Always ask for directions-

I could not have been more proud. My son Andy was selected to the Wisconsin Eastern Conference All-Star team in basketball as a Sophomore. He had a huge year at guard with nearly 350 points and a slew of other stats that ranked him 8th of the top 22 players in the conference out of nearly 500 athletes. Not too much chest thumping from Dad huh? The opportunity for me to watch Andy display his prowess on the court is something I treasure-and the three hour drive to the game with him next to me in the car adds to the magic. Time spent together while he is at college is a rare commodity.

Off we go to Wausau, Wisconsin and I had already looked at the map-you know the old fashioned way like my Pop did. Pull out the Road Atlas-turn to page whatever and follow the little lines to where you want to go. Then you memorize it-leave the Atlas at home and off you go. Simple. As we leave college he picks up his phone that doubles as a radio, television, microwave oven, game board and speaks into it..."Wausau, Wisconsin" and plugs the thing into my cigar lighter in automatic fashion. I think "what the hell is he doing?" Then this mechanical female voice which is a cross between Marge Schott the late owner of the Cincinnati Reds and Rosie the robotic maid from the Jetsons starts talking.."Go straight to business 141 and turn left" Whaaat? That's not on my map. I ignore the directions and drive the other way and the thing starts squawking with more directions...and more and more...all the while he is saying "Pop you gotta follow the directions on the phone..!" We go back and forth..making a couple U turns before the GPS and I agree that we are indeed heading the right way...if nothing else to shut it up. It goes into a brief hiatus and leaves me drive in peace.

As we get nearer the destination the thing starts up again..barking out "turn left in 600 feet" and my own inner map says no way-its a dirt road and I am not going there. I am of course in charge of 2500 pounds of the finest steel on the road and not going to listen to a rebate laden telephone. Finally between the electronic conductor and my son insisting I turn left on 52 south and not 51 south like the Atlas instructed I give in and start listening to this thing-this modern day marvel that has more tracking components in it than the first Apollo lunar module.  52 south takes us to another road and then another and damned if the the thing didn't get us to exactly where we needed to be and calculated the time it would take-and it saved us about 20 minutes. From a cell phone.

Its taken a day to absorb what else happened for me. My own inner GPS- has been off whack for a long time-mostly because I don't listen to its instructions. "Call Bill about the project" nah- "Stop and see Bruce" nope too busy. "Make sure you take your extra keys with you" why would I do that I have AAA? On and on this built in system is constantly trying to correct my course while I keep insisting on using an old map. Its trying to save me time, money, friends, health, career, family, wear and tear on my already over stimulated mind. Its always suggesting an alternate route, a new concept to consider and a solution to my problems-my problems-the ones I create by not listening in the first place. Sometimes when I listen it suggests road to take-that I don't want to go down because they don't look familiar to me or they are too dark or too uncertain. What I learned is every road leads to another one and my GPS knows the destination and how to get there far better than my human mind that argues with it constantly about who is right and who is wrong-a byproduct of watching too much MSNBC. Sometimes the voice is hard to hear and doesn't sound anything like Marge Schott or Alice..but it is there...and always has been.

The Eastern Conference beat the Western Conference, Andy had a great game and we had a great time. As we began to head back home I let the GPS lead the way and enjoyed the trip. About time.