It was obvious, simple and easy; head east over the 57th Street Bridge and then north to LaGuardia. Obviously my intuition and sense of directions were accurate. Clearly the years of living in the New York area gave one a working knowledge of the streets in Queens. I blissfully allowed the right time and headed out.
At first the facts and experience matched my anticipations and thought process. As I traveled east from the hotel to 2nd Avenue and then up onto the bridge I was covering streets that I have run, walked, and driven for years. Even if you were new it would not be that dangerous, the patterns are simple intersections with right angles.
As I exited off the upper roadway deck of the bridge I realized that I had no idea of where I was going. The streets had names that I did not recognize. My sense of direction quickly lost any link to a fixed bearing. Yet I drove onwards, blindly assuming that I was heading towards my destination.
“Whoever wanders off the straight and narrow ends up in a congregation of ghosts.” (Proverbs 21.16)
After almost ten minutes of driving, I finally admitted I had no idea of where I was, what heading I was on, and where my destination lay in relationship to where I currently stood. This was after I had already stopped and filled up with gas, passed several other points of information help, and lost any sense of the name given to the neighborhood in which I stood.
I finally took inventory and admitted that I needed help. The ladies at the filling station were extreme. First one apologized and said that she did not drive yet volunteered a colleague. I mistakenly assumed another lady was the answer. She apologized profusely and pointed me to a third. Debbie wonderfully explained the simple steps that would take me out of the middle of Queens. Fifteen minutes later I drove into the Hertz lot with plenty of time to catch my plane.
Where did you say you were going?
