April 12: "New York Directions," Getting Lost, "How to Get Home"

Billy Collins in the Big Apple . . .

New York Directions

by:  Billy Collins

It's down

in the Village

between

Bleek

and Bleekest.

In the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, directions to any place usually involve turning at a white pine down a dirt road until you see a wooden sign that has just a family name on it--"Larson" or "Rintimaki" or "Johnson."

Me?  I can get lost walking around the block.  So don't tell me to go east on Magnetic Street.  That just doesn't work for me.  I am a traveler of habit.  I follow the same route every time, never deviating, and it takes me five or six trips before I commit the directions to memory.

I hate getting lost.  Always have.  Since childhood, it's been one of my biggest fears.  I like knowing where I am and where I'm going all the time.  No adventures for me.

Here are some directions from Saint Marty . . . 

How to Get Home

by:  Martin Achatz

Click your heels

together three times

and repeat after me:

Call me a cab,

call me a cab.