Never trust a mountain to keep a secret

    On the way to a family reunion in North Carolina, I diverted to Colfax to pick up some riders. (By the way, if you are not from Colfax, you are likely misprouncing it. Locals say Call-fax, not Cole-fax.)

    I arrived at my niece's house and was soon on the road again with eight-months-pregnant Layne riding shotgun and her young son in the back seat. Layne and I live in different states and have few chances for face-to-face interactions, so we planned to take full advantage of this jaunt from her house to the top of a mountain.

    The dialogue from that day is gone like the wind, but I imagine that as soon as I put the car in drive, we dove into something akin to transforming our marriages into perfect ones, strategizing relationships at work, or figuring out God, once and for all. I do remember that as the wheels of my car rolled over I-40, the wheels of our minds were turning just as fast. We lost ourselves in deep conversation, and we would soon find out we were lost in more ways than one.

    I had driven to the mountain many times before and knew the way, but after more than a few miles, I began noticing signs with names of places where we should not be, so I interrupted our deep dive and mentioned this fact to Layne. Come to find out, somewhere between dissecting mankind and discovering the secret to happiness, I had veered left when I should have veered right. Meanwhile, several gallons of gas had burned up, so I pulled into a service station to fill the tank. We learned we were in Statesville, and that we had drifted in a different direction from Sauertown Mountain where we were supposed to be headed. Oops.

       

    This took place before cell phones and GPS apps were as ordinary as a set of car keys. Our only navigation tool was a paper map as big as a city block when unfolded. We put our heads together and ultimately found the right road and continued on our way.

    In the miles that followed, we analyzed the error and the subsequent results, and we came to a mutual agreement: we were slightly embarrassed, and we would not speak of our misplacement to anyone. In other words, what happened in Statesville would stay in Statesville. Arriving at the reunion later than planned, we made no mention of losing our way. When our three-day family gathering ended, Layne headed south with her husband who had come a day later, and I headed north, both of us relying on the mountain to keep our secret.

    Our plan almost worked, but not quite, because in the same way a murderer overlooks one teeny-tiny detail, I overlooked one teeny-tiny bit of evidence.

    About two weeks later, my husband was sitting at his desk in the dining room and called out to me, "When did you go to Statesville?"

    Uh-oh. I wondered how he had uncovered my trail. Come to find out, he was reconciling the credit card statement against receipts and found a gas receipt from Statesville. The beans started spilling out. I had to tell him about me strolling down I-40, lost in conversation with Layne, taking no care in reading road signs, and ending up miles away from where we should have been. He shook his head and went back to his task. It came as no surprise to him that I had gotten off course, considering my record.

    After that, Layne and I opened up about the side trip, and in a matter of days, everyone in the family knew. We were teased, and we were poked with jokes, until it finally died down like stories eventually do.

    That was so long ago that the baby in Layne's womb is now in his twenties, and his older brother, the toddler in the back seat, took a bride this year. Maybe someday when they read this, if they ever do, they will just smile at their mom and Aunt Mary, and shake their head like my husband does.

    This family story is not a skeleton-in-the-closet reveal; it is only a fun memory that is now resurrected by the written word. An old proverb says that every death is the equivalent of a library burning down. We all have stories -- funny ones, sad ones, embarrassing ones, and painful ones, along with some we would never tell. All of them, big and small, ordinary and extraordinary, will turn to dust, unless they are written down. Without documentation, they are gone forever.

    The Statesville adventure, or misadventure, about Layne and me wiggling our way out of a predicament, will soon be buried under other recollections, but at least it is preserved for safekeeping. I have no idea where it will end up, but for now, it rests in the pages of a journal and will be read by a few. I hope you enjoyed it. Some stories should be taken to the grave and covered up with dirt, but not this one. This one needs to stay above ground, and I'm glad the mountain failed at keeping our secret.