LOST: Compass training gone slightly awry

For a minute there, I really thought I was lost.

Out in Coburn Park in Skowhegan on Wednesday, I was doing some compass work with good friend and master Maine guide Carroll Ware. Carroll had three paper plates, and he walked them out to three different points, scribbling down numbers so I could get used to working with predetermined points.

He hands me a compass and tells me to start with the first plate next to my right foot. It says "56 degrees" on it. I hold the compass in my hand, point myself to 56 degrees and start walking.

No problem.

Then I get to the next plate with a reading of 285 degrees on it, set my course and start walking. And I keep walking. And walking. And walking.

Soon, I'm next to the park road, where I know Carroll hadn't ventured that far.

"Find it?" he shouted across the field.

No such luck, I relay back.

"Well, with every person there's sometimes a difference of a couple of degrees," Carroll says, pointing out that we all have our own idiosyncracies when it comes to orienteering.

But now he's not so sure, either.

We look everywhere. Right. Left. Front. Back. Behind trees. In the tall grass.

Nothing.

There's no breeze, and it's an open area. Surely, we'd have seen if it went anywhere at all.

Eventually we give up, figuring it must be the ghost of Old Man Coburn, or some other fairy tale run amok. We head to the third plate, which is back where we started.

We stand a chat, when a older gentleman in a pickup truck pulls into the parking area.

"Hey, did you guys lose a paper plate?"

Mystery solved.

Seems the plate did blow off onto the road, where our Good Citizen, trying to keep the park clean, picked it up and threw it away.

"Then I had seen a number written on it, and I saw you guys out here," Good Citizen said. "I thought, maybe they were using that for a GPS thing or something."

I'm just wondering now what I'd do if I was out in the woods, had plotted a course with my compass, only to have somebody pick up my car and throw it away.

Then I'd really be lost, no?