My hero.

Aside from his parents, relatives and rescuers, no one is happier that 3-year-old Joshua Childers is alive and well than I am.

I’ve been lost in the woods. Not for 52 hours like Joshua was last week, and not in serious, Mark Twain National Forest wilderness-y kinds of woods, like Joshua was. And not when I was 3 years old, either. But really lost. In real woods.

It’s scary, whether you’re three years old or 45. It requires some serious pluck, which Joshua had, or some serious stupidity, which I had.

Joshua wandered away from his home on the Madison and Iron County line about midday Monday. He wasn’t found until Wednesday afternoon. A team of rescuers and volunteers fanned out through the steep and rugged forest, painstakingly walking a search grid — friends and neighbors at time of need.

A construction worker named Donnie Halpin spotted him and walked him half a mile to Bob and Mary Jane Savage’s house. Mary Jane gave him some milk and some dry clothes and asked him what he’d been doing. “I took a hike,” Joshua said.

You expect this kind of impetuous behavior from 3-year-olds. You don’t expect a 45-year-old man to go walking off down a horse trail at dusk in search of a couple of teenagers on horseback. But being a noted woodsman, I took along a flashlight, extra batteries and a Labrador retriever. No matches, of course, and no coat.

The woods are lovely, dark and deep. And I avoid them.

Naturally I got lost. Meanwhile, the teenagers, after being thrown off their horses, were smart enough to follow them back to the barn. Me, I turned on the flashlight when night fell. Then I decided to change the batteries. Sproing! The flashlight came apart, the bulb flew off, and I was in the dark.

The dog was as useless as the flashlight. “Take me home, girl,” I said. Instead, she treed a raccoon. If she had been Lassie, Timmy would still be in the well.

So I stumbled and fell and walked in circles for hours. Eventually I followed a creek to where I could hear noise from a highway. Close to midnight, I made it to a Shell station, cold, tired and embarrassed. It wasn’t milk that I wanted.

If you ever go for a walk in the woods, take Joshua. He’s a survivor. Leave me out of it.