HAVE YOU EVER GRABBED HOLD OF AN ELECTRIC FENCE AND NOT LET GO? WELL, DON'T!

After graduating from the University of North Caolina at Chapel Hill last winter, Sean Trapp wandered into Cape Girardeau. An aspiring artist, musician or writer, he is currently working as a bartender at Mollie's.

Missouri is, perhaps, my first big stab at freedom. I am on my own in a new place, free to do whatever I choose. But needless to say, with freedom comes a lot of responsibility, some of which I wasn't expecting. From the moment I set out for the Midwest, I began to realize that this freedom thing was much bigger than I had anticipated.

You see, for some reason I had it in my head that Missouri was a Southern state. Don't ask me why; I knew that St. Louis wasn't in the South. Perhaps it was because I had a friend who did a stint at Ft. Leonard Wood, and all he could talk about was the heat. Perhaps it was because Mark Twain seemed to have a decidedly Southern bent. Whatever the reason, I had it in my head that Missouri was south of North Carolina.

10-pound bumble bee

I set off down the road in my '79 Honda Accord hatchback with the windows whistling, the loose piece of plastic on the steering wheel buzzing like a ten-pound bumble bee, and the poor overworked engine sounding as if it was going to explode any minute. Long ago I discovered a wonderful solution to all of these problems: turn the stereo up. Life seemed good, and I was on the road to a new adventure.

The only problem was that every time I had to choose between north and south, my uncanny sense of direction sent me southward. As this trip, which should have taken ten or twelve hours, expanded into a two-day, sixteen-hour-plus cross-country pilgrimage, I began to realize that freedom has both its ups and downs.

I should have known this at a much earlier age. I have been free to make decisions almost all of my life, and one of them, a clear mistake, stands out as a high point of my stupidity.

Granted, I was 15-years old, and most 15-year-olds I know seem to feel it is their duty to do something stupid. Be it far from me to break with such tradition; somehow, for some reason, I decided to grab an electric fence.

Mind you, I did not grab it because I was in danger of falling off a cliff, or because I was running from a charging bull. I was just standing on this farm, waiting for my mother to buy some corn from a local farmer, and I was overcome by an urge to grab this fence.

At first I reached out and gingerly tapped it with two fingers, to see if it was on. I felt nothing. I was delighted. You see, at the time I did not know that electric fences, or at least some of them, work on a pulse. Let me assure you, that is one bit of practical information that I will never forget.

Cows take vengeance

I am sure that all the cows on the other side of the pasture were watching, amazed to actually see a human being that was dumber than they were. Perhaps, if they had mooed a warning, or stampeded in my direction, I could have been saved a lot of pain and embarrassment. No such luck. Vengeance was theirs that day, just as freedom was mine.

Every cow stopped grazing, every calf stopped nursing, and every bull stopped sleeping to watch poor, innocent, stupid me satisfy their craving for revenge over years of painful electric shocks. I was only too happy to oblige.

Without once thinking about why I was doing what I was doing, I wrapped my tender paw around that thin gray wire like a baby grabbing a silver rattler, and boy, did I rattle.

A jolt of hot pain shot through my right arm like none I had ever felt, and when that burst of electricity was over, I stood dumbstruck by a pasture of the happiest cows you have ever seen in your life. My arm was limp and numb, my brain was muddled with confusion about what had gone wrong, and wouldnt you know it, my mother was headed back from the barn, having seen the whole thing.

"I do not believe it," she said, shaking her head back and forth. "I simply do not believe it."

The days of parental sympathy were numbered, if not gone.

"To think that I raised a son who is dumb enough to grab an electric fence! I would not have thought it possible! What on earth possessed you, Sean?!"

"That hurt," I said, still wondering exactly what happened. I was not trying to elicit sympathy; I was merely stating a fact. At that point all my brain could handle were simple facts.

"That hurt. Of course it hurt! What did you expect? Good lord, get in the car before you do any more damage to yourself," she said, throwing the corn in the back seat.

"For some crazy reason I thought that when you got older you'd be able to take care of yourself! As it stands, I can't take you anywhere any more!" And with a few more shakes of her head and a couple of expletives, my mother started up our silver Ford Fairmont station wagon and left that pasture of cattle, who had long since gone back to grazing, nursing, and sleeping, but who now had a very warm, satisfied feeling in their vengeful, little hearts.

Where does freedom fit in?

Now you may be wondering why I tell this story, when I'm supposed to be talking about freedom. If I could tell you about what I learned when I was imprisoned for 16 years for a crime I did not commit, perhaps I would.

If I could tell you about the wars I've fought in to protect the rights of men and women and children, I'd probably do that too. But I can't.

So far, freedom has never really been a mountaintop experience for me. And I expect it's like that for most of us. More often than not, freedom, for which men have fought countless wars, about which writers have written countless books, and for which many people would rather die than live without, comes down to simple, everyday questions like, "Would you prefer wheat or rye," or, as my mother so eloquently put it, "What on earth possessed you, Sean?!"

That may seem disappointing at first, but it isn't. After all, they say that it is the little things that mean a lot. Having the freedom to make your own mistakes is, in my mind, a gift beyond measure. No matter how big or how large a choice we may be talking about, it's the freedom to experience life, no matter what the cost, that we all hold so dearly.