Familiar Ground

Hmm…I don’t know if I’ve told this story yet…(tried searching my site for a reference, but can’t find it).

Oh well. Consider me an old man retelling the same old stories.

Back in the old days…I got an entire class of elementary school kids lost in the island prison of Alcatraz. Really. No, it wasn’t on purpose.

I was on an elementary school trip, and for some reason I can’t really fathom, the class went to Alcatraz. At the start of the tour, they gave us walkmans (pre-ipod listening devices for you young’uns) that had a walking tour of the place. You were supposed to stay on a marked path and listen to the headphones as they explained the various points of interest.

For some reason I wasn’t quite listening to the directions being given (either the written ones on the path, or the audio ones on the recording). I suppose I started wandering around, and ended up somewhat off the beaten track. I ended up in a large concrete yard where the inmates once did their recreational activities.

I remember that it was only at that point did I realize that I was hopelessly lost. So I turned around to see if I can find my way back…only to see that the rest of my class had also followed me into the courtyard and was ambling around aimlessly as well.

See, my last name starts with an “A”. That meant I was near the front of the line and people were just following me assuming that I knew where I was going.

On a related note, public tours of Alcatraz are no longer available. I’m not sure if it had anything to do with a group of elementary school students disappearing for a few hours back in the 80s.