One of my earliest memories (I was just on the cusp of being able to read, so I must have been about 3) is crisp and clear, a vignette. My father was driving the car and I was sitting in the passenger's seat.

He must have given me a map, because I unfolded it -- so many accordion folds! And then it covered me like a tent, because I was so little and it sprawled from gearshift to window crank.

He stopped the car (one assumes he pulled over) and refolded the map enough that only two or three panels were displayed. He showed me the blue of the river (I knew blue) and the light green shading the land areas (green, too), and then, oh how wonderful, traced his finger along the black line showing the road we were traveling.

I got it immediately, because we had just negotiated a major curve and a right turn (country road) and there on the map was the big curve and then the right turn (see? I knew left and right, too).

I remember being so excited, because here was a language of symbols I could "read". He let me navigate us all the way to our destination and then most of the way home. I finally fell asleep in the front seat, exhausted from the excitement of it all.

I fell in love with maps. It was love at first sight. It was as though I was born knowing all about maps and how to read them, how to understand them and use them. I think he was a bit surprised, but he was never one to treat me like a baby, and I'm glad. Someone else might have patted me on the head, said, "There, there, little girl," and given me a child's picture book.

Not he. He brought me home a whole brief case full of Automobile Club maps of our town, our county, the state, the New England coast. I loved them. We'd go over the maps, finding all the places we'd gone fishing and hiking and camping--and make plans for other places we'd never been.

In high school my mother let me decorate my own bedroom. I painted three of the 4 walls a dark forest green. The fourth wall I papered with Auto Club maps. Everyone said it looked very nice (today's word would be 'awesome'). I have a picture of the room in my old photo album, and yes it does look awesome. Floor to ceiling bookcases (with the insides painted an even darker green), green walls and white map wall with real maps--routes, ocean, river, coastal beaches, the works.

The maps also kept the plaster from falling out (the house was built in the late 1700's). So I guess there was a practical aspect to my inventiveness, too. Why use (and pay for) commercial wallpaper when there are all these great maps sitting around, wanting to be displayed but no bulletin board on which to mount them? Aha! Serendipity.

In college,when I graduated, I discovered to my surprise that I had a minor in geography. I had taken geography courses (maps again) as electives, just for the fun of it. The jocks who took the courses despised me, because my "A" skewed the curve for them. My professors, of course, loved me because I was obviously having a great time. Maps! Yessss!!

And what do I do for a living? Maps, of course. And other stuff, but the maps are the best part.