This may seem at first like a trivial topic, but I assure you that I am driving toward a larger point.

I grew up on Maine’s Blue Hill peninsula, where, to paraphrase Richard Hooker, author of the M*A*S*H books (long before the TV series), it’s often quicker to get into a car and drive four miles than to make a phone call. It was true then and it’s true now, given the sometimes spotty cell phone reception. The area is a panorama of seascapes, blueberry fields, trees, and small towns and the meandering roads that connect them. The main roads have route numbers, but most people know them by their local names: South Street, the Mines Road, Penobscot Flats.

Because it’s impossible to drive very far in a straight line without running into the ocean, the roads don’t run straight, either. They overlap and combine. Route 172 in Blue Hill is also route 15 and 175. Different roads going different places, they join for a short time.

Continue reading “Common Sense is an Oxymoron” →