Out of the pocket
Adam flew into town from Chicago yesterday morning and spent the day walking around downtown. He went from Union Station to the Mall to the other end of the Mall and back to a few other places. Getting to the apartment with roommate Mark in the afternoon, Adam looked a bit beat but still game.
So I asked him and Mark, would they like to go a corn maze in the shape of Joe Gibbs' head? Right now? They quickly agreed.
The maze was carved into 11 acres of corn in Leesburg, Va., the heart of suburb country. From the sky, the view showed Coach Joe, a few Redskins helmets and some down markers. From the ground, the view was corn.
We met Jess in Arlington and headed out to Leesburg. The weather was clear and crisp, and the sky was dark. While apparently popular in Mark's Utah and Jess' Maine, this corn maze was my first. There were tickets to buy, a snack cart (and flasks) to patronize and the park's haunted house to avoid. The Friday night teens were loud enough in the corn, and how were we going to show our Gibbs pride to ghosts?
Although we entered in a group of 20 or so, the crowd splintered at the first fork in the corn. The four of us continued together on the muddy paths until Mark and Adam took a turn and were suddenly out of earshot. Soon we were winding our way back to the same signpost every 15 minutes. But that was fun. It didn't say much for our navigation, but it spoke well of our creative dedication and ultimate consistency.
Eventually I called Mark on his cell phone. and he called me back — reception was pretty good for the middle of nowhere. When he said they were at the exit, we worked our way out there. The beginning and end of the maze turned out to be in the same spot, so we weren't sure how far we'd actually gotten. We went home anyway. Satisfied with corn.
This morning at work, I talked to Sports staffer and good guy Nate about how he did in the maze, and he said his group had done all right. They had finished the maze and then done "the second part."
And I didn't even know a second part existed. Apparently it was to the left of the first part where we had gotten lost enough.
I took some comfort in the fact that Nate used to be a captain in the Army. A lot of comfort, in fact. Me, I was a Cub Scout dropout. Walking around the field in the dark last night, I liked holding the flashlight.
