This isn’t a very deep post today, just some fun observations.

I am a domesticated creature who typically doesn’t go out very much. Also, I am unemployed, so I don’t have anywhere to go anyway. When everyone else in the household is away at work or at school, I do have one activity for exercise – walking about town, weather permitting (I should go to the gym, but that’s another story).

I live in a shabby little town in Pennsylvania, where there are just enough side streets to create walking circuits through the small neighborhoods that bracket either side of the busy main drag (the traffic is almost all going through town).

Most of Pennsylvania is small, dilapidated towns – well, that and forested mountains. That’s because of the state’s irregular geography, and its historical development, which has encouraged small, localized municipalities to spring up everywhere. These patterns have also suppressed economic development, hence the dilapidation. It’s an aesthetic. This is a land that embraces its weathered past.

The myriad muncipalities are typically “townships,” though the town where our address is located is simply a “Census designated area” within a township. Don’t ask me why. I’ve blogged about life here before, which is kind of like being in a liminal space between the DEI city and the MAGA country.

The point I wanted to make with this post is that when I’ve been out walking, multiple times now cars have slowed down, and the drivers have lowered their window to ask me for directions! Like, don’t they have a smartphone for navigational purposes? Apparently, not everyone does.

Not to stereotype here, but invariably the driver will be an older white person – a Boomer, I’m sure. Ok, maybe they could be a Gen Xer since our generation is now entering its early 60s, but I’m pretty sure they are Boomers. They might be looking at a piece of paper, presumably with the directions they were trying to follow written on them, but as often happens with that old fashioned approach, they wrote something down that turned out to be illegible. I’m making up a story here.

Of course, I am happy to help these lost drivers, and I always can, since I have a smartphone. Which the drivers would know, since my phone is always out, because as I walk I play a casual game called Pikmin Bloom. Some of us here embrace the new ways of doing things. I just thought it was interesting that there are still people out there following the old ways.