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She was face down. She couldn’t move. She was afraid of who might find her.

It was then she shouted, “Hurry! Take the picture!”

The plea is coming from Novie Thomas, 72, whose demeanor normally is as harsh as a rose petal.

The intended recipient is her husband, Joe. He’s 71 and has had two enterprises. One used to be running a local produce outfit. The other: being Joe.

Together, this couple recently drove across America for their 50th wedding anniversary — planking all the way.

Never heard of planking?

That’s OK. Novie and Joe hadn’t before their grandsons told them about it.

To the uninitiated, planking used to be The Latest Thing before something called Tebowing. We’ll get into that later.

As far as planking, it’s the act of being someplace — the weirder, the better — and lying face down. You know. Like a plank.

Then getting your picture taken.

Who invented it? When? Why? No one is sure.

“I thought it was silly to begin with,” Novie recalls. “I didn’t leave here with planking on my mind.”

That changed once the couple reached Kentucky.

The conversation went like this.

Joe: “Why don’t we plank?”

Novie: “Are you kidding?”

But in Frankfort — the state capital — Novie got out, found a picnic table and went stiff as a board.

Joe took a picture.

If passersby didn’t know Novie was planking, they might’ve gotten the wrong idea.

“If they thought I was drunk, I didn’t know,” she says.

When they saw the picture, her grandsons — William, 15, and Grayson, 18 — couldn’t believe she did it.

So Novie planked again.

That’s when the unexpected happened. The couple started to like it.

Explains Joe: “We did it for the love of our grandchildren. But all of a sudden, it became something fun. We’d get to another state and we’d be like, 'It’s time to plank again.’ ”

There was Novie at an Illinois rest stop.

And in front of St. Louis’ Gateway Arch.

And in the mud at Yellowstone National Park in Wyoming.

Oklahoma. Iowa. Idaho.

The couple hit 19 states as Novie tried her best each time to lose herself in the part.

“I didn’t figure there were any rules to planking except laying straight,” she explains. “I would tell Joe, 'Hurry! Take the picture!’ ”
And he dutifully would. That is, when he wasn’t working the crowd.

“I told one person, 'It’s a sight what people will do to get attention,’ ” he recalls. “They thought that we got out of the insane asylum. But at our age, that doesn’t bother us.”

The last plank came on Day 24. In Greensboro. With William and Grayson.

“We still think it was pretty bizarre,” Joe admits.

So, what’s next, guys?

Batmanning (hanging upside down by your feet)?

Plumbking (doing a headstand in a toilet)?

Tebowing (getting down on one knee and praying)?

Joe is open to suggestions. Novie not so much.

“I think we’re done.”

Contact Mike Kernels at 373-7120 or mike.kernels@news-record.com