A SENSE OF DIRECTION

I called and talked with Monnie Bess this morning.  We had a very nice visit and got to talking about directions (i.e., east, south, west & north). February 24, 2001

I told her about going to visit Teresa at her home at Wallisville, which is east of Houston.  When I go there I always find my internal sense of direction to be 90 degrees out of phase with the real world.

Mama always had that problem when she came to Pasadena.  Normally in those days we came in through the Washburn tunnel.  Mama always entered the tunnel headed south and exited (going in the same direction) facing north, or so it seemed to her.  And all of her stay here, she was disconcerted to find the sun rising in the west and setting in the east.  For those of you who live with a sense of direction, as most all of us do who grew up in the country, that is a very disturbing feeling.

Bess told me of how she learned to tell directions.  When she was a young girl she was out watching Lloyd chop wood by our woodpile on the east-side of our house.  She didn’t remember the exact conversation, but the gist of it was that she asked Lloyd, “Which way is east”?  He told her to turn and hold her arms straight out from her sides.  Then he said, “You are facing north, your right hand is pointing east, your left hand is pointing west and south is behind you”.  She has always remembered that simple lesson.  Bo