Of Mice and Mazes

 

One of the toys I had received as a very young kid, was the classic labyrinth maze toy like shown above.  If you are not familiar with this toy, it is a maze-shaped board, that is controllable (in terms of tilting left and right, and front-to-back) by the two side knobs shown.  The goal was to navigate a steel marble through the maze from start to finish without falling into any of the holes.  

I remember receiving my labyrinth maze toy at Christmas when I was four years old.  And, even though for my four-year-old self, it was rather beyond my patience and dexterity to succeed at.... I always liked the toy.   It sat in my toy box or on a shelf in my bedroom for quite a while, not played particularly often.  But that changed when I was eleven or twelve, and I "refound" a strong interest in the toy and worked and practiced on it quite frequently until I was rather adept at navigating all the channels successfully.  I really liked the DESIGN of the toy and the DESIGN of the maze on the table of this toy.... and it sort of "imprinted" in my mind.

Advance a couple of years and I was just starting my first year in high school.  My best friend and I... 

(I have sometime in the past written about this friend of mine... we were wholly ensconced in (unfortunately in our minds) the "nerdy, unpopular" group of kids in our school.  He was my friend who I would regularly go seining to catch baby fish (bluegill, pike, darters, catfish, etc) in local streams and ditches to put into aquaira so we could watch and observe them... they were usually about 1 - 1.5 inches long.) 

... were very excited that a science teacher at our high school had decided to have that year, the district's first "Science Fair" it ever held.  We both schemed and discussed what we could DO for our projects for a long time.  He ultimately decided to create a study looking at fish feeding behavior and learning.  I really wanted to really do something with mice.  Eventually, on one of the weekends my parents took me to the public library, I stumbled across a book about mazes and checked it out.  In that book, I learned that the classic labyrinth maze toy was a classic maze shape and was referred to as a "Lasher Maze" based upon a researcher who used this style of maze in testing.   I then had my idea.

I asked my Dad if he thought we might be able to BUILD a "Lasher Maze" for me to use with mice.  He was game to try, and over the course of a weekend and a trip to the lumber yard, he and I worked with his electric and manual hand tools try to build a mouse-appropriate sized version of the maze of my toy.  It was a fun time, and remember fondly working with him as we carefully worked to measure and remeasure our boards to create this maze.  During this work, as with most things, my Dad always had his pipe gripped in his mouth.  By that time, I had already been sporadically "borrowing" and sampling his pipe tobacco myself.... but it was prior to his knowing that I was doing so.... so while I would have ALSO liked to have had a pipe while we worked, it WAS only a pipe dream of mine at the time.  

When we completed the maze, it was actually rather beautiful and was very nicely done!  We painted it with a can of orange spray paint (I already really liked orange by that time), and then cut out of hardware cloth, a cover to place over the maze so the rodents would not climb walls or escape during testing.  

Over the next several weeks my friend and I both worked feverishly on our projects... and we helped each other out in both projects, collecting our data and in writing our science project reports.  We even very carefully followed the tenets of the scientific method we had found in one of our textbooks in science class as we organized and wrote out our projects.  

We and other kids from all the various high school grades eventually submitted their projects for consideration.  There were prizes for each grade level, and an overall winner prize as well.... which was a small trophy.  

On the day of the awards, prizes were first given to each grade-level winner.  My friend and I were greatly disappointed when our grade winner was NOT one of us, but was another kid who had written a report about something to do with how batteries produce electricity.  

Although we were VERY disappointed,  we continued (of course) to stay in the auditorium for the rest of the event..... (I have to admit, though, my friend and I were not paying particularly close attention at that point, and instead were playing various pencil and paper games with each other in one of our notebooks..... "hangman" and "dots and boxes" and "battleship" are the games I remember us doing.)... and eventually it was approaching the end of the event... and they were going to announce the overall winner.

Both my friend and I were presuming it would be a 12th grader who won, and we anticipated it being either this really rather annoying guy in 12th grade who was a rather mean, "teacher's pet" kid for the 12th grade Physics teacher, or this equally rather mean girl who was very snooty to both of us... she did some sort of chemistry report and was also in 12th grade.  

The principal went up to the podium to announce the overall winner..... 

... and he began by talking for a while about all the strong science projects and all the general "political platitudes" about how science is important and on and on.... 

... then he said, that it was very difficult to chose ONE winner, so they had decided to award TWO first place winners for the Science Fair.... 

... and he then read off both MY NAME and MY FRIEND's NAME!!!!!   We were both shocked and amazed!!!!!  It was beyond our imaginations that either of us would have won.... and even more that BOTH of us won.  

Regrettably, there were no additional science fairs that occurred during out time in high school.  The young teacher who had organized this one, was unfortunately pink-slipped (laid off) because of budget cuts in our district... he ended up being one of I think it was 6 teachers that had to be laid off that year due to these budget cuts.  

I still have that maze my Dad and I built.  I actually have some of my rodent researchers use it to run juvenile rats in, as they are similar in size to mice.

*****

• Running was pleasant this morning, even though cold.  It helped me to clear my mind.
• I am aiming to head to the Retiree's Cigar Group this afternoon.  I will be avoiding that dull as dust type of cigar the fellow convinced me to try last week.
• Fortunately, my wife and I have NO scheduled agenda items tonight, and so I can be luxuriously sanguine (I hope) at the Retiree's Cigar Group... and just have fun.  And, my wife and I can leisurely swim afterwards.  
• My wife has a late afternoon on-line meeting with her "Veggie Peeps".... these are a cadre of on-line friends she has that all met when they all were trying to adopt a wholly plant based diet for health.  Even though I would be wholly fine eating a completely plant-based diet.... and there is pretty strong evidence that type of extremely vegan, very low fat diet can be very helpful for reducing risks of heart disease, diabetes, and inflammatory responses in the body.... after trying it for about a month.... my wife and her friends basically gave up on it.  However, they remained friends and meet regularly online.  I actually enjoyed the choices we had during the month she adopted this diet... and would readily go back again if she is ever of  a mind to do so.  

PipeTobacco