Maps

Day 205: Maps

Remember when we actually relied on maps to help us get from one place to another? You'd keep a map of the town you lived in in the driver's door pocket, so if you had to find your way to an unknown address, you could whip out your map and look it up in the index. Sometimes you'd get a little frustrated, because you'd be looking in quadrant C-9, and you just wouldn't be able to see Easy Street. Or you wouldn't realize that Easy Street was one-way until you got all turned around, and you were running late anyway, and there were no cell phones in those days to call and let them know you were circling the neighborhood.

Remember when you were planning a big trip, and you'd go to AAA and pick up maps of every state along the way, and a regional map and a triptych for safe measure, and you'd pour over them, planning the route, cross-referencing with The Lonely Planet to make sure you captured the best scenery or the best little brewery or the best Native American ruins? Or maybe you were heading to Europe, or Africa, or Mexico, so you'd have to go to A Clean Well-Lighted Place or Nicola's or Cody's and buy a map from their travel section, so you could do the same thing? 

After a while, all the pockets in your car, and the glove-compartment too, would get filled up with maps, and when it got to be too much and you couldn't find the map of your own town, you'd move the extra maps into the shoe box where you kept them - because you can never throw away old maps - but before you'd put them away, you'd open them up on the kitchen table and reminisce? Every once in a while, when you ran out of wrapping paper, you'd poke around in the shoe box to find the most colorful and interesting map that you knew you'd never use again, because what a thrill it is to get a birthday present wrapped up in a map.

I don't remember when I last used a map to find my way. GPS rocks, of course. The anxiety of trying to drive and navigate at the same time is gone. Wrong turn? No problem. Recalculating. Traffic ahead? GPS knows all; she'll reroute you.

But there's something fundamentally unsatisfying about scrabbling around with the "Overview" setting on a 2"x2" electronic screen. GPS is an act of faith: in 400 feet, turn right. Then, turn left. Don't worry. I'll get you there. You just relax.

Nine square feet of the big picture, laid out in full color with a legend, scale and index, now that's a powerful tool. If you don't know the big picture - if you don't know the destination and the available paths to get there - how do you make good decisions?

Well, good tools or not, these maps have been in a plastic box in the basement for over a decade, and my new car has no maps in it. My brother Karl texted me to ask if I have any maps for his classroom. It's nice to know these beautiful maps - the culmination of centuries of art and science - will go to good use.