LOST IN THE CORNFIELD

During the summer when I was ten years old the boys were back at their fort in the woods and Mother told me to go get them for supper. My younger brother went along with me. We went to the fort but they weren't there; I began calling out their names and I started walking around the perimeter of the cornfield. After awhile, I realized that I had lost my direction.

The more I roamed the more confused I became. The corn was "as high as an elephant's eye" and I could no longer see our house. I was lost and suddenly I saw a RED house. We had seen the movie "The Red House" with Edward G. Robinson and it was very scary. We went to the door of the house because I thought that we could call home. The house was deserted. I peered in the windows. Little did I know that my brothers used the deserted house as a "clubhouse"!

I kept calling for my brothers. After awhile my younger brother and I kept hearing unusual noises and we were very frightened. We were so tired and hot that we just sat down in the cornfield and I started crying. We kept hearing the strange animal-like sounds and we would get up and run, still lost, not knowing which direction was home. Finally, my brothers appeared. They had been the ones making the animal-like noises. When we got home the brothers made fun of me.

My mother asked why I didn't look at the sun so I would know where I was. I told her I didn't know I could do that. [I am still "directionally challenged"! I hate for people to tell me to go east or west or north or south; just tell me which way to go--left or right--not east or west! When asking for directions, I always try to seek out a woman because they usually use landmarks! I always poke fun at myself and say, "If they ever move the Court House, I'll be in big trouble!"]

When I started to work at International Harvester in 1978, my biggest fear was that I would get lost in the enormous plant! Prior to that I had always worked in small plants. I was so grateful to learn that the columns were numbered. I was still frightened to go very far from my department but of course I could not share that with anyone! One day my boss told me to go to Department 34 to do an inventory on the real sills because he couldn't get anybody to answer the phone in the department. I didn't know where Department 34 was, but I knew it was "across the bridge"! Fortunately, I saw one of the millwrights on a cart and asked him to take me there. When I got there, I found the supervisor taking a nap in the office! I completed the inventory and went into the office and startled the supervisor and asked him to take me back to my department, as I knew that that department had a cart. He asked if I were going to "turn him in" and said that he had just "dozed off momentarily". I answered, "Hell, I've been in the department for 20 minutes!"

To overcome my fear, I decided to walk to a different part of the plant every day for 20 minutes at lunch time. My friend John had been employed there for 26 years and had worked in a number of departments. John needed the exercise so I invited him to walk with me instead of sitting in the office shooting the bull with the rest of the guys. I saw it as a great adventure for myself and John was getting exercise, thus it benefitted both of us. Only last year did I reveal to John my ulterior motive. I asked, "Do you remember when we used to walk at lunch time?" He answered, "Yeah, I sure was glad when you finally knew your way around the plant and I didn't have to do that any more." Surprised, I asked, "You KNEW what I was doing?" He laughed and said, "You are so transparent!" I asked, "How did you know?" and he replied that the big giveaway was that I was writing in my notebook all the column numbers, etc.