I don’t know how you explain a location to someone, but I use relevant landmarks and cardinal directions to the best of my ability.
My quality of directions also depends on how well someone else knows the area.
If I tell a person that an event is happening at the USO Service Center and someone says they know that the building is by the high school, I can tell they’re new to town.
Then I’ll spend a few extra minutes explaining the differences in each location and hope they get to where they’re supposed to go.
For me, the distinction is quick and easy.
Though I’m pretty sure I chalk that up to having lived in Bay City for almost my entire life – save a few collective years spent away at college.
Even then, I struggled with recalling directions to businesses or places that I visited every once in a while.
Not to mention how different some places look at night time versus during the day.
Some of that still holds true now.
Especially when everyone starts putting up their seasonal decorations.
I’m all for decorating a business or home, but if it covers up the address or name of the place in any way it makes things harder.
And I have to confess that I’m terrible with street names – especially when there’s a new subdivision opening and when one street gets renamed or dedicated to someone.
But, for the most part, I can mentally map parts of Bay City with relevant icons, memories, and ‘noticeable’ structures.
Also, I have to admit that it gets easier in some parts of town rather than others, too.
I never had much reason to spend time on the west side of town, so, most of my mental map from there is barely a few streets and maybe one restaurant or two.
Plus, it was a bit less developed between Bay City and Van Vleck over a decade ago which meant there wasn’t much reason to retain the knowledge of that area.
Now though, I’ve got to keep updating my mental map every month or so!
My most vivid sections are around Baywood Drive to the south and where the old Matagorda Regional Hospital used to be – the two places I grew up in and spent a majority of my time around.
Despite that, the hardest part of retaining my mental map is driving by empty storefronts where there used to be a beloved business in residence or something that made the place seem livelier.
Don’t get me wrong, I love seeing new shopping strips constructed and filled with businesses – I just wish we could encourage businesses to fill in our empty spaces first.
It’s definitely a problem we’ve had for a while and I look forward to seeing how the city and other entities plan to remedy it.
It hits us, too, since we don’t have a standard business storefront for our customers.
That means I’ll continue talking them through directions to our location to the best of my ability.
I just hope my directions are still easy enough.
If all else fails, I just ask a customer what their vehicle looks like and head out to wait for them in the meantime.
Or, since I’m still wheelchair and knee-scooter-bound, mom will be out to greet them!
