I was contemplating the true importance of the chores still facing me on a sunny spring Saturday when my phone rang. I recognized the number as a good friend, and answered in a tone befitting a Saturday, “What in the world are you doing?”
“Sitting in the Green Swamp looking for my lost daughter,” was my buddy’s reply.
There was a moment where I am fairly sure my heart quit beating, then my mind kicked in to high gear. Snake boots, machete, and other gear were in the truck. Fill the canteens, get on the horn to other friends, find out where she was last seen –
Then my buddy laughed.
“She’s stuck down some road, and I haven’t found her yet. Can‘t even find her tire tracks,” he said.
Seems her GPS had sent her down a short cut to home – which, as the crow flies, would have been just that. Problem was, there is no road on the route she took. Rather than turning around when the pavement changed to all-encompassing muddy morass, she stubbornly pressed on, since the GPS told her to.
Now, I care very deeply for my buddy’s daughter, so much so I won’t use her name here. She’s an excellent student, and a fine young lady, the kind of girl most dads would be proud to call their own.
But this time, her dad said, “she really pulled a boneheaded move.”
The next time I see this lovely young woman, I intend to give her a bag of miniature marshmallows, since they mark a trail better than bread crumbs.
I don’t have the best sense of direction in the world, but I can read a map, and follow directions. Indeed, just a couple weeks back, my proud memory failed when a practical map would have saved a good 20 miles on a Sunday afternoon errand. Still, even when house numbers are little more than a punchline for a joke, I can usually guesstimate where I’m headed. There are enough resources available online (before you leave home) that you can even find out what your destination has in the front yard. Failing those, I am not ashamed to stop somewhere and ask directions if I get lost.
But I don’t have, nor do I trust, those GPS contraptions.
Most folks I know swear by their GPS units, and that’s fine. But I’ll be dast if I will take instructions from a machine.
I have another friend who relies on hers to go from her house to her mailbox, or so it seems. Her husband gave up years ago trying to convince her to do otherwise.
She’s a smart woman, and so highly skilled in areas that her knowledge shocks folks who are professionals in the same field. She’s a good mother.
But she’s a lousy navigator.
We take a peculiar pride in Elwell Ferry in Kelly; when the river cooperates, which it hasn’t for months now, I use the ferry every day on my commute to work. It cuts a good 20 miles off my commute most of the time, as it does for a host of other folks heading east or west, between sunrise and sunset.
My friend, the lady I mentioned earlier? She loathes the ferry – reason being, her GPS sends her there, every time she has tried to come to our community. Despite never having managed to ride our beloved little boat, she still trusts her GPS.
The GPS doesn’t tell you when the ferry is closed – the signs and the recorded message do that. Nor does the GPS tell you that the ferry can hold two passenger vehicles, not a one-ton truck and a huge trailer. One of the ferry operators I know keeps a running tally of how many transfer trucks have to back and fill when their GPS tells them to use the ferry, rather than the highway a few miles down.
About that highway – I’ve tried to tell my friend that, in her case, the Blackrock Bridge on NC 11 is actually a better route. However, she listens to my directions even less than to those of her husband. Of course, she’s a Yankee, so we have to make concessions.
A decidedly Southern buddy of mine – who admitted he knows better – has gotten lost en route to my house twice, courtesy of his GPS. His unit refuses to acknowledge that my home exists.
Once it was a rainy night, and I waited at a well-lit landmark about 10 miles from home, only to watch him drive right past, staring at the little blue screen that sent him an additional 20 miles out of the way. Now, Miss Rhonda and I live beside a main highway. Our address reflects that. My buddy didn’t have to make a single turn between Burgaw and Lagoon, in order to find our house. Yet the GPS said our address didn’t exist, and sent him to White Lake. I guided him in, via telephone, using landmarks, road features (“See that curve up ahead of you? Slow down.”) and – wonder of wonders – house numbers.
That little detour stood him well the next time he came to visit, since he again blindly followed the GPS and ignored the large “Closed” signs on the ferry, as well as the time table that clearly said it had shut down hours earlier. Had he followed my directions, he’d have made it to our place by supper. As it was, it was close to bedtime, since apparently the people who programmed his unit have something against the good folks in Blackrock, and don’t bother to mention the perfectly good bridge (which is open 24 hours a day, I might add). At least my buddy can laugh at himself, unlike my Northern friend, who could end up on a terror watch list for the things she has said should be done to the ferry.
I have a new protocol when guiding people toward our community.
I always ask if they have a GPS unit, and if the answer is no, I give them very detailed directions, and wait beside the road when I anticipate their arrival. If the answer is yes, I get the make, model and color of their vehicle, when they plan to head my way, and then I head out to intercept them, or possibly search for a confused looking person staring at a spinning GPS unit that could just as easily have placed them in the Arctic Ocean as in Colly Bay.
A gentlemen I knew and respected once snorted when someone told him their GPS unit could help them find their way through the woods, but couldn’t help them find our community.
“If you need a machine to get you here,” he said, “you might not ought to be here in the first case.”
Folks often criticize me as a cave dweller for not having a GPS, but I look at it like my old friend did – if I have to have a machine to tell me where I am going, I might not should have gone there in the first case.
But if I do, I’ll have a map – I’ll be sure to check to see if the ferry’s running, and that I’m carrying a bag of miniature marshmallows.
About Author
