Pittsburgh’s latest entertainment: rubber ducky
I’m back in Pittsburgh and back to normal after a good, one-day drive and an unusual experience. Because I want to see many people when I go to Chicago I find, more than usual, I am driving at night and using the GPS on my phone. On the day I left I had to first go to a far out suburb to my nephews house. He gave me the address and I entered it into the GPS. The destination map looked like this.
I don’t entirely trust the GPS but this looked ok. His address was on N. Fairfield and he said he had 20-some acres. He didn’t mention a lake, but who knew. I followed instructions and found myself in a kind of park surrounded by houses with numbers that were nothing like his. The road I drove on was decorated with lines of stone and some stone benches. A narrow road seemed to go around the lake, so, after finding nothing like his house number, I took it only to encounter two women walking on it. I found out later it was really a walking or cycling path. I stopped and asked for directions, but they couldn’t help. I got off the path, since the house wasn’t there and stopped a man walking a dog, who also couldn’t help me.
It finally occurred to me to call my nephew, who started to give me directions when the two women walked up and asked to speak to him. I gave one of them the phone and she walked away from me as the other talked to me. I was a little flustered or I never would have agreed to it. I finally seemed to get it all straightened out, got my directions and drove off. When I got to Ron’s house, only a few hundred yards away, but not where the GPS said, he told me the women thought I was disoriented and called the police. Sure enough, a few minutes later an officer arrived, alone, with gun secured in holster, proving they didn’t think I was likely to be violent. I passed the identity check and, after telling me he didn’t know how I got on the path, he let me go. The occurrence bothered me until this weekend when a story appeared about a flaw in the technology that was sending drivers across the runway of an Alaskan airport. I guess a walking path isn’t so bad.
100 Books Before I Die 
The older I get the more I understand how incidents like these set us up for “geezer pointing.” Your situation was perfectly understandable, and I’m sure we’ve all felt the same way in some situation or other. The only comfort I get is being pretty sure others will go through the same things and understand it all by and by.
You are exactly right. The only comfort I have is that the GPS is sending people to strange places regardless of age or sex. Usually I can ignore it, like the time it kept telling me to turn right–into Lake Michigan.
On Sun, Oct 13, 2013 at 12:22 PM, Studio Ruthe
Thanks for your note.
Yup, once or twice a year one has to move the dust mites around. LOL
don’t let those !@#()$#!@ get to you – cops are known to frequently shoot people and pets during drug sweeps in the excitement of the moment. talk about disorientation.
The cop was OK. It was the two women I wonder about. I can’t imagine living where I didn’t know my next-door neighbor’s address (or who he was, for that matter). He lives right next to their housing development.
On Mon, Sep 30, 2013 at 1:47 PM, Studio Ruthe
Oh my, that little bit of excitement wasn’t really needed. WOW.
You’ve always seemed somewhat suspicious to me.
Yes, but it was usually TSA that was after me.
On Sun, Sep 29, 2013 at 5:09 PM, Studio Ruthe