Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
Chapter 1
ECCENTRICITY
n
.:
the deformation
of an elliptical map projection
—PAT CONROY
T
hey say you're not really grown up until you've moved the last box of your stuff out of
storage at your parents'. If that's true, I believe I will stay young forever, ageless and care-
free as Dorian Gray, while the cardboard at my parents' house molders and fades. I know,
everybody's
parents' attic or basement has its share of junk, but the eight-foot-tall mountain
of boxes filling one bay of my parents' garage isn't typical pack-rat clutter. It looks more
like the warehouse in the last shot of
Raiders of the Lost Ark
.
The last time I was home, I waded into the chaos in hopes of liberating a plastic bucket
of my childhood Legos. I didn't find the Legos, much to my six-year-old son's chagrin, but
I was surprised to come across a box with my name on the side, written in the neater hand-
writing of my teenaged self. The box was like an archaeological dig of my adolescence and
childhood, starting with R.E.M. mix tapes and
Spy
magazines on top, moving downward
through strata of
Star Trek
novelizations and
Thor
comics, and ending on the most primal
bedrockofmyyouthfulnerdiness:acopyofHammond's
Medallion World Atlas
from1979.
I wasn't expecting the Proustian thrill I experienced as I pulled the huge green topic from
the bottom of the box. Sunbeam-lit dust motes froze in their dance; an ethereal choir sang.
At seven years old, I had saved up my allowance for months to buy this atlas, and it became
my most prized possession. I remember it sometimes lived at the head of my bed at night
next to my pillow, where most kids would keep a beloved security blanket or teddy bear.
Flipping through its pages, I could see that my atlas had been as well loved as any favorite
plush toy: the gold type on the padded cover was worn, the corners were dented, and the
binding was so shot that most of South America had fallen out and been shoved back in up-
side down.
Today,Iwill still cheerfully coptobeing abit ofageography wonk.Iknowmystate cap-
itals—hey, I even know my
Australian
state capitals. The first thing I do in any hotel room
is break out the tourist magazine with the crappy city map in it. My “bucket list” of secret
travel ambitions isn't made up of boring places like Athens or Tahiti—I want to visit off-
the-beaten-path oddities like
Weirton, West Virginia
(the only town in the United States that
borders two different states on opposite sides) or Victoria Island in the Canadian territory of
