www.roanoke.com

Ray Stubblefield

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From the RoundTable blog

The goal is to have technology enrich your life, not control it. I'm here to tell you, I'm losing the battle. The sad things is, most of us don't even know there's a war on.

It's not that I'm opposed to technology. I like computers. I use them at home and I use them every day, all day at work. In fact my laptop is command central. Everything I do from the moment the tone sounds to begin class to when it ends originates from my computer.

All my lesson plans are on the computer, where they are displayed by a projector and something called an active board. My grades are kept in a spreadsheet/database I made years ago. My lectures are in PowerPoint format, enriched by pictures and articles from the Internet. I show video clips from YouTube and United Streaming. The kids even get to interact with something called "eggs" and the active board. So imagine what it's like when things aren't working.

During the first three weeks of school, none of it, absolutely none of it, worked right. Simple tasks that I had routinely done for years were now monumental headaches. In addition to hardware failures, error messages and conflicts hindered my every step on the software front. I felt like Sisyphus pushing a boulder up the hill. And what I'm describing is only the tip of the iceberg.

This was the most frustrating three weeks of my career, yet it was nobody's fault. Stuff happens, but never all at once like this. When technology works, it's great. When it doesn't, it's a nightmare.

The technology gods of cyberspace somehow knew I didn't worship with a pure heart. They knew that I had another love, so they were going to punish me.

That other love, my first love, is backpacking, and with the gorgeous fall weather finally arriving, and with the technology nightmare at work, I needed a backpacking trip now more than ever.

As you can imagine, backpacking is everything modern life at home and work isn't. Life is reduced to what you can or are willing to carry on your back. No electricity, no computers, no Internet. The weather matters. It directly affects every minute of your day.

At work I see nearly 100 kids a day. I'm on a campus surrounded by thousands, all regulated to the minute by a clock and bell system. This world is anything but the natural world, and it was nature my soul and spirit cried out for.

So on Thursday night I loaded my pack, and was ready to head for Mount Rogers as soon as school was out on Friday. I pulled through the gates at Grayson Highlands State Park just as it was getting dark.

The plan was to hike 30 minutes in and sleep out under the stars along the trail. I knew this trail well (I've been coming up here for 35 years), so I didn't even need a headlamp.

Mars, Venus and Jupiter were the first to appear next to a setting crescent moon. The still, clear, pale-blue sky quickly darkened to an inky black sea, a sea filled with sparkling white diamonds that watched over me through the night.

Finally, snug in my sleeping bag, I sighed deeply and felt my body relax and submit to the world around me. The solid, sodden earth beneath me made me feel strong and secure, made me feel one and at peace.

There were no alarm clocks, no schedules to keep, no duties, no phones or e-mails to answer, no blaring TV or depressing news about the economy. Just me and the mountain I loved.

I heard the wind rustle the tall grass next to me. A coyote howled off in the distance, and there was a pony grazing the fence line just above me. Overhead, ancient mythological characters and creatures silently sailed across the early October sky.

Aquarius, Pegasus, Taurus and Orion all faithfully marched in order, like they have done since the dawn of time. It's only modern man who fails to notice.

Already I could feel nature's pulse, those prehistoric circadian rhythms that have been hard-wired into all life on the planet, start to gain control and replace the artificial, man-made rhythms I had been marching to for so long.

As I started to doze off, I reached for my wrist to check the time, but my watch, along with my cellphone, were turned off and buried deep in my pack where they stayed the rest of the trip. I smiled at that thought but knew a weekend wasn't going to be long enough.

Stubblefield teaches earth science at Franklin County High School and is a Roanoke Times columnist.