Tuesday, November 18, 2008

On the Map

When I was a kid, I liked maps -- still do. I collected them. I had maps for most every state in the nation plus many from other parts of the world. Several were rather old maps. Many came from National Geographic; many did not.

Now collecting maps, in and of itself, is not the strangest thing in the world. It's not very typical of an 8 year old, but one could collect far stranger items. What was weird, however, is why I collected maps. I seemed to derive rather odd information from them.

Like many children, I memorized all 50 state capitols. Unlike many of my contemporaries, I also memorized most national capitols too. But I also memorized every Indian Reservation across the ole US of A.

The weirdest bit of information I gleaned from my large Rand McNally set of maps was the location of almost every 4 and 2 year college in the country. All a person need do is mention the name of a college and I could tell you where it was located.

For example, as early as 1965, I knew that Grays Harbor College was located in Aberdeen, Washington. Mind you, I had never been anywhere west of the Kansas prairie, but I knew where this school was and the approximate population of the area. So, when my wife & I moved to Aberdeen in late 2005, I already knew a lot about the area. In fact, as a child, I had imagined living near Grays Harbor!

One of the many facets of Asperger's Syndrome (AS) is becoming fixated on strange topics and a young child collecting maps certainly fits into this definition. What is really odd is that, for the most part, I had no interest whatsoever in visiting the thousands of places I marked on these maps. My interest was mainly in the lines, shapes and dots that maps contain.

While I've shed many of my other collections (sports cards, stamps, coins, etc.), I have kept many of my maps. I look at them frequently and I even have a few hung on my walls. I don't know why I've always found them interesting and intriguing. I just do.

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