Landmarks

When I was young I used to wonder how my Dad was able to climb behind the wheel of the family station wagon and drive almost anywhere without ever looking at a map. He never stopped to ask for directions, and of course he did not have a GPS to guide him.

When I asked him how he managed to find his way from here to there and back he told me about landmarks. This of course was the subtle trick of looking for the familiar; the recognizable. He had driven all over the state for fifteen years as a Greyhound bus driver and later on as truck driver for Red Owl; so naturally he had the experience of driving to guide him. After a while I started to look for landmarks myself.

The ones that stuck out were the softball fields of Union Hill or St. Thomas (depending on which set of grandparents we were visiting), the house in New Prague (on the corner of 19 and 21) with the front porch that seemed to hang over a bottomless canyon leading to certain death for careless kids, the hand-painted sign in Shieldsville warning of the Lake Mazaska Monster.

Coming back from Southdale the landmarks were Brambilla’s, Winnie’s Dress Shop in downtown Shakopee (where my Mom liked to point to the dress on display in the window), and the Rahr tower. These landmarks let me know we were close to home and on the right track.

My favorite ones still are the rotating beacons from the Fairbault municipal and the Flying Cloud airports. They can be seen for miles and give me a nostalgic calming feeling. After a long day at Grandma’s house in Fairbault my Dad would take the back roads home (this was before 35W was built).

Listening to WCCO in the dark with Dad driving and Mom at his side, my brothers and sisters and I would watch for the flashing airport beacon for miles until we would go over the last hill and it would disappear from sight. We knew it was still there, we just couldn’t see it. Now with that light behind us we turned our attention to the front to see what the car’s headlights would show us.

Lately, I have been wondering where our nation is headed. I don’t recognize any of the landmarks, and we seem to be driving with the lights off. We have a new driver who, like my father doesn’t ask for directions either, but he, unlike my father, can not rely on his experiences to guide him because he doesn’t have them. He is taking us down a road that this nation had not been before: Insurmountable debt, government ownership of private industry, and alliances with those who are intent on our destruction.

President Obama does have a Global Positioning System. But his system of global positioning is not designed to take us over the river and through the woods, but rather it is to position himself, and consequently this country, to be loved and accepted by all across the globe – to become one. Bin Laden, Kim Jong-Il, Ahmadinejad may be on the same road as our President – but they are driving in the opposite direction without regard to who may get in their way.

I like technology but have resisted getting a GPS. I don’t often stop and ask for directions either, and my sense of direction is not to be trusted. But, when I am entering an area where I have no experience I am not too proud to admit that I may be lost.