Tom McKoneEarlier this winter, while driving back from my sister and brother-in-law’s house in New Hampshire’s Lakes Region, I got caught in an unexpected, localized snowstorm. Driving west on NH Route 11, I reached the entrance to I-89 and turned onto the ramp, but quickly pulled over and stopped. I could see that traffic on the interstate ahead was at a standstill.
Two other drivers and I backed down the ramp onto NH Route 11. I parked and took out my cell phone to find an alternate route. There was no cell service, so I grabbed some maps from the door pocket, found one for New Hampshire, and quickly figured out how to take state highways instead.
If this happened in central Vermont, in most locations, I wouldn’t need either my phone or a map; however, in the Granite State, I depend on set routes I have taken for decades and know well. Except for the area near my sister’s house and a few other frequented locations, I don’t have a mental map of where else to go if a road is blocked.
When technology fails, it’s gratifying to have Old World solutions, and I can’t think of anything better than the wonders I discovered when I was 10: maps.
It started with a jigsaw puzzle of the continental United States, which I made repeatedly to see how fast I could do it, burning an indelible image of the lower 48 into my brain. The library had a series of books about the states, and I read them all, including the two then-newest ones about Alaska and Hawaii. I walked down to an AAA office a block away, where they were happy to give me several maps, even though I was neither a driver nor a member, at least not yet.
While wallpapering a bedroom, my parents got the idea of buying large world and U.S. maps and using wallpaper paste to put the world map on a wall going up the stairs to the third floor and the U.S. map at the top of the stairs, on the wall between my brother’s room and mine. The maps were a hit with everyone in the family. Sometimes Dad or Mom would challenge us to find states, capitals, or countries or to ask us how to get from one place to another.
Recently, while visiting my daughter, her husband, and their three sons in New York, I was thrilled when my perpetually enthusiastic, six-year-old grandson ran into the living room with a Vermont map. He unfolded it, and showed me Montpelier and a few other places.
I mentioned that I had some maps in the car, and soon we had maps of New York and the New England states laid out on the floor. I was surprised that he understood how to lay them out relative to their positions, but not surprised when he said they didn’t match. Lake Champlain was larger on the New York map than on the Vermont map beside it. They’re different scales, his 13-year-old brother explained.
Most people don’t grow up in houses with a U.S. map pasted on a wall, and it’s not news that Americans, on the whole, don’t have a strong sense of geography. For example, the farther you are from New England, the more people confuse Vermont and New Hampshire. We, however, aren’t any different: many Vermonters confuse Arizona and New Mexico, or Colorado and Wyoming.
The next time I visit New York, I’m bringing a U.S. map for my youngest grandson and some small maps for all three boys. Although I only asked for the U.S. map, when she learned why I wanted it, one of the women at AAA also gave me a few mini maps with travel activities. These days I am a member, but it’s 66 years later and they’re still giving kids maps!
My third grandson is 10 and just as sharp as the other two, and I’m going to close with a question he asked me: “Grampa, what has mountains but no trees, roads but no cars, and lakes but no fish?”
If it takes you more than five seconds to get that, you’re going to kick yourself when you do.
