“Go four blocks south, turn right on Elm St., drive past the second playground with the yellow ribbons tied around the monkey bars, and then turn left on McGregor Ave., and look for the old blue Chevy truck parked in the driveway on the right about 100 yards down the street. That’s our house.”
I have welcomed many technological advances.
GPS (Global Positioning System) is one of the better ones. It’s on my phone, my car navigation system, and now my Apple watch (which even makes a clicking sound like a blinker to indicate an upcoming turn).
GPS is a one-click deal. I can now just type in West Plains High School on my personal device or a vehicle’s controls and off I go to parts unknown with no worries. The new technology even provides arrival time adjusted for traffic.
However, I remain grateful for my old-school map and listening skills. I know that from my short stint as a rural postal carrier that GPS sometimesmissedthemark for those houses off the beaten path. I had to rely on a printed list of directions to find some houses on the backroads of Stonewall and Haskell counties.
And a small part of me misses the days of having to think about oral directions given to me over the phone. Listening skills mattered. Verbal skills mattered. One misstep from either the speaker or listener might find me knocking on the door of a stranger who was not my cousin Gene.
If I were still teaching Sixth Grade, I think it would be fun to take students on a county-wide field trip, having them give me (the bus driver) directions on how to get to their houses. No phones. No GPS.
“See that fence post, Mrs. Mayes, the one painted white? O.K. Slow down and go that way. Follow this dirt road. It has a bad bump coming up, so take it easy or you’ll regret it. O.K. now, there’s a cattle pen over here on the left which is empty but those heifers will be filling it up soon, so ease past it and take the next curve until you reach the old barn that finally cratered last November after that bad storm and drive until you get to the newer barn on the other side of the road, the one my dad and I finished this summer and he didn’t even pay me, Mrs. Mayes. O.K. Now let’s go down this hill with a lot of rocks and cross the old dry creek bed and on the other side—watch out for the cows, Mrs. Mayes—we will drive a spell before we get to my house.”
GPS isn’t nearly that entertaining.
Snyder, Texas, native Sue Jane Sullivan is a retired schoolteacher whose thought-provoking commentary appears occasionally in several West Texas newspapers, including The Texas Spur and The Caprock Courier.
