Hither and Thither

It's getting so I can't go for a walk in this town without being asked repeatedly for directions. I'm shambling along a busy street, lost in a pleasant fog of reverie, and inevitably, a car will pull alongside me, a window will roll down, and someone will say "Excuse me, how do I get to . . . .?" This happened twice today. A woman wanted to know how to get to Second Street. "That's downtown," I said. "Nowhere near here." "No, no," she said. "Second Street in the Heights." There is no Second Street in the Heights (the neighborhood where I live), and I was at a loss. Then she said, "Uh . . . Washington Park." "It's that way," I responded with relief, pointing to the park less than two blocks away, where I happened to be headed myself. "Thank yoouuu," she sang and sped off.

Shortly thereafter, a man in a van slowed down and asked me how to get to the "Jersey Turnpike." This left me nonplussed for a moment, there being many ways to get there from the street we were on. "I think you'd be better off turning around and going that way till you get to State Highway, turning left, going down the hill, then turning left again and then left again," I said. He thanked me and did a U-turn. I realized that I had just sent him toward one of the most complex urban highway intersections in the nation—the one that includes the "helix" entrance to the Holland Tunnel. He may very well have ended up in Manhattan rather than on the New Jersey Turnpike. Oh well, I thought. I tried to recover the train of thought I'd been riding before he accosted me, but it had left the station.

Why me? Nobody else I'm sharing a sidewalk with ever seems to get asked. I must look like I know—white, middle-class guy of a certain age that I am. But I'm hardly the authority. Half the time, I don't know what to tell them and feel like an idiot. I have no sense of direction. And I've even sent people the wrong way at times—as I've realized later, cursing myself. I wonder if they cursed me, too, as they sped toward some place they never intended.