What started as a way to burn off anxiety and find spiritual peace has become a way to burn off calories from funnel cake in a quest for candy apples.
Labyrinths have been around for centuries. They offer only one path to follow to find the center and in the process find one’s spiritual center. From ancient Greeks to Nordic fisherman, the labyrinth had special meaning. Somewhere along the way, the concept changed. I suspect it was by someone who in today’s times would be in radio. We tend to be rather creative in a devious way. Whoever these inventive souls were likely found the labyrinth a bit too soothing. So instead of having one clear path to follow, they made dead ends and blind alleys to confuse the person trying to make the journey. Thus, the maze was born.
Regardless of how it came about, the maze was and continues to be quite popular. These days you see corn mazes all over the place come autumn. But in the 16th century you would find them made of herb plantings. Soon hedge mazes were quite popular among those who had land, money and a lot of patience.
“The hedge maze is all planted. Now we’ll just wait a few years and we can go out to play.”
That would never fly in today’s I-want-it-yesterday world. Hence corn mazes. The stuff is cheap to grow and matures much sooner than any hedge. Even so, there are quite a few hedge mazes in the world including the United States. In fact, the largest permanent maze is on the Dole Pineapple Company’s property in Hawaii. It has 2.5 miles of paths.
Better than that is the Dixon, California corn maze at Cool Patch Pumpkins. It covers 60 acres. People have gotten lost in it for hours before finally giving up and calling on their cell phones for help. In fact, no one under 18 years of age is allowed in without an adult.
While that’s an impressive challenge, I think a little American ingenuity would make things even more entertaining.
Around these parts, Jaemor Farms has one of the best corn mazes going. But with all due respect to the Echols family, I think they could increase the challenge without incurring additional cost.
They already have an apple cannon. So instead of letting folks shoot the apples at a target, why not let them fire a few salvos over the corn maze? In addition to figuring out how to get to the other end of the maze, you’d have to dodge Macintosh, Mutsu and Golden Delicious. Come out the other end without wearing apple sauce and you win a bag of boiled peanuts. Good as gold at our house.
Additionally, we should be more creative in our maze construction. I’m not talking about the layout. I’m referring to the plant material.
There used to be a blackberry bramble at the edge of our yard when I was in my early teens. It was huge. So much, in fact, that my dad cut various paths through it to access as many berries as possible. I spent many a hot, sweaty hours in that bramble maze trying to pick my way to the other side, often getting snookered into picking down a dead end instead of the path to the other side. Dad was devious. Should have been in radio. He would have been a natural.
If they built a maze out of blackberry bushes, the object wouldn’t be just to get to the other side. It would be getting there with the most berries in your bucket picked in the shortest amount of time while acquiring fewer thorn sticks and chiggers than your opponent.
Why stop there? Let’s take things up another notch.
Poison ivy mazes would certainly be a challenge. Narrow pathways would make this a true adventure. Here again you make it a competition. The one who gets through the maze the first gets the Calamine lotion.
Of course, growing blackberry canes high enough and building trellises for the ivy would take time and require cultivating some land. For those wanting to get into the maze craze on the cheap, just buy a field covered in kudzu. Then plow a maze through it. The object here would be to get to the other end of the maze before the kudzu grew back and covered the path. I’m figuring on a hot Georgia day you’d have fifteen minutes at the most.
Better study that map before you enter!
