RELIEF - Maphead - page 172

“When my marriage was going south,” says another friend, recently separated from his
wife of five years, “I took my collection of National Geographics from when I was a kid
and threw them away, like my wife had been telling me to for years. But I couldn't bring
myself to throw away the maps, so I took them out and hid them on top of the book-
shelves.” *
“Asakid,I'dbegmyparentsforthe Thomas Guide everyChristmas,”yetanotherfriend
tells me, lowering her head and smirking guiltily at the sordid shame of it all.
The unlikeliest map booster of all turns out to be Mindy's obstetrician, whom I call the
“monkey doctor,” since, in addition to having delivered my daughter, Caitlin, she also de-
livers all the gorilla babies at Seattle's Woodland Park Zoo. † The monkey doctor keeps a
world map mounted on the wall of her exam room, because, she says, nothing distracts
nervous patients better than a map does. I'm not sure this is the highest bar for map love
to clear—“Maps: More Fun Than Thinking About an Imminent Pelvic Exam!” is unlikely
to catch on as a geography slogan anytime soon—but the doctor has been surprised by
howmanypatients (“more thanyou'dexpect!”) shefindscompletely engrossedinthemap
when she comes in.
Despite all the scare stories about American college students who can't find Africa on a
world map, it seems there is a vast untapped reservoir of goodwill toward geography out
there. It goes undercover; it keeps its head down until it knows it's in friendly company.
But those alarmist newspaper articles about map-dumb kids wouldn't be written at all if,
on some level at least, our society didn't still feel like maps were an important marker of
knowledge and culture and interest.
I'm convinced—and relieved—that, as a maphead, I'm not the lonely oddity I always
thought I was. But this is even better news for the world at large: people still like maps!
Despite the media fear-mongering, our kids still like maps. If they're failing geography
testsenmasse,it'sonlybecause we're lettingthemdown.We'renotteachinggeographyor
spatial literacy the right way or giving them a long enough leash to explore their environ-
mentsontheirown.We'reinadvertently convincingtheminamillion little waysthatmaps
are old-fashioned and dull and that there's something a little weird about looking at them
for fun.
But no matter what we do, I think maps are destined to win the battle. For five hundred
years,mapschangedbarelyatall,soit'snosurprisethatourenthusiasmforthemhasfaded
a bit. But today we are poised at the brink of a potentially Gutenberg-like sea change for
maps. There's nothing dull about a flight through a three-dimensional Grand Canyon on
GoogleEarth,oramapthatshowswhereallyourfriendsareinrealtime,oracomprehens-
ive world atlas—down to street-level detail!—that you can carry with you on a cell phone.
These technologies are so compelling that they could convert even the most spatially con-
fused map skeptic, the way video games turned thousands of not-otherwise-destined-for-