IT’S WHOLLY a pleasure to report, again, that our two campers are found-safe. There’s a wholesome wall of separation between the news side of this operation and those of us who opine on the news. But allow us a few paragraphs to look over the wall and wave.
Rick McFarland and Cathy Frye are two names you might recognize. His appears in this paper under every award-winning photograph that he takes. Her name appears on some of the most readable features you’ll find in this paper, or any other.
The couple enjoys camping in Texas-so much that they go every year to celebrate their wedding anniversary. This year things did not go well at Big Bend Ranch State Park. Thankfully, things didn’t go worse. Like fatally.
Because they got lost in Big Bend. After three days, supplies ran low. She couldn’t go any farther. He hiked out for help. He got it, and brought it back but . . . where had she gone to? After manya tense moment . . . A Happy Ending.
Thank God.
How big is Big Bend? When we looked it up on Google Maps, we had to click on the Zoom Out button four times before the map showed a town. The park’s website’s first words are “Welcome to the other side of nowhere!” It might as well be called Isolation State Park. Which is how some people like it.
Come to think, getting away sounds pretty good what with all that’s going on these politically overheated, practically pointless days in the nation’s capital as the country’s shutdown spreads. But as often happens, isolation can be dangerous, too. As in foreign policy and getting lost in a vast park.
Now our Arkansas travelers are recovering. And we can’t wait for the applause when they make it back into the newsroom. Those of us on this page will be sitting on that wall of separation between news and opinion dangling our feet-and cheering.
Editorial, Pages 14 on 10/08/2013