Big Scare Pt II

About twelve hours later, the first help message came through. It actually shows the following: "Help. Entering situation with caution. If you receive no further messages, seek help. -Rich & Wood." The problem, of course, comes from failing to discuss what it means in advance. When do you seek help? When do you assume there will be no more messages? Also, when this button is pressed, the Spot tries sending the message every five minutes. So, our inboxes showed five "help" messages ending at 7:52 pm. Why did it stop? Was that a signal to seek the help?

Luckily for me, being in Ely I had no cell reception and was able to sleep through the night blissfully ignorant of the fear and panic spreading along the shore. The rest of the family: not quite so lucky.

Around 7 am on Saturday, I went into town and got the call from the patriarch. This is not good news. This is scary. Really scary. The sense of helplessness was overwhelming. The Spot did little but show us why we should be so afraid. There is no way to call and check, no one to drive by, no police for welfare checks, no...my little brother is deep in the jungle, thousands of miles from me and there is absolutely nothing that I can do to protect him. After all those years of guarding him on the school bus and keeping a hawk eye on the big kids in the gym, bailing him out of jail and talking him out of being evicted...there was nothing, nothing to do but wait.

Finally, at 11 am, Woody sends the following nonchalant, typical carefree and irritatingly casual about danger, email:

"hey guys--just checking in at this point to let you know that everything is good. we ended up on a bad road after dark last night--one of those things where we were in the middle and had to keep going, and turning around would have been just as long on just as bad a road. it was like driving on franks´ driveway (at its very worst) for 6 hours. on my map it showed the road as being secondary paved--and it also showed good-sized towns along the way. we are on our way towards san pedro sula, honduras, where we will try to buy 10w-50 synthetic oil for the bikes. they are getting close to needing a change. we also are going to need brake pads before too long here. we spent a couple days in la ceiba, on the coast of the Caribbean--sort of a dirty, untrustworthy town…i will write more soon, but i´ve got to get going here this morning. love you guys.

--wood

p.s. we pushed the ¨help¨ button last night because that is what it is there for...."

My brother...

At the time, I remember screaming, "hey guys?!" "just checking in?!" "i've got to get going here?!" What the efff?! What was he thinking the rest of us had been doing for the last 16 hours??? Eating bon bons and watching reality TV?

Luckily, his cohort was a little more responsive in addressing the significance of the event.

-- luludilly