Manufacturers Rule

When I was very young, our milk was delivered.  Once a week, the milkman would drive up in his truck and put the milk in the metal box on our front porch.  My sisters and I looked forward to these deliveries: You never knew when the milkman would deliver a quart of ice cream, too.  We’d walk through the front room and open the screen door leading to the porch.  We’d open the metal lid and take the milk into the house and put it into the refrigerator.  We didn’t want it to spoil.

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Cultural Maps

I raced as fast as I dared, keeping careful watch on the kilometers lining the inner circle of my speedometer.  I didn’t yet have my Canadian driver’s license.  My Ohio plates screamed “foreigner”.  Anything could go wrong if a police officer suddenly appeared behind me, lights flashing.  On the other hand, an officer might help—I’d be escorted quickly to the hospital.  I’d have sufficient time to get my son’s emergency chest x-ray done before I had to meet my daughters’ school bus.

I left the doctor’s Oakville office and headed west along Lakeshore, towards the hospital.  I suddenly found myself in Bronte—an area east of Oakville.   How could this have happened?  I’d used the navigational technique my mother taught me years ago when I was learning to drive.  “Use the lake as your guide,” she told me as we drove along Lakeshore Avenue in Cleveland, Ohio.  “The lake lies to the north.” 

Of course: I no longer lived with Lake Erie to my north.  I lived on Lake Ontario.  And it lay to the south.  I’d been navigating according to my old map.  How could I have been so stupid?  My world, my life, had been turned upside down.  And I’d forgotten to make adjustments.

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