A Series of Fortunate Events.

This is a story about mazes, Frisbees, and computers. 

My whole professional working career started with being required to take a computer-programming course in college at UNH.  I was in my second year as a Physics major and was learning the secrets of Quantum Mechanics. I was very busy playing Frisbee with friends, bicycling, and sailing to even begin to understand quanta. I never learned the secrets.  It turned out that a few years later, they had to revise physics as quarks, charm, and eventually string theory came along. Anyhow, one of our requirements was to learn the FORTRAN programming language. 

I still remember the first day of class. There must have been over 40 students in the classroom.  The new professor began to talk about the course and what would have to be done.  The more she talked, the more students left. I think the comment about sleeping on the floor in the computer room so you could have access to the mainframe card reader during finals got rid of the most students. 

This was before PC's. In fact, the pride and joy of being a Physics student was that we had access to a locked HP calculator. The engineering students were still making do with sliderules. (Know what they were?) They have gone the way of buggy whips when cars came along. 

The way you programmed back then was to handwrite your program on coding sheets. They had 80 squares per line. You wrote your letters, one to a box, and then desk checked your work. You usually found either syntactic mistakes or logic mistakes.  You fixed them and desk checked again. Then you waited in line to get to a keypunch machine to make computer cards. Desk checked these cards, made more corrections and lined up to keypunch again.  Finally you gave the card deck to the mainframe operator and came back the next day to see what happened. Usually there was a syntax error and you went through the whole process again.  It took days to get a program working.  At least when the program worked you knew that what you did was right. I changed to a Computer Science major. 

In the meantime, I would play Frisbee to reduce the stress of all that logical thinking, keypunching, and desk checking. As a result, I loved throwing, running and catching Frisbee’s. In my last year at college, Ultimate Frisbee came along, but by then there was little or no time to play it. By then we were able to type a program on a computer screen, run a syntax check, then run the program. No more computer cards. In just two years the whole process had changed. All that is, except the need for logical thinking to make the program work.

       Fast-forward 25 years and my job was terminated as the assistant vice president of the computer department at a large company.  What was I to do?  I invented and built a portable maze.  This large maze for people to go through at fairs and other gatherings is a great hit.  However, I longed for a place for a permanent maze.  I’m still in the portable maze business. See me at CrazyMaze.biz.

       By happenstance, my town of Chichester hired a new librarian, Lisa.  While introducing ourselves, it turned out that the library computers needed some work done.  While volunteering to do this, I mentioned to Lisa the idea of a space for a permanent maze. She had a farm and a large hay field! We talked. I designed a field maze for the hay field and a business began to develop.

       Another thread that had been developing was related to being a Boy Scout Scoutmaster.  As a consequence of this role, my Scouts and I went off to Scout Camp. I had never been to a summer camp before. There were all sorts of activities- boating, hiking, archery, and ultimate Frisbee.  They had even hung hula-hoops in trees for a Frisbee Golf course!

       After making the field maze, there was the need for other activities to draw people to the farm. I remembered the Frisbee Golf concept and put in a nine-hole course.  Instead of trees to hold up the hula-hoops, we used ½ conduit pipe.  We put up a large 4’ by 8’ sign on Route 28 advertising Mazes and Frisbee Golf.  Soon Lisa had people dropping by asking if this was a Disc Golf course.  It was our introduction to the whole Disc Golf sport.

       Since the maze and Frisbee Golf did not draw enough people and we want people to experience the natural beauty of the place, we decided to put in a disc golf course.  We hope to introduce local people to disc golf. We have built an 18-hole course that challenges all skill levels.  People who play here will be captivated by the natural beauty of a place where you can see hawks soaring overhead and hear the soft sound of trees whispering in the breeze.

       Come experience New England outdoors! We have stonewalls, apple trees, hay fields, varied terrain, wooded glades, and don’t forget the whispering pines!      

Blaze Konefal  2006