| 5/29/2006 Just Wandering Around, It Seems
I HAVE THIS propensity for leaving my directions at home although I always seem to arrive at my destination. I'm not entirely sure when this bad habit started, but I remember the first time was in the early 1980s when I visited from friend, Todd Linebaugh, who lived in Youngstown, Ohio. He and I had spoken on the phone, and after carefully going over the route, I climbed into my car and headed for the Pennsylvania Turnpike. The directions were sitting on the kitchen table, of course, something I didn't realize until I had hit the Pennsylvania-Ohio border. Although I had remembered key details, I still had no idea of what the house looked like, if it was on the left or right side of the road or his telephone number. I was more than a bit surprised when I managed to find myself at his parents' home – on time. • My wife and I generally agree that I have a much better sense of direction. Lin feels that this might be a gender difference, as many of her friends know how to get from A to B but would get lost if asked to go from A to C to B. • The second time I left the directions at home was visiting my cousin, Ron Jordan, in Indianapolis. I had been there once before several years prior, but only for a day. On this trip, I didn't realize that I had left the directions at home until I was in the middle of Ohio. This was before the convenience of the mobile phone, and once again was I lacking both the directions and his telephone number – his unlisted telephone number. Somehow I again made my way to his house, guided by fate, the unseeing hand and a bit of luck. • I remember one time crying after I got "lost" in the supermarket. I can't remember if it was Von's, Piggly Wiggly or Safeway. I guess it doesn't matter. I must have been very young – maybe 4 or 5. I try not to shed tears these days when I get lost. It might have been the last time I got lost. Actually, that's not true, but it sure sounded good. • I subsequently forgot to bring the directions on return trips to see Todd and his wife, Diane, after they moved. I had been there once before, and I pretty much went by memory – when the memory was still good and not filled with useless tech crap for work. Not long after, I left the directions when I ventured north to Michigan to visit my brother, Tim, and his then-wife, Tina. I think I made only a couple of wrong turns in their development. Several years later, when I returned – again without directions – it took me several times up and down his street to figure out which house was his ... well, his ex-wife's. Apparently, grass had grown over the mud that had covered his lawn the first time I had seen it years earlier. • When I was stationed in Germany, I took a trip to Spain. I met a bunch of people, including a Mexican lady and her younger sister. On the way back from the main pickup point at another air base, the driver got lost. It was dark, and the driver got lost. It took us an extra hour to return to our air base, Hahn. The younger sister cried. I held her hand, which comforted her a bit. I always thought it a bit silly that she cried, because she was 19, not 9. • You know you're really lost when you're in an unknown area and have no clue where you are. • I always travel with a road atlas these days. • But seriously, if you're in the U.S., how lost can you be? I mean, if you keep driving, eventually you will find another town. • On my first trip to Toronto to visit a group of friends, including one that I was staying with for the night, I somehow lost all of the directions, including the map that he had carefully drawn. One minute I had the directions, and the next they were gone, and I never found them. I made it to within a block of his development, but I couldn't remember the final part. By now, it was 10:30 p.m., and of course, I didn't have his phone number. I tried to call directory assistance to get his number, but the operator was so impatient that she hung up before I could say anything. I ended up just guessing where he lived and found his street on the first try. I still couldn't remember the house number and drove up and down the street several times, hoping that he would be waiting by the front door. At 10:45 p.m. In the dark. When it was 20 degrees outside. No such luck. Just when I decided I would spend the night in my car, I remembered I had brought a laptop. Again, luck was in my favor, as I found a recent e-mail with the directions. • There is this little joke about Pittsburgh that longtime residents use landmarks for directions. However, in most cases those landmarks no longer exist. A conversation goes something like this:
This works fine if the person has lived there for 25 years. But obviously if they had, they wouldn't be asking for directions. So the poor visitor spends the next half hour looking for places that no longer exist. • I visited my brother, Tim, on a hunting trip down near West Virginia. The directions from Tim and his friend on two separate calls ended up being a bit vague, and within a half hour, I was simply driving around aimlessly in Greene County. The directions told me to take a one-lane road. On paper, it made sense. Wandering around Greene County, it was a problem. They were all one-lane roads. • Men don't need to ask for directions, because we're all blessed with an innate sense of direction. Just like Emperor Kusco, who lost his way in the jungle and fell into a jaguar den moments after saying that. |