I got off the ramp and I'm still here

By Joel Myhre (Contact) | The Daily Journal

Published Saturday, April 26, 2008

During my 15 years living in Fergus Falls and working at The Journal, I have often taken the State Highway 210 bypass and Interstate 94 to get to the west side of town. While driving that short stretch of freeway, I admit that, especially on bad days, there have been brief moments when I thought about simply continuing to drive west, head to North Dakota, Montana, parts unknown, maybe spend some time in the mountains without a care in the world.

Of course, when that exit to Fergus Falls comes up, I come to my senses, go up the ramp, and continue with my normal life. I am still here, after all. I assume I’m not the only one who has had similar thoughts.

Essentially, the movie “In The Wild” is about the guy who decided not to get off the exit ramp.

The movie was about a guy who grew up in an affluent (but as we gradually find out, far from perfect) suburban Virginia home. Upon graduating from college with honors, being accepted to law school, and being told by his parents that they would further supplement his $25,000 college fund to pay for law school and upgrade his old car to a new one, he decided to take a different track.

Without warning, he took off for Arizona, left his car in a riverbed, burned his money, and traveled the country. For two years, by hitchhiking, sneaking rides on freight trains, walking and kayaking rivers, he goes on an adventure that many of us only dream about.

While showing his adventures, the movie flashes back to the issues which brought him to the decision to leave everything behind, including his family, from the discovery that his father had a mistress and another child out of wedlock, to his abusive treatment of his mother, his parents’ materialism. Essentially, the idea is that the adventure, while an adventure, is designed partly to punish his parents.

Since it is a true story, the romance of the adventure gradually wears off. For one, the main character, who renamed himself Alexander Supertramp, finds out that, for example, a permit is required to kayak down the Colorado River, the railroad engineer isn’t real happy when you hitch a ride on his train, and having no money and no place to stay in a big city makes you a homeless bum.

The movie also reveals that some of Supertramp’s best experiences come from the relationships he forges along the way, from the hippie couple with a teenage daughter to a South Dakota farmer who hires him to help with the harvest to a retired widower (played by Hal Holbrook) who enjoys crafting leather.

While documenting his two-year adventure, the movie also shows Supertramp’s final destination: the wilderness of Alaska, where he was determined to live by himself for two years, living off the land, and reading classic literature and writing his memoirs.

The movie actually begins and ends with Supertramp’s Alaska adventure. Like his junket around the U.S., the romanticism wore off.

Again, a true story, Supertramp, who obviously didn’t grow up in a rural area, didn’t fare as well as, say, Tom Hanks did in the movie, “Castaway.” Learning how to clean and smoke an animal by taking notes from a fellow farm worker who hunts, he shoots a moose but fails to smoke the meat before the flies and maggots got to it.

Supertramp finally meets his maker when, hungry, he decides to find edible plants based on a reference book, eats the wrong plant, poisons himself and starves to death.

Set in the 1990s, the guy was about my age, and his adventures happened about the time I was in my final years of college and pondering doing the same kinds of things. Of course, I decided to play it relatively safe; get a job, get married, settle down, etc.

The movie made me believe that, yeah, it would have been fun to have been a little more adventurous in my life. On the other hand, I still have the things that are important to me — my family and my friends.

And oh yeah, I’m still here.

Joel Myhre is The Journal’s general manager. E-mail him at joel.myhre@fergusfallsjournal.com