OT Cardinal Points (was Re: Clockwise without clocks)

Muke Tever wrote:
> If you live in an area with landmarks it is easy.  For example, people
> who live in Denver, CO, you [generally] learn quickly that the Rocky
> Mountains, visible pretty much all over town, are to the west, which for
> the most part makes orienting oneself easy, even when the [fairly
> regular] street grid fails one.  [There are people who do not acquire this
> skill; it makes giving directions to them rather difficult; when
> giving directions with left and right, you have to take into account
> things like what direction they're coming from, etc.]
>
> Where I lived before, in TN, I never could get the hang of the
> cardinal directions.
>
Aside from the town I grew up in (grid) and NYC (Manhattan mostly grid,
Brooklyn...well...) and E.Coast Florida, in other places I've lived I've
never acquired a sense of NSEW. I won't even mention Boston...
Ann Arbor Mich. (mostly grid, but with major streets that ran diagonally)
was particularly perverse*, as is present Saugatuck Mich. (tiny, mostly a
grid, all named streets; the Lake is always West, at least, even though you
can't see it from the main part of town). I could give direction in AA, and
in Saugatuck, but only in terms of Left/Right, Up/down such and such a
street...If I see a map of a new city, I orient myself, but not really in
terms of L/R.  Very odd.

An old friend of mine wrote a lovely poem about his childhood in Little Rock
Ark., called "Cardinal Points"... perhaps I'll put it up on the website
temporarily (at some point...)
===========================
*As an example: Main St. ran N/S; the next NS street on the E was 4th Ave.,
then 5th Ave., (or vice-versa, I don't recall; these only ran a few blocks
in the downtown area), then Division st. and more named NS streets;
immediately parallel to the W was...1st Ave., then Ashley St., then the RR
tracks; over the tracks there was a series of short numbered NS _streets_
1st thru 7th only, then named streets. Numbered things were the exception;
also, few streets actually crossed the NS/EW dividing-line streets (so
didn't have to be designated "N X st ~S X st."), or if they did, they often
changed names.....  Then there was the river (N of downtown)-- across it was
an area like lower Manhattan, a maze (it even had Broadway, Wall St. and
Maiden Lane)... But no complaints-- it was a wonderful place to live :-))

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