The first two things we say to folk who want to hike ahead of our group? 1) When you get to a trail junction, wait for the rest of us. 2) When you think you are lost STOP MOVING, because that is the moment you are least lost.
Boy, you cannot stop moving in the Bronx. There are junctions everywhere. Lost and moving.
Blessed I was in my upbringing. My father, a towering figure even after I could see the crown of his head, was an air navigator trainee at the end of WWII, used to using the stars to get around. Odds are you’ve heard me talk about that on some starlit field. In later life, he was a Michigan game warden, used to the backroads and byways, and I inherited both those loves and their skill sets from him. A common field test once I had a driver’s permit was for Charlie to say something like, “I’m beat, son: remember that place up near Alpena where you liked the pool table? That’s where we need to be by 6pm. I’m going to take a nap.” Then, he would. 15yo me loved that challenge even when I’d learned a bank shot on that table half my life ago. We went right there
Blessed was he (and I) with our location as well. In 1787 or so, existing and new American territory became surveyed and platted into sections, and new road construction was often laid out on those survey lines. West of Pennsylvania you see this a lot. East of there, Europeans settled in river mouths and other convenient locations, and the initial roads follow the easier grades, often laid out along herding paths. Thus, Michigan was a cheater for my navigation training: older roads ran laterally and newer roads were on a grid. I never felt lost there, and in the odd case that I felt a touch of uneasiness I just alternated left and right turns until I hit a big lake. While Natty B was doing her Scotland year and then her comprehensive exam studies, I drove to county buildings all over the state to do title abstracts. In 21 months, I put 196,000 miles on my work car AND was still getting done with work in time to golf with Dad. There was a bunch of transcontinental driving before that (Natty and I met on a tour, and her folk lived west of the Rockies) but it was mostly grids-and-go-for-it.
I occasionally wept. Minneapolis/St. Paul bent me, with a grid system of freeways and avenues in a landscape with a big river (settled by a guy named Pig’s Eye?) running through it like a u-bend under the sink. Then, the first year we were in Plattsburgh NY I got lost all the time because the roads fanned out like fingers on a hand, laced with riverside roads that went every which way and some seriously sketchy woods roads that were still on MapQuest. Paper maps were all over my life. They are one of the 10 essentials every Scout should carry. Taking the time to pull over and sort out your location sets the tone for your trip. Then, we started to get a tad lazy. Phone maps are super handy until you have no signal, and the road that runs past my friend Gregg’s place always makes the kiddos groan because they are certain I go down it to rescue mapless tourists whose “gps” quit on them. in the middle of nowhere. I admit to feeling a smugness when I help them out, and I worry about that affecting my karma.
Today, again, I wept.
You try juggling a paper map in The Bronx! Feh, I have an excellent mapper on my phone and signal to spare, even when my use of turn signals and proper etiquette marks me as a rube from the back of beyond. Today, I wept because, in a rush to get Natty B to a conference at Fort Schuyler, I left my phone someplace. I know not where. I got to the destination in 20 minutes (my third time out there this week) thinking I could run the course in reverse. The Bronx laughed, and I wept. A perfect navigational storm of 100s of years of animal-path roads, creeks/tidal inlets/sprawled urbanity, combined with my appearing to be driving-chum to the voracious sharks of imo the prettiest borough of the 5 turned my 20 into a hard 70. Watery boundaries were no longer comforting. 200yo animal paths became Ed’s nightmare once paved, overarched by railways, and populated by folk who knew what to do: put your head down and press into your place. Thinking I might see my pink phone along the 11 km I drove it AGAIN. This time? 90 minutes on the return. I don’t dare think I’ve got this, don’t dare back off. The Bronx will know. The sharks will swarm. Tears will fall.
Upsides? I’m not on my phone dooming, so even though I have no idea where I am, I have a head of blogging steam and a direction to point it. My phone is also very secure (now I’ve cursed it) so unless and until I get to a place where I can reignite the security for my 3 jobs (6.5hrs north) I feel confident that my data is okay (C’MON, Ed)
Downside? I have to go back out there and drive again, lost and moving. I know it. The Bronx, bless her, knows it. My digital map is locked behind a door on a second floor and the sharks know it.
#lostandlost #guideslife #ephemeradk
Ed