Sunday Archive XXII: American Braves, Part Two of Four
The four parts to American Braves sort of shows where I was planning to move my writing beyond the office computer and onto a “blog,” though we didn’t really have “blogs” in 2000. Not like today. Today I’m free to write about what, exactly, I would do to Maggie Gyllenhaal if I were to discover her stranded in a wrecked car in the Colorado mountains (“I’m your number one fan!!”). Well, actually, I could still do that. But it was more of a newsgroup thing.
Anyway, my idea was to sort of launch a travel website where I wrote stuff like American Braves. How that turned into Dirtyfreaks.com? Only the whisky bottle knows for sure.
The Amazing Maize Maze: Corny Americana
Cherry Crest Farm, Pennsylvania. Today we are astronauts. The brochure says that we are “about to make one giant leap into endless stalks, trying valiantly to prove that there is intelligent life on earth.”
We will fail in this quest.
The Amazing Maize Maze is the brainchild of Don Frantz, a former minion of Disney and co-owner of the American Maze Company. Deciding that raising corn alone wouldn’t bring in the profits, Frantz and his corporate team developed the 5-acre cornfield maze that has reached a certain level of fame. Well, the morning talk-show level of fame.
Each year, the Maize Maze takes on a different shape – a locomotive, a wagon train, the secret tunnels beneath Disneyland and, this year, the solar system. Families enter the 5-acre corn maze and weave their way through meandering corridors, the summer sun burning them into ashes. No joking – this thing is hard.
We were driving along US30 when a hand-written sign proclaimed – “MAZE!”. Something clicked in my head and I anxiously grabbed Liam’s arm – “Right, turn right. We have to go to MAZE.”
As we drove down rattling county roads, led along by scrawled cardboard signs, I explained the history of the Maize Maze:
“It’s really weird stuff.”
“What do you mean?” Liam frowned as banjo-playing rednecks lurked in the roadside shadows.
“It’s a field of corn that’s been converted into a complicated maze. Actually a little famous, so it should be – “
At that moment, Liam drawled a horrified “Oh my god”.
The Maze comes right up on you – from endless farmland, you round a bend and you find yourself assaulted by a mass of tourists. The muddied car park for the Maze requires four attendants and, on most days, is full.
Admission to the maze is $7, snow cones are $1 and there’s a map with pins to indicate your country of origin. Our group selected small, un-named islands in the South Pacific.
As you enter the Maze, there’s a board of record times designed to get the competitive American male into a vicious mood. Fathers of happy families suddenly turn ugly: “19 minutes? Christ, Charlotte, get moving. Come on! We have to beat 19 minutes.”
I noted with despair that the longest time was 12 hours.
We joined the line of tourists and bid Teresa farewell – she was going to buy some cotton candy and feed it to the goats at the petting zoo. Her evaluation of the maize maze (which would prove to be correct) was that it was a death trap.
Full of confidence that won the last World War, we, the tourists, surged forward into the “briefing room”. A loud young man told us about the maze and ran us through some safety procedures. The theme for the Y2K maze was “the solar system”. Colored strips marked the different planets. The blue strip, with which my team would become intimately familiar, indicated “outer space”. There is one port-a-john (don’t worry, though, you’ll circle back to it repeatedly) and two places where you can get some water.
All the tourists were filled with sportsmanlike bravado until the loud young man leaned forward, his voice hushed. “If you get lost, there are only two places where you can call for help.”
This was met with silence. The young man let it sink in for a bit, “On that tower, overlooking the maze, is our maze expert – our cosmonaut. He can help you…but only if you find one of the two ‘telestalks’.”
Children began to cry as the loud young man picked up a brightly colored flag on a ten-foot pole and began shouting again. “Every team gets a flag so, if you are lost, just wave the flag and we’ll come get you.” The young man turned to a nearby 8-year-old girl and said, in a barely audible voice, “You don’t want to be in here after the sun sets.”
Since sunset was in four hours, there was a collective shiver in the crowd as the loud young man grinned maniacally.
There is a map to the maze, but in order to use it you have to find 15 way stations. Each station has a mailbox that contains a square of paper. The 15 squares together, affixed to a master sheet, make up the complete map. This was the kiss of death for my team of adventurers – earlier in the day, we had to ask a stranger if we were in Pennsylvania or Maryland.
We entered the maze and immediately fell prey to the herding instinct – the 25 tourists in the briefing room stuck together, the laughter of the loud young man following us through the stalks of corn. After a few minutes of soul searching, people began to split off and head deep into the maze. Surely, we all thought, this wouldn’t be too difficult. Children were here…this was a family outing. There was a petting zoo, for God’s sake, how hard could this little maze be?
I concentrated on choosing the path less traveled, leading Donald and Liam deep into outer space. The corn rose well over 8 feet and there was no way out. The back of my mind conjured up visions of wildfires, corn thrashers and possessed scarecrows from beyond hell. I kept all of these paranoid thoughts to myself, however.
Never much of a pathfinder or puzzle solver, I eventually gave way to Liam. After 20 minutes, it was obvious that the maze was an entity unto itself. We had passed the Skittles machine in the “Mars” section (signified by red ribbons) several times, we had orbited Saturn no less than 7 times and we seemed doomed to the nether regions of deep space. With his strong background in mathematics, Liam was the only man who could save us. Donald, looking very European with sunglasses and unlit cigarette, seemed content to avoid any leadership role.
“What do you think, Donald?” Liam had asked shortly before assuming command.
“I have no idea. If we all die, I want to go on record as not being responsible.”
Liam had located the first mailbox. He affixed the small square of the map onto our master sheet. Fourteen more to go but, from this point, Liam swore he could figure things out. We just follow the map on the tiny square until it ends. There was a mailbox for each square, so we reconnoiter each new area and we avoid panic at all costs.
He mentioned the panic part at that point because I was hyperventilating. Donald seemed relaxed and somewhat aggressive. He started to move like a hunter and, quietly, he told me that he was prepared to defend the map squares.
“If it comes to it,” Donald muttered, “We’ll fight for these map pieces.”
“If the corn requires blood,” I replied, “we will feed it.”
Donald stared evenly at me and shifted the still unlit cigarette from one side of his mouth to the other. “Have you heard the voice, too?”
My smile faded. “I’m sorry…what?”
Liam looked up from his calculations. “Are you two joking?”
“I’m joking!” I replied quickly.
Donald looked from Liam to myself, his face grim. “Of course,” he said slowly. “So am I.”
We reached the one-hour mark. Families were passing us and laughing, new people had entered the maze and they treated us like wizened veterans. We had five map pieces, all of them scattered across the master sheet. Not one of the five pieces were adjacent to another. Lost in outer space, the sun blasting us and evening rapidly approaching, despair had set in. I was nervous and on edge, convinced that the postal boxes were moving on their own. Donald had begun lovingly touching the corn stalks. Every once in a while, he would shake and touch my arm, muttering something like “There it was again.”
Liam stopped two college guys and asked them if he could compare maps.
“What sections do you have?”
One of the frat boys shrugged, “We’re not collecting the pieces. We’re just going through.”
“They’re lying,” Donald whispered in my ear.
“Been through before?” Liam asked.
“You guys lost?”
“Bastards,” Donald muttered, “they will anger the voice.”
I turned towards Donald, “Please stop touching my arm.”
Liam was insisting that we weren’t lost. He came off a little defensive and the two frat boys laughed and shook their heads as they walked away.
“You are marked!” Donald shouted.
“Jesus,” Liam gritted his teeth and turned towards Donald.
At the two-hour mark, things looked bad. We hadn’t made any progress whatsoever. Nothing had worked for us and Donald had obviously become dangerous – we all needed alcohol, if only to stop the voice of the cornfield.
We tried to steal pieces of the map from others, only to find that they were worse off than we were. We tried the scientific method and ended up back at the entrance, confused and near tears. We followed a class of students and their science teacher for half an hour, circling Saturn again and getting lost in outer space. Shortly after that, the students gave up and, as the sun began to sink in the western sky, we decided to throw in the towel as well. It took us 20 minutes to find the entrance again and we rushed to freedom. Coming out of those cornstalks was like walking out of prison – the sweet smell of petting zoo filled our nostrils and we nearly shouted with joy. Beside us, two 12-year-old girls from France were proudly showing off their completed map to a group of darkly muttering maze-quitters. The loud young man logged in their time at 32 minutes.
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Information on American Maze Company mazes around the country can be found at http://www.americanmaze.com/home.htm