I’ve been collecting maps since I was seven years old, starting when Grandpa and Grandma Haworth would bring them to me from the winter trips they took to Florida.  

In those days, gas stations had racks of free maps and you could just walk in and take them.  When I was in the fourth grade our family moved to the city (Dalton City, population 400) and there was a Shell gas station a couple blocks from my home.  I could ride my bike down there and see if they had any new maps.  I liked the Shell maps, they had a neat pictures on the front and the maps themselves were printed in multiple bright colors.  For example, if it was a map of Iowa, the front was a photo of corn fields. 

About that same time, my cousins moved to California, and my other set of grandparents started going there and bringing me back maps of the western states.  Since that was the grandpa who once worked at Standard Oil, they only stopped at Standard stations and only collected Standard Oil maps, the most boring of all.  Standard printed all their maps in light pink and blue. They were hard to read, and included no good photographs.  But a map is a map, and so I eagerly added them to my collection.

When I was in the fifth grade, my teacher, Mrs. Lawrence, told me that I could write to various state governments and they would send me free “official” maps.  I wasn’t ambitious enough to write to all fifty state governments, so I started with writing to the states in alphabetical order, a couple at a time, to see what they would send.  Sure enough, five or six eventually sent maps back to me, and it was a thrill to get the package in the mail that included the map.  I still remember the scent of opening a new road map arriving in the mail.

Of course, individual gas stations didn’t give out maps of all 50 states. They only stocked maps of the neighboring states.  That meant I could pick up Indiana, Iowa, Wisconsin, Missouri, and Kentucky-Tennessee from stations in Illinois. But when we went on vacation, I was the first one out of the car every time we stopped to fill up with gasoline, running inside, seeking out the map rack, seeing if there was anything I didn’t have yet.

I organized four or five of my friends to collect maps with me, and while none of them were as serious about it as me, we did enjoy trading maps for places we didn’t already have.  

When states started building welcome centers, most of them included free maps, and so I have made a point all my life of stopping at welcome centers every time I cross a state border. If a center doesn't provide a free map, I'm in a bad mood until I enter the next state.

As my friends have learned that I collect maps, many will think of me when cleaning out their closets or their glove compartments, and ask if I want any of their old maps.  I always say yes.  Pauline Chapman was the last friend to donate a box of maps to me, last year.  

From time to time, someone will give me specialty maps.  For example, a friend brought me home a TWA map from the 1960s of all the routes that TWA flew in the United States.

While my specialty is state maps, I also have more than 100 National Geographic maps, hundreds of city maps, foreign country maps, turnpike maps, bicycle maps, and local chamber of commerce maps.

As an auxiliary collection, I also save maps/brochures from all the National Parks and Monuments-- and brochures from presidential libraries, homes, and museums.

Before I was 20 I had a state road map of all 50 states.  I keep my latest samples of state road maps in a special wooden map box someone once gave me, and I update them all the time.  There are only two rules for that box:  “official” maps have preference, and there can be only one state on the map.  Almost all of the maps in my box are “official,” that is, they have been issued by state departments of transportation or tourism.  

Sadly, some states have stopped publishing official maps (shame on you Connecticut, Rhode Island, and Washington) and so my official maps of those places are quite old.  And you can't get a map with just Connecticut on it. If you get a map of Connecticut, they also stick Rhode Island and Massachusetts on it.  It is just another sign that Connecticut is going downhill. They don’t even have a real state fair either.  I just don’t know what’s going on there.

Gas stations eventually stopped giving out free maps, even before there was GPS.  The gasoline company that gave out free maps the longest was Marathon.  They started given them to motorists in 1919 and didn’t stop until 2010.  Most other gasoline companies stopped giving out free maps, or went out of business much earlier.  Here is a list of gasoline companies and the years they last gave out their last free map:  Gulf 1977, Esso 1972, Exxon 1999, DX 1969, Chevron 1976, Amoco 1993, Unocal 76 2003, Mobile 1997, Phillips 66 1985, Shell 1990, Sinclair 1969, Skelly 1977, Standard 1980, Texaco 1991, and Zephyr 1973.  

Today you can buy maps from big map companies like Rand McNally. You can also get great paper maps from AAA. I'll very rarely buy a map, but I made an exception when we went to Hawaii. The state didn't provide one, and the free ones given to tourists weren't very good. I spent almost $10 for a good map of the Hawaiian Islands, and it was worth it.

I have several thousand maps I’ve collected since I was a kid. I don't throw them out. Realizing that my own children and grandchildren are unlikely to have the same passion I have, I’ve been wondering lately what they might do with all of them after I too go the way of the free gas station map.  I don’t expect my family to keep the maps, but this carefully curated collection deserves something a little more honorable than the recycle bin.  That’s what caused me to discover this week that there is a Road Map Collectors Association.  I quickly paid the $20 annual membership fee (online) so I could have access to their website and also attend their convention this April.  

It turns out that their website was able to collect my $20, but they weren’t able to give me access to their website.  I’ll likely have to write them a hard copy letter to ask them to let me in.  That’s the trouble with paper map collectors, we either have an attitude toward computers, or we simply can’t figure out how they work, or both.  That’s partly why we prefer paper maps to the GPS.

But I’m not a paper map purist.  I do make use of the GPS on both my smart phone and my car. It’s really helpful for finding places, especially if you can't always see road signs or house numbers.  And while it has occasionally tried to lead me astray, and sometimes sent me down roads that common sense would avoid, and sometimes changed its mind mid-journey, it is generally helpful.  The GPS gives directions quite well, usually.  

But the GPS never gives me the big picture.  I can never see where I’m at in the larger scheme of things.  Neither does the GPS have any appreciation for where I’ve just been.  It doesn’t know fascinating things that are nearby my route.  The paper map gives me the big picture and keeps me oriented with a sense of place.  With the GPS, I simply obey orders.  With a paper map, I am created in God’s own image: a decision maker, a co-creator of my journey, educated about what is around me. 

 If I do go to the Road Map Convention in Hershey, Pennsylvania this April, I'm going to get there by paper map. And if I do have to use the GPS at the last minute, I'll never admit it.