Adventures in Retro GPS

Beth and I got our driver’s licenses in 1980. Just a few months after, Beth moved from Trenton to Philly, then to the Jersey Shore, not to return to Trenton for three decades.

My sensible wife started and finished her college career at a five-year pharmacy school. In five years. I started my decades-long college career at the college formerly known as New Jersey State Normal School in Trenton*. Fortunately, they changed the name before I got there. Otherwise, they never would have let me in.

The upshot: I stuck around a lot longer, spending years driving around Trenton. Plus, when I got my license, I already knew all the landmarks, because I’d spent years riding my bicycle around the Capital City. One end to the other, week after week. You haven’t lived until you’ve given your nervous system a workout, dodging maniacs late for the dry cleaning and speeding delivery trucks from a bike seat on Route 33 in Hamilton Township. Just sayin’, but that’s another story.

My mental map of Trenton is pretty big. Beth never had time to learn her way around and wasn’t quite so suicidal on her bicycle, so hers is significantly smaller.

This is where the fun began.

On one of our first forays, running errands in our new/old hometown, I had a little amusement at her expense. I know every building in town. Trouble is, my mental map is frozen c. ’85, about the time I left, to follow the love of my life to the Jersey Shore. (No, not 1885. I heard that.)

Somehow, she ended up in the driver’s seat. Not our typical setup. I must have taken a phone call or something. She asked how to get to wherever we were headed.

The trap was set.

It started out fine. “OK, make a right at the light,” I said.

Then, two minutes later, “Make a left where Deli-Delite used to be.”

I do this all the time and it always gets a laugh. My father-in-law, Jim Coleman, was famous for this. You’d ask him how to get to X or Y and he’d give you pretty accurate directions, with one caveat. They were sprinkled with the most useless landmarks you’d never think of. “So, you go past Uncle Marion’s old house. Then you make a left where Reed’s Sod Farm used to be. Then look for the fork at the road at the house where the big black dog used to live,” and so on. His landmarks were lifted from the decades-old photo album in his head, so many faded postcards.

She did laugh. The first time. But, unfortunately for my hapless spouse, I can do this on every corner in town.

“Stay to the right, where the Merry-Go-Round bar used to be.”

“Make a right where Extension Patio used to be.”

“Make a left where Seafood Shanty used to be.”

“Go right where Ground Round used to be.”

“Make a left where E.J. Korvette’s used to be.”

And so on.

After the first dozen, she was ready to smack me in the head. She doesn’t know where anything used to be. She wasn’t around long enough to learn it. And I’m in hysterics, feeding her completely useless information, fully in touch with my inner old coot.

“OK, right where Paul’s Liquor Store used to be. Oh, crap, Paul’s Liquor Store is still here!” Foiled, by a throwback.

I didn’t torture her the whole trip, once I realized she didn’t exactly appreciate retro-GPS mode. I turned off the time machine and got her back to the house.

“Where’d you go,” asked Mom, as we loaded bags into the kitchen.

“Aldi,” I replied.

“Oh, I like that store. Is that in Ewing?”

“Yeah,” said Beth. “Where Parfait House used to be.”

*To be renamed New Jersey State Teachers College and State Normal School at Trenton. To be renamed New Jersey State Teachers College at Trenton. To be renamed Trenton State College. To be renamed The College of New Jersey, a moniker unceremoniously stolen from Princeton University, founded in 1746 as the College of New Jersey, aka The Real College of New Jersey.

TO BE CONTINUED

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