The brochure said the convention would start on Thursday with “room to room trading” at the motel.  I checked the front of the brochure again to make sure I had the right one.  (On my first trip to Las Vegas in 1994, street walkers had thrust a number of brochures into my hands offering “room to room trading.”)  But this brochure was indeed the “Road Map Collectors Association” pamphlet, advertising their national spring map convention in Hershey, Pennsylvania.

I didn’t even know such an organization existed until I found it on the internet this past February.  Being a closet map collector, (I’ve been keeping my maps in my closet all my life,) I paid my dues and determined I would attend the three-day April convention.  

What a glorious thing it would be to mingle with my fellow roadmap collectors.  Everyone who has ever discovered that I collect maps, which I have done for more than 60 years, always tells me, “You are the only person I’ve ever heard of who collects road maps.”  I’ve noticed, however, that no one ever asks to see the maps.  That’s how boring I am to people.  But now I would be driving to Pennsylvania to bask in the company of a national map collectors convention.  I dreamed of floating among hundreds of brothers and sisters I never knew I had.

When I finally arrived at 5:30 p.m. Thursday at the motel, it was dead quiet.  The front desk gave me the key to room 209, one I had reserved among the block of rooms the convention had set aside for us.  When I asked how I could find the rooms of other convention attendees, the clerk said that all our rooms were on the same hallway.  Six of them.  I thought he probably meant six hallways.  But he clarified that the convention had blocked off six rooms. No one else had checked in so far.  

I assumed that “room to room trading” at a map convention meant something like: I’ll trade you four old Illinois maps with photos of governors who’ve gone to prison for an old Alabama map with George Wallace’s mug.  

But how could there be trading when all the other doors on my hallway were locked tight? So, I just stayed in my room, with the door slightly ajar, and fiddled with a box of maps I hadn’t had time to sort through yet.  I had just gotten them spread out on the bed when two guys suddenly walked in my room, in shorts and flip flops, without knocking or introducing themselves, and started pawing through my maps. I asked if they were from the map convention, and they were.  And so the convention was under way. We introduced ourselves. Dave and Tom found four maps they wanted to swap for, and told me the rest of my maps weren’t worth much.

A few minutes later Stan walked in my room and looked over the maps.  After about ten minutes, Wayne said, “Dave, let’s head to your room and see what you’ve got.”  And so we all did.  After that we headed to Stan’s room, where his wife was sitting guard over his maps.  She informed me that she herself wasn’t into maps, but she supported her husband.  When I asked if she collected anything, she hesitated a moment, then said, “jelly spreaders.”  When I asked if there is a national jelly spreader convention, she told me that it is harder to find a jelly-spreader-collector than a map-collector.  I nodded, even though I didn’t think anything could be harder than finding a map-collector.

The Thursday map swapping didn’t take long.  And despite the kinky sound of it, nothing happened that would honk off my bishop.  By 8 p.m. though, I excused myself so I could go eat dinner somewhere.  The convention banquet would not be until the next night.  We were on our own for Thursday supper.

On Friday morning the convention launched full force at a museum called, “America’s Transportation Experience.”  As I walked in, the sign said it was one of America’s top twelve transportation museums.  We had been given two large rooms for our convention.  When I walked in, promptly at 9 a.m., there were a dozen large tables set up, holding thousands upon thousands of maps.  They were stuffed into cardboard boxes and plastic containers, and all for sale, ranging from a dollar per map to over $50.  The three guys from the motel each had a table, plus three more guys.  Along with the six guys actively selling maps, there were two of us at the convention who didn’t have a sale table.  That made eight conventioneers, plus the two wives.  

At lunchtime, we each gave Dave $9 and he went out and bought club sandwiches for us, “hoagies” as they call them in Pennsylvania.  

It was a quiet day, with scattered museum patrons curiously meandering past the map tables.  We conventioneers wandered around and sat and quietly chatted with each other.  In late afternoon I drifted away and checked out the rest of the museum.  

The banquet was held that evening at an Italian restaurant, Piazza Sorrento.  They crammed us in a small meeting room in the back, all ten of us.  There wasn’t space enough in the room for the waiter to reach the people at the end of the long table, so we helped by passing plates back and forth.  Other than eating, the only item on the agenda was an after-dinner speech by Stan: a ten-minute recollection of how the Road Map Collectors Association got its start.  His speech would have been shorter, but it got interrupted when the waiter showed up to take dessert orders.

Saturday was the closing day of the convention, and the guys were back at the museum selling.  It was even quieter than the day before.  About 11:30 I said goodbye to all my new friends and hit the highway for Illinois.  Over the two days I had traded off or sold half a dozen of the maps I’d brought along and spent another $60 or so on maps that intrigued me.  

I was surprised at how much I learned from the people I met there. They were much more into maps than me.  The tens of thousands of maps they had brought along to sell were either their duplicates, or parts of their collections they were starting to let go.  All of us there had reached that “letting go” stage of life.

As I've written before in my posts, I began collecting maps when I was seven.  My two sets of grandparents traveled the country in their retirement, and knowing of my interest in geography, they would bring me the gas station maps they had collected on their trips.  

Since maps were free back in those days, I quickly learned to scout out gas stations myself for the treasures.  My teachers knew of my interest and told me I could write to various states and they would send me “official” free highway maps.  And so I did. When I grew up and started driving around the country myself, I got in the habit of stopping at every state welcome center to pick up a free “official” highway map. Unfortunately, gasoline companies stopped producing and giving away maps, partly due to the rising fuel prices in the 1970s.

Here are some items I’ve learned from my maps:  

I have a 1941 Triple-A map of Illinois, printed a few months before Pearl Harbor was bombed.  It notes that  “Frequent military convoys moving on the open highway will have… space between vehicles to permit civilian motorists to pass …but when traveling through cities, the column may be closed… and escorted by police… and may go through stop lights and stop signs without halting…If overtaken by a convoy in the city, pull over to one side of the street in the same manner as when as when an ambulance or fire engine is approaching.” 

In another blurb, same map, we read, “Never, under any circumstances, leave valuables in your car unless they are in the trunk and locked…If the bellboy the doorman, or the clerk tells you it will be all right to leave bag, coat, camera, or other property in the car, don’t believe him.”  

That map also includes Triple-A recommended places to stay, along with prices.  The Plaza Hotel in Chicago, on Clark and North, cost $2 a night for a single, $3 for a double.  The Hotel Pere Marquette in Peoria cost $2.50 for a single and $3.50 for a double.  In Effingham, you could stay in the Benwood Hotel for $1.25 per night.

Maps given away by the Chevron Oil company in 1965 featured covers of local birds and flora on their map covers.  My map of Massachusetts-Connecticut-Rhode Island has pictures of the Trailing Arbutus, the Chickadee, the Robin, Mountain Laurel, the Violet, and a Rhode Island Red chicken.

A 1966 Kerr Magee/Deep Rock map of Illinois includes instructions for games to play while on a road trip.  They include Handy Andy, State, Vacation, and Alphabet.  Here’s how you play Handy Andy:  “One person is “it.”  “It” puts hands behind back, hides penny or small object in one hand, closes both hands, puts both hands in front of himself, one above the other.  Says, ‘Handy Andy, Rickety-Row, which hand is it, high or low?’  First person to guess right is ‘It’ for the next game.”  No wonder kids started asking, “How much longer.”

My 1965 Union 76 map of Alaska and the Alaska Highway is still trying to teach people about the new state of Alaska. It informs us that the entire population of Alaska is smaller than Omaha, Nebraska.  It recommends driving to Alaska between May and October for a “care-free vacation.”  In doesn’t mention what will happen if you try to drive there in January.

My 1934 Sinclair Highway map of Pennsylvania includes the “Sinclair Law of Lubrication.”  It lists all the makes of cars and trucks on the road in 1934 and tells you what weight “Sinclair Oil” to use whenever you need to add or change it.  For example, if you’re driving a Brewster, you need “medium heavy” oil in a new engine, “heavy” oil in an engine after 2,000 miles on it, and “extra heavy” oil once the car gets to 20,000 miles.  I have no idea what a Brewster looks like, but I do know what kind of oil to use if someone asks.  With this map in my collection, I can also tell you the “Law of Lubrication” for a Desoto, Dusenberg, Franklin, Hudson, Hupmobile, Mercedes Benz, Nash, Packard, Pierce Arrow, Studebaker, Terraplane, or Willys.  Plus, I can advise you on your truck, whether it be a Mack, Diamond T, or Sterling.

And then there is my 1934 Conoco map of Missouri.  It gives me a list of all the radio stations I can get while trekking around the state and where to find them on the AM dial.  The map also informs me that anyone over 16 is permitted to drive, but no “operator’s license” is required.  As to speed limits in Missouri, I am informed that I could be ticketed for careless driving, and that anything “over 25 m.p.h. is presumptive evidence of careless driving.”  

I came away from the map convention with only a few new maps.  But as soon as I got home, I ordered a 32-slot map rack from Amazon.  I picked out some maps from my collection and now display them in my sunroom, where my family and acquaintances will be forced to reckon with my odd infatuation.

Most people seem to believe that paper maps are obsolete, that they make no sense in a world where we have GPS.  After all, they are too large to unfold while one is driving. You can’t seem to get them folded back the way they were. The paper rips easily.  Even the largest paper maps can’t give you the precise details of a GPS.  It’s a lost cause, for some states don’t even produce “official” maps anymore, and not a single gas station still hands them out for free.  

But while a GPS narrows and focuses our thinking on an exact global coordinate, it doesn’t expand our thinking.  It requires us to use very little of our brains.  All we have to do is obey precise instructions.  Stay in the proper lane.  Turn when told.  Granted, a GPS has its value, and I take advantage of that value frequently, especially when I’m trying to get to an unfamiliar location in a timely manner.

But it’s the old school paper map that stimulates my mind.  Paper maps evoke my curiosity.  They remind me of where I’ve been.  They expand my field of vision, beyond just the lane I’m following.  When I was traveling every week to Geneseo, the GPS didn’t tell me that the place Jie and I went on for our first date was just 5 miles off the highway I was on.  I only noticed that on my paper map.  The old-fashioned maps stimulate my sense of adventure; the reason we follow the GPS is to avoid having an adventure.  

A paper map offers me suggestions, recommendations, choices.  I sense that the lady on the GPS is annoyed when she has to “recalculate” due to my disobedience.  

The GPS orders me around.  A paper map invites me into a two-way conversation with it.  

The map is a small artifact of my journeys in life.  The GPS is entirely intangible. 

The paper map demands that I think for myself, figure it out on my own, take risks.  It makes me more human.  It respects my mind and spirit. It helps me survey what I want.  

With a GPS, I have to already know exactly what I want.  With a map, I have to know first where I am, the reality of where I am present.  With a GPS, it doesn’t matter if I know where I am, it will find me and get me out of there.  

A GPS gets me to the right “tree.”  A map helps me see the “forest,” perceiving the relatedness of all that is in it. The paper map knows to tell me things I’m too ignorant or busy to ask about.

I did use my GPS to find the Best Western in Hershey, Pennsylvania.  And I appreciated its help.  But I’ll not apologize for the irony of using my GPS to find thousands of paper maps.

I'm going to continue to collect maps, maybe sell a few now that I know where there's a market, and most importantly, give them away, introducing their benefits to a generation that can benefit from a different way of thinking than comes from the GPS. So, in celebration of my first map convention, drop me a line, tell me what state you want, and what year, or what gas station... and I'll track one down and give it to you.

Meanwhile, if you have any old paper maps hanging around, DON'T THROW THEM AWAY! I'll come and get them (probably using my GPS to find you.) And if they are interesting enough, I'll even buy you lunch.