Right Turn, Wrong View

by

Anne Michael

Editor’s note: Anne Michael and her muse are taking a short vacation. Please enjoy one of her early columns this week.  

Recently my husband and I took a much needed and well-deserved vacation. We took a road trip to see places I had never before been and that he remembered from his childhood.

Steve does not like to drive main arteries; he likes what he calls “black lining.” To me, that term sounds too much like the term used when someone dies—flat-lining. But in his vernacular it means taking the tiny black lines on a road map and following them. Steve is the pilot, and I am supposed to be the navigator.  

The first time I tried my hand at navigating was many years ago, not that long after we were married. We were in Georgia, heading south.  “Get us to Atlanta,” he said, “and we’ll stop for supper.” Well, I tried. But a couple of hours later, we found ourselves next to a big hand-painted wooden sign that loomed large along the roadside. It was lit only by a single bare light bulb and read “Welcome to Alabama.” Never having been to Alabama, I was delighted. Need I say Steve was not?

Though this misadventure is now a favorite family story, Steve’s at-the-time Vesuvius-like eruption at finding himself a full state out of his way was, well, not funny. So you can imagine my astonishment these years later when he asked me (someone “directionally challenged”) to navigate our recent vacation jaunt. He was determined to use this trip to teach me how to read a map, and with ten days of intense “on the job” training he thought he could succeed. Have I mentioned that my husband is a brave man who never backs down from a challenge?

To understand what follows, you must know that I am a passionate fan of books. I like my words in straight lines across a page. I like knowing where my eyes are to go next. This means I don’t like maps because maps have squiggles, colored lines and cute little symbols that are supposed to tell me what kind of road I am on. They don’t. If they tell me anything it is that I have no idea what they mean. Had I known ahead of time what I would be facing, I would have gone to Mapquest so that I could get our directions printed out in words. The fact is I was in way over my head before we even turned the car engine over.

In the beginning I thought I did pretty well. Other than a couple of left turns when we should have gone right, we were at no time more than 50 or 75 miles from where we should have been. And I kept us in the correct state so I was pleased. But not my husband. At the end of those ten days, Steve was shaking so visibly I thought he had started drinking caffeinated coffee again.

Upon arriving home, I decided to see if I could find a book on how to read maps (assuming I can ever get Steve in the car with me and a map again). I went to Powells and did a search for “map reading.” Fifty one books came up. I was thrilled—until I realized that fully 90% of them were written for the army, by the army. Still, there were a few items of interest.

Basic Map Reading (UK Edition). The synopsis basically said it was designed to help people of every age and ability grasp basic map skills which seemed like a possibility. However, I was surprised to see the book contained Ordnance Survey map extracts. I decided against that book, since I already know how to make my husband blow up.

US Army Map Reading and Land Navigation Handbook. Now here’s a book. It seems to cover everything map-related imaginable, including “the tricky art of map folding.” That alone would made the book worth getting since any map I use has to be replaced when I’m done with it because it’s so shredded. Origami for maps? Hmm, it has possibilities.

Space Pirates: A Map Reading Adventure. This might come in handy if I ever take a left turn somewhere and end up on the moon although Steve, with just the slightest hint of sarcasm, thinks Uranus would be the more likely result.

If anyone is looking to write a book in a subject area that is not already full up—and has a good-sized audience—I’d like to suggest a self-help book for hopeless map readers. I’d certainly buy it. On the other hand, maybe it will be best if on our next vacation we just fly. I do know how to get to the airport without a map.  


At age 10, Anne realized she was never going to get to be Miss America since reading a book was not an acceptable talent. So she went on to get a job and raise a family. Along the way, she fixed meals, picked up toys, helped with homework, and collected a drawer full of rejection slips for her “great American novel.” It was not all bad, however, since she ended up wallpapering a closet with them. She currently designs and creates greeting cards for her tiny company, The Frog Prints, LLC, and also works full-time as a Training Specialist. Anne is currently tethered to reality by a loving spouse, two dogs, one cat and the occasional hurricane that blows through Florida, although falling headlong and happily into a book is still her favorite “talent.” She can be reached at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it