make something up.”
He shrugged his shoulders. “Whatever, Mom.”
So while I’m wandering around in this maze, I’m making up a short little ditty. I was also wishing that I hadn’t left my phone in the car. They need phone booths in this maze. Every now and then a place to call and say “Help! I’m trapped! Save Me!” And then they could give you directions or send out a rescue team .And so while I’m thinking about being lost forever, slowly starving to death, needing a phone, and writing a song, I’m also thinking that this would make a good thriller. Either have the beautiful mother of seven children being pursued by the serial killer and unable to find her way out, or else have a hundred arms suddenly reach out from the sides of the maze grabbing her in the dark.
“I’ve got it! I’ve got the song.” I sing it to him.
"Yeah, that’s - great mom.” He rolls his eyes at me.
“I’m going to write about this in my column.”
“Just don’t include the song. Write about anything but don’t include the song.”
By the time we found ourselves through the first and second parts of the maze, it was dark. Not only did I not have a phone, but I didn’t have a flashlight. This is not a ball diamond. They don’t have street lamps that light everything up.
“Do you want to do part three? I’ve already done it.”
I debated it. I had already walked 20 miles. It was dark. Did I want to go back in?
“I’ve been through before,” he said. “It should be easy.”
Yeah, I was going back in. Because if I didn’t I would have been kicking myself for not finishing. Nobody calls me a quitter.
So back in we go. Number 8 was found easily. So was 9. And then 10! We found number 10. In the dark, where all I could see was my son’s white T-shirt we found the last marker in a matter of moments. Now we just had to get out.
An hour later, we came across number 8.
We did this twice.
AAAAAAGGGGGHHHHHHH!!!!
“Let’s just go out the way we came in.”
I learned a few things.
Next time I would bring a phone, a flashlight, a sleeping bag and enough food for a week. I won’t listen to the guy inside the maze who gives you directions (supposedly he’s there to help, but I wonder), and I wouldn’t bring a kid that tells me to ‘follow the orange tape.”
As we were leaving we asked what the treat was for singing a song. The girl smiled and brought out a bucket of lollipops.
I was not going to make a fool of myself for a lollipop. Chocolate bar yes. Lollipop no. A girl has to have her standards.
“So you made up that song for nothing,” my son grinned.
“Maybe I’ll write it in my column.”
“No, Mom. You can’t do it. Don’t. Just don’t.”
I smiled.
“Wandering around in a host of corn,
Dazed in the maze of the field of corn
Wishing I had a big bull horn,
So I wouldn’t feel so lost and forlorn.”
I really want to go back. I could find my way around now. I know it. Anyone up for a competition?
*****
If you're ever in the area in the fall and want to visit - here's the website.
Kraay Family Farm
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