Teacher Tom: Getting Into and Out of PredicamentsGetting Into and Out of Predicaments
Yesterday morning, I took a long walk in an unfamiliar place. The advent of global positioning system maps, the kind found on every smartphone, has made this a less adventurous proposition than it was even a decade ago. I used to regularly get myself lost and found, but on this day I checked the map and found a route that avoided major roads. It was a bit of a detour, but I was out, in part, for exercise, so I winded my way through unfamiliar neighborhoods for over half and an hour before discovering that the key connector I'd been shooting for was blocked off by the locked gate of a community of private homes. I briefly considered just climbing the fence, but the camera and signs promising an "armed response" to intruders, made me pause. I finally decided that the solution to this predicament was to backtrack. I cursed the failure of the map in my pocket and the full hour I'd spent getting no where.
Once I was back on a main road, however, I set out once more, confident in my surroundings, my predicament behind me. Not long thereafter, however, a man on a bicycle emerged from a roughly paved path that snaked between houses. The signage indicated it was a bike track. It wasn't indicated on my map application, but I figured, having biked along countless bike tracks that taking it would eventually land me near some landmarks, and from there I could find CONTINUE READING: Teacher Tom: Getting Into and Out of Predicaments
