GPS will enable safe navigation during outdoor adventures

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For the past couple months, as I’ve punished my Ford Ranger with a string of 1,000-mile weeks while getting this new outdoors column up and running, I’ve had plenty of time to think.

I’ve been to Machias and Forest City, Greenville and Ashland and Presque Isle. I’ve been to plenty other places – the kind we Mainers call “unorganized territories” – that show up on maps as a series of letters and numbers.

And en route to all of those places, I’ve been thinking.

Man, have I been thinking.

For those of you who either know me or who have had the chance to talk to my mom, you probably realize that giving someone like me that much idle time isn’t necessarily a good idea.

Put Einstein in a Ford Ranger for seven weeks and he’d figure out that relativity thingama-whatzit. Give me the same opportunity, and I might manage to brainstorm a healthy and tasty wilderness meal dependent on nothing but water, peanut butter, red hot dogs and cayenne pepper.

(For the record, I figure this Gutwarmer Stew will not only stick to your ribs, it will also eliminate the need for bulky sweaters and jackets).

Rest assured, I didn’t spend all of my time working out culinary chemistry problems. I also took the opportunity to puzzle my way through the answers to two questions you folks kept asking me.

“Why did you get this job?” always came first.

“How do I get to do what you do?” was usually second.

Since I’m a product of the new math generation, let’s start with the second question and work back. The answer: You can’t. You can’t get paid to drive around and hunt and fish and camp and hike. You can’t stay away from the office for weeks at a time, because you’re too busy “working.”

The Boss has assured me that he’s not looking for my replacement … yet. And as long as I don’t get lost in the woods (more on that in a second) or eaten by a bear (I figure that after two or three bowl-fulls of Gutwarmer Stew, I’ll render myself generally inedible), my job is safe … more or less.

Now, the first question. Why me?

Somewhere around mile 4,000, I thought I figured it all out. I am, after all, a trained journalist. And as such, I have been taught that there is much more to this game than figuring out when to switch from THE BIG LETTERS to the little ones, and knowing where to put all the fancy dots … and dashes – see? – and all that other cool stuff.

We are also expected to be able to elicit insightful responses from our sources by asking pertinent, pointed questions.

And after years in the field, I’ve got that part pretty well figured out. If you don’t tell anyone, I’ll share the method with you. (Remember, unless you’re a classically trained journalist, you’re not allowed to try this without a license):

Me: Hey, buddy.

Hunter: Huh?

Me: Uh … how’s the hunting?

Hunter: Slow.

As you can see, it’s a very complicated process. So, in part (or so I tell myself), that’s “why me?”

The other part, of course, is the fact that the boss must have recognized the fact that I am an extremely wily outdoorsman. I know, after all, that every road goes somewhere (except for the ones … usually the muddy, narrow, remote ones … that go nowhere). I also know that every animal lives somewhere (and if you ask enough people enough questions, they’ll tell you where that place is. Usually, or so they tell me, animals live at the end of one of the roads that go nowhere).

See? I’m learning. Tons.

Around mile 5,000, I abandoned my original theory and decided that the reason The Boss had allowed me to take this position (let’s be honest: At its essence, getting this job is basically an early Christmas present for a 38-year-old kid) because in all my years as a born-and-bred Mainer, I must have absorbed some sort of “institutional memory.”

“Institutional memory,” for your information, is another one of those 10-cent terms they teach us at journalism school (as I recall, it came up right after the “How’s the hunting” lesson).

What it means (as far as I can recall … I seem to lack the institutional memory to recite it verbatim) is that if a journalist is in the same place for long enough … and pays attention long enough … something useful will sink into his big fat head.

You will, instructors told us, get to understand the reader and the community. You’ll know what happened last year and 10 years before that. And that will help in your coverage of any event. Like this:

Me: Hey, buddy.

Hunter: You again?

Me: Yup. How’s the hunting?

Hunter: Slow.

Me: Yeah. Remember 10 years ago, when I saw you in this same tree stand?

Hunter: Yup.

Me: It was slow that day, too. Wasn’t it?

Hunter: Yup.

Pretty cool, huh?

The other day, however, I figured out that attributing any kind of success to the vagaries of “institutional memory” is a dangerous game.

It all happened when I headed over to visit my parents, and was greeted by Mom, Cabela’s catalog in hand, a concerned look on her face.

“Carl and I were talking,” she said, referring to my brother-in-law … the family’s true outdoorsman.

“We think you need one of these,” she said, pointing at a page full of GPS units guaranteed to help a person like me stay out of as much trouble as possible.

“Planning ahead for Christmas,” I thought. Yippee!

Mom, of course, thought differently. According to her, if I was going to be out in the woods between now and December, I probably needed all the help I could get.

Immediately.

My mother, you see, also has an institutional memory. A long institutional memory.

And to her, I’m not the well-seasoned, professionally trained journalist who gets to drive around and fish and hunt and camp and hike for a living.

Not by a long shot.

To her, on some level I’m a grown-up version of the little dummy who greeted each spring thaw the same way (A disclaimer: I haven’t done this in years. Honest).

First, I’d stand on the edge of the muddy garden. Then I’d wonder if this was the year I’d finally become fast enough to sprint all the way across the boot-sucking mud, prancing weightlessly like Walter Payton did when he worked his way through a hapless defense.

And then I’d run. Fast. Powerful. Weightless. For about five steps. … and then I’d become helplessly mired in the muck.

Every year.

Institutional memory, of course, cuts both ways.

Because every year, Mom was the one who walked (slowly … just so I could have more time to think about my foolishness) out into the garden and rescued her mud-bound little dummy.

She’s smart, my mom. And with all her institutional memory, I’m pretty sure she doesn’t believe that a mere GPS will keep me out of all the trouble I’m capable of finding.

But she knows that when I find that trouble, at least I’ll know where I am.

And that’s a start.

John Holyoke can be reached at jholyoke@bangordailynews.net or by calling 990-8214 or 1-800-310-8600.