I knew I’d seen them once already that day. It was near the summit, as I started back down the trail to the notch.
There was the short muscular guy hiking without a shirt. His bare chest, blond beard and long blond hair made him look gnomelike. He was followed – now as he had been before – by a pretty woman in pink shorts and pink tank top. The third member of their party was a nondescript young man of average height, with average length brown hair and an average looking face: average, average, average.
But why was I seeing them again? I’d met them as I left the summit, headed down; they were going to the summit. We’d nodded and passed each other. So they should be well behind me.
Yet there they were, the same three people, meeting me in the same order: shirtless gnome, pink lady, and Mr. average. How could they have gotten in front of me?
Were they members of a circus troupe that had somehow swung through the trees to get below me and hike up again? Had I slipped through a time warp into a parallel universe? Or was I just losing what was left of my mind?
I stopped and watched them go, in precise order, down the trail behind me. That’s when it struck me. They were going down. I was going up. Again.
Had I gotten turned around? Where to heck was I? I suddenly felt disoriented, and slightly panicky.
I turned around and ran down the trail after Mr. Average. "Are you folks headed down – to the notch?" They were.
I followed them. The trail looked familiar this time, and to pass the miles, as I sometimes do, I made up a little verse to celebrate regaining my bearings:
The moral of the story
Is simple and profound.
If you find that you are headed up
When you should be headed down;
If you’ve made a mistake, acknowledge it
And get back to safer ground.
Yourself, your car, your country,
Just turn the thing around!
Thank you.