This weekend, our family took part in one of the most quintessential rural Midwestern traditions — the corn maze. Now, I grew up in the metro-Detroit area, which is also technically Midwestern, but a lot less rural.
Consequently, I did not grow up going through corn mazes, which is to say, this was the kids’ AND my first time in a corn maze.
This particular corn maze is an offering at the pumpkin patch we’ve frequented the last few years. The grownups actively dissuaded the kids in the past, worried their short legs weren’t up for the challenge. At 8 and 10, they certainly have the strength and stamina for a corn maze, and the adults in charge aren’t too far over the hill to keep up.
We’d checked the weather before we left the house. Like so many autumn days, this one was predicted to start cool but get warm. By the time we arrived at the pumpkin patch, we’d already had lunch at a local coffee shop, taken a casual walk down a charming main street, all the while remarking how we’d picked the perfect, crisp fall day for our outing. We arrived to discover a few hundred other families had had the same idea.
Everyone’s sweatshirt was shed during the long walk from the overflow parking one field over. By the time we were waiting in line to get into the patch, we were starting to sweat. “At least the corn will provide a little shade,” I thought when we decided to make the maze our next stop.
Maybe the rush to get out of the sun was one reason we somehow missed the maps offered at the maze’s entrance. The other reason was my son’s enthusiastic and confident stance on the whole endeavor. He plunged into the maze without looking back to see if anyone was following, shouting to us, “I’ve got this!”
For a while, it seemed he did. He made swift decisions, and he was wholly undaunted on the few occasions that we hit a dead end. Meanwhile, though the interior of the corn maze was slightly shady, the corn itself acted like a radiant heating system. Moreover, not a breath of breeze could penetrate the 10-foot-high rows. We’d been uncomfortably warm standing in the sun outside the maze, but it was much, much hotter inside it.
We kept walking, turning this way and that. The sounds of the outer world grew fainter; the rustle of the corn slightly more sinister. “I’m getting tired,” my daughter said miserably.
There were other people inside the maze, but they all seemed to be heading in the opposite direction. At some point, we realized many of them were carrying and consulting maps, and though my son continued to exude confidence at every turn, the map people kept going one way, while we went the other.
“Hey buddy,” I finally said. “We need to stop and figure this out.”
“We are going the right way, trust me,” he replied.
“How do you know?”
“Because there’s a trick,” he said, beaming as he lifted one hand. “You can solve any maze as long as you keep your left hand on the wall and only go in that direction.”
“But buddy,” I said, with a sinking feeling. “That’s your right hand.”
After consulting other people’s maps, we eventually made it out of the maze. (Using the entrance, not the exit, but still!) And I’d do it again, so no one was that traumatized. But next time we will grab a map and do a quick left-hand versus right-hand tutorial before we start!
