Lost in a Red Brick Forest

“Why in the hell doesn’t this map have a ‘you are here’ on it?”  I grumbled today as I’m trying to hold on to a tri-fold paper map of the Baylor University campus in the blistering hot humid winds.  I was so confused.

It reminded me of the first time I was in downtown Chicago.  I felt like such a Hick standing on a street corner way back then gazing in awe at the height of the structures.  I wondered how anyone could tell directions when the sun was completely blotted out by the buildings.

So today, during freshman orientation, I found myself in the same position.  A Hick, a little older and a little wiser, but still a Hick.  I stood there on a street corner in my walking shorts, white socks, tennis shoes, and printed Academy fish shirt.  My Oakley “Flak Jackets” helped hide my confusion as I stood there in a forest of beautiful old red brick buildings.  As I spun around I noted the majestic oak trees and the huge pecans.  Everything was beautiful and clean – and looked exactly the same.  But like the big city, the buildings and the trees blocked the sun at times, providing some shaded relief.  The only indication of North from South was the wind, which has haunted us everyday it seems since March.

“Didn’t we park in that parking garage?”

“No Dad, that’s on the other side of campus.”

“How do you know?”

“I just do.  We’ve walked past this spot 30 times today.”

Of course we had.  I knew that.  I was just testing her. 

Plop me down in the woods anywhere and I can find my way out.  But if you plop me down in the middle of the Baylor Campus please leave me with a survival kit because I’m going to be hungry and thirsty before I find my way out.  Not that it is really all that big.  But it is just confusing to me.  The buildings are all just beautiful.  And red.  And brick.  Grand oak trees that provide beautiful cooling shade surround every building.  They also block the names of the buildings.

But I had a map.  Not that it helped much.  I must be getting color blind as well as far-sighted.  Either that or my arms are getting shorter.  The map provided is a 3-D version that makes it useful from really only one direction.  When I look at a map, I like to turn it to a position relative to the direction I’m facing.  When a 3-D map gets upside down, well, the buildings are, upside down.  So there I stood, holding the map out, turning, referencing, reaching for my trusty boy scout compass...

“Dad, what are you doing?”

“I’m trying to figure out where we are.”

“Why?”

“I don’t know, I just feel more secure knowing where I am I guess.”

“Dad, we’re right here” (Thumping on the map.)

“Oh.  Is that our parking garage?”

“Yes.”

“Right.  I knew that.  I bet you don’t know what floor we parked on?”

She did.  She took us right to the car.  Thank God.

Don’t they make a phone app for people like me?