Columnists
There could be an app for that
Summer. Here’s to the lovers and the haters of the big tourist season. A friend of mine is one of those people who hates just about everything. Summer brings out the worst in her. You know the type. She’s the person who moans and whinges about everything that has to do with tourists. Yeah, yeah, I’m going to whinge and moan about “that person”. Well, let’s just say I’m going to blather on about people like that person. That friend cranks up as soon as the snow stops falling and the roads clear. It’s like a really bad allergy for her.
And so it is summertime in the County. The County is clogged with people on the sidewalks, on the roadways, at the beaches, in the grocery stores and in the restaurants. If you are a County person, someone who lives here yearround, it’s a bit frustrating when elbowing your way around your community becomes what you have to do when the heat is on. I get it. I don’t really like it, either. But tourism pays part of the freight. Last week, LOML and I went to a local pub for a brew and a bite. Of course, the place was filled and we had to wait a bit for a seat. Heck, it’s a popular place so it’s always busy, but in the summertime many of the customers are visitors from away. They’re the folks who have Google Maps open on their phones while they shove fries in their mouths, reach mindlessly for their beer and try to decide which route would be the best to take to the beach. Any beach. They’re often the folks who wonder, loudly enough for all to hear, why it’s so difficult to get decent directions from a local. Could be our lack of geographical edu-mucation. Personally, even though I’ve lived here more than 40 years, I don’t consider myself a County person, but I am a local. Long ago I gave up the idea of using the words “east, west, north, south” in my giving directions conversations. I haven’t mentioned a civic address in those helpful discourses for years, either. But here we are. The world has arrived at the County’s doorstep in the form of tourists, and we’re forced to give up a bit of the culture of our small community, for three or four months, for the sake of giving directions to people who just don’t know who lives at the corner where you turn to go to the park. What the H E doubly directionally challenged is wrong with people? (Insert smirky face here)
My friend, and sometimes co-conspirator told me, many years ago, the only way to get around in the County is to know the landmarks and the landowners. Yep, that’s what she said. Within my first 20 years of being here I had a pretty good grip on charting a course to anywhere within these 250,000 acres without mentioning compass points. Because I’ve been here so long, I can give pretty good directions from where the old Post Office was or from the LickBow to the beach or to the grocery store or to Beer Store, and I do it the County way. And then? Well, and then newcomers started happening, big time. People—like me and min— who liked it so much as a tourist, they moved into the County, permanently. But this newer flock of folks from away are more reluctant to give up their notions of how to get from here to there. They put a lot of stock into Google Maps. They don’t need to know who lives on the corner where you turn left to get to wherever they want to go. They just need their phones. Yeah, I’ve got a smart phone, too. But, like a lot of you, I don’t need to use my phone to find my way around. Not yet. I can still say, “You know the house where Jean and Bob used to live? Well, just past that until you get to Dorothy’s place. You know Dorothy, who was married to Burt? And the next house is where you turn.”
It took a while to get used to navigating in the County way, but here I am. I’m almost good at it. You know, I think someone with generations of County in their blood should create a County app for getting around. It could be really popular with folks who like to harken back to the old days. You know the ones, dressed like they lived in the’50s or ’60s but weren’t born until the ’80s or ’90s. Could call it the Horn Trip App.
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