It’s a typical late September evening in Caledonia — just cool enough to herald the advent of autumn, just warm enough to encourage the mosquitoes to linger, plying their sanguinary trade for a few more weeks.
Deep within the field, there is no light save the moon beaming down on tasseled stalks stretching high. There is no sound save the sounds of the night creatures and the muffled laughter of college students out on a lark.
A ringing cell phone pierces the stillness and a voice lilts above the chorus of crickets and frogs.
“Yeah, I can’t talk right now. I’m in a corn maze.”
These aren’t words you’d expect to hear from a card-carrying member of the Facebook generation, but then again, there’s a first time for everything, and for the dozen or so Mississippi University for Women students who found themselves weaving through four acres of Dekalb 68-05 corn, Tuesday night definitely marked a departure from de rigueur.
The experience was a first for Caledonia farmers Dwight and Jean Colson as well. They started out in Hebron, Ky. raising Brown Swiss dairy cattle, but when a tornado destroyed that enterprise in 1974, they set their sights on Mississippi and a swath of paradise they dubbed “Pine Meadows Farm.”
For more than two decades, they grew row crops. But in 2000, they decided to try their luck with some pumpkin seeds from Dwight Colson’s brother, Paul. Though the fruit proved finicky and labor-intensive, their first harvest was bountiful, and the Colsons’ lives took a new turn as proprietors of “Country Pumpkins,” a 200-acre showcase of rural living, family values, and, of course, pumpkins.
The corn maze is just the latest feature on a farm that has quietly grown into a cherished autumn tradition for many families, some of whom stop to pick out their annual jack-o’-lantern and photograph their children in front of the giant growth chart, and others who turn it into a day trip, complete with pony rides, hay rides, bonfires and birthday parties.
The MUW students, mostly community advisors from Kilcannon residence hall, reserved the farm for the entire evening Tuesday, beginning their festivities by roasting wieners over the bonfire while singing songs and waxing half-philosophical and half-facetious about everything from the deeper message of “The Lion King” to the characteristics of the distant nebulae.
Because they live and work together, the students have grown close over the years, thinking of one another like family. Every month, they plan an outing, and when senior Savannah Tubbs, a business major from Pascagoula, heard about the corn maze, she knew it had to be their September excursion.
She was so sure they would love it that she reserved the farm in advance — before she had even secured approval from her peers.
“This has been freaking awesome, like really awesome just to have this bonding time,” said Kimberly Washington, a junior physical therapy major.
By the time darkness descended, they were ready to grab their flashlights and dash headlong into the thicket.
Because this was the Colsons’ first year to cut a corn maze, they enlisted the help of Stanley Wise, the Mississippi State Extension Service director for Union County.
In early August, when the corn was knee-high, they followed on a tractor as Wise carried a GPS into the field and slowly plotted out the winding paths that would become a jack-o’-lantern pattern, filled with enough twists, turns and dead ends to keep explorers occupied for 30 to 45 minutes.
Each time Wise paused, they pointed their tractor toward him and mowed until he motioned them to halt. For the tykes, he designed a similar corn maze, scaled down to less than a half an acre.
Jean Colson said because the larger field is only four acres, and because the paths are clear and wide, anyone who gets lost can simply yell and someone will come find them. But just in case, there’s a phone number posted at the entrance for cell phone users.
For the MUW students, it was as much fun to leap into the paths and scare one another as it was to navigate the circuitous route to the exit. By the time they stumbled out, they were giggling, reveling in the innocent joy of being children once more — even if only for a few hours.
That’s the idea, Jean Colson said. She and her husband love children, and they love knowing their farm has been the catalyst for hundreds of happy memories.
“This is so cool,” said MUW Community Director Phillip D. Hampton as he reclined on the recently-trimmed Bermuda grass in front of the bonfire. “This is the way our ancestors lived, back in the day.”
Well, minus the Coleman lanterns and iPhones.
The Colsons will hold a free, community-wide bonfire Oct. 27 from 6:30 p.m. to 9:30 p.m. A hayride and trip through the corn maze will cost $7 per person. For more information, and a complete schedule of hours and prices, please see countrypumpkins.ms.
Carmen K. Sisson is the former news editor at The Dispatch.
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