Originally published April 4, 2006
I was rooting around in Earl’s car’s glove compartment looking for a particular map, and it struck me that the contents of the compartment provided a history of our road trips together. I smiled in remembrance.
We bought the map for Arkansas when my Mother died and we went to her home in Conway, AR, together to empty her house and bring back those few things I wanted. Among them were two bedraggled trunks that I had refinished and now display proudly in my home. That map helped us drag the U-haul home through the small towns of the Arkansas and Missouri Ozark Mountains without getting off the path.
The map for San Francisco came in handy when we flew there, rented a car, and met my father who lived in the valley. I returned a couple times on my own and used the same map for handy reference.
The New York State map represents two car trips Earl and I took back East to my own origins in upper New York State. I don’t think Earl had ever heard of Lowville until I came into his life. But Lowville is where most of my ancestors are buried, my mother and step-father, my grandparents, and great grandparents among them. It’s my version of his Spring City; and we plan to visit again this summer. We’ll need that map.
Then there are maps for Illinois, Michigan, and Indiana, mostly because those are the states close at hand where we travel back and forth. There’s also a local one of the county where we live; it is among the most worn because it took us a while to get our bearings when we moved here.
The trouble with roadmaps is that they become outdated within a few years, what with new construction of highways and detours. But we rarely bother to purchase a new map; rather we rely on the old ones, the ones with memories of previous trips, their creases and cracks embedded in our consciousness.
For updated information, we depend on signs along the highway. But for reminiscing we rely on the outdated maps in the glove compartment. I suggest you check yours and see what you recall.
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