June 14, 2006
I'd Be Lost Without Getting Lost
I was
watching TV the other night when I caught a commercial for one of those
computerized map services that guarantee you will never again get lost
when traveling the highways and byways of America if you become a
subscriber.
C’mon, folks, get serious.
For more than 40 years I’ve been losing my way in America on a regular
basis and I’ve loved every minute of it. In fact, I’ve written some of
my best newspaper stories after becoming hopelessly lost in at least a
dozen states, three Canadian provinces and the District of Columbia.
My first such adventure occurred nearly 30 years ago when my wife Sally
and I made a wrong right turn while driving home from Chicago and ended
up lost in Gary, Indiana. The closest I had ever gotten to Gary, Indiana
came several years before when I saw the movie The Music Man.
It was early evening and we didn’t have the foggiest idea where we
were. After searching for a service station so I could ask directions
back to the super-highway, I found there wasn’t a single station that
was open. I spotted a roadside produce stand and stopped.
“Hi,
there,” I called to a woman behind the counter.
She eyed me
suspiciously over the rutabagas, squash and celery, then said something
in Spanish. Unfortunately, I don’t speak a single word of Spanish,
unless you count “ole”.
I do,
however, know several German words, including most of the song Silent
Night, because I took a German class in high school back in the days
when the crust of the earth was still cooling.
As I stood there staring dumbfounded at the woman in front of me, a man
emerged from the back of the business. As it turned out, he spoke
fluent English and Spanish and, to make a much longer story short, I not
only got the directions I needed, but also picked up a nice fresh
watermelon and a nifty little feel-good feature story about the woman
and the man who’d come to America just months before and were running a
successful business.
Too much fuss is made over getting lost in America. My theory is
getting lost often leads to some wonderful adventures. You meet new
people, see new places and have more to talk about.
Furthermore, people who get lost on a regular basis give service station
employees all over the country an opportunity to be heroes.
I say that
because, with the sky-high prices of gasoline these days, service
station owners and employees have actually become villains. Nobody
looks forward to stopping at a service station anymore because when you
leave, your wallet is much lighter than it was when you got there.
But, if you stop for directions instead of petrol, the station owner or
employee has a chance to be your hero, your knight in shining armor. He
or she can, in an instant, clear up your confusion and get you safely on
your way again.
Any way you look at it, that’s pretty neat!
© 2006 North Star Writers
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