Paul Richardson: The art of direction

Sometimes we simply have to face the facts. I have always considered my grip on reality and facts as fairly firm. Lately I have come to believe that I must be losing strength in those mental talons that used to crush sizable prey and turn certain materials into mush.

These mental gymnastics bring to mind a line from those minstrel poets, The Moody Blues, and from a line in “Just a Singer in a Rock and Roll Band” that stated, “A thousand miles can be so many ways, just to know who is driving what a help it would be.” 

These may not be the exact words, but it is along that line of thought. The line that would be more applicable to me is, “Just to know where I’m standing what a help it would be.”

This all stems from a recent conversation with a friend and neighbor Rick Larkin. My apologies go out to him as in my confusion I became more and more insistent that I was aware of where I was at.

It all began from a discussion about a certain property that was currently on the market. The discussion indicated that the property was in the general direction of my home and in, what I would refer to as, my neighborhood. 

My inquiry as to the location brought back a response of the road that it was on. Instantly in my mind, that rigid talon grip took over and I was travelling along the route that I utilize constantly as I travel back and forth from town. 

When I identified the road where it intersected with my, now current, baseline, I sought confirmation in reference to a local landmark. Yes, this was the road that ran along the east side of the Conservation property. I was on the right tract. 

Attempting to get a better lock on the location, I asked a couple of other questions and then began to extrapolate from the intersection where I was standing, in a mental sense. 

All the time, directions are being given to me based on another intersection with a road that is the short path for this informational source. Without really hearing what he was saying, I had continued to try and place the location from a reference point that was two miles north.

Eventually after a prolonged exchange of north, south, north, south, north, south back and forth, I occurred to me that all the time he had been giving me directions from a route that he uses daily since it would be out of his way to travel past my home and connect with my normal trail. Items that lie between the two routes were north to him, but south to me.

It turns out that I received quite the scolding later from the goodwife who felt that I was too insistent on my input. It is sad what she is going to have to deal with in the future. There were a lot of things that she was never told when she signed on with this outfit. It’s funny that the art of direction could get lost in the state of confusion!