Small Town Directions Include Big Light and Old Stump

“Turn left at the big light and then go two blocks past the big stump.” Recent college graduate Michael Pollack received these directions from a girl he is thinking about dating. Pollack, not used to directions like this didn’t know exactly what to say or what age a stump would have to be to be considered old. Pollack also commented saying “who says big light, what does that mean, is it a stop light, a lamp post, what, I don’t know.” He continued to speculate on what one would consider a big light and didn’t understand the reason for giving such directions stating “is this some sort of test I have to pass?”

Unfortunately Pollack isn’t the only one who has run into this dilemma in recent times. Due to the differences between city and country living and considering the close proximity that these different atmospheres can possibly share, worlds collide and directions are misunderstood. The girl giving the directions who wished to remain anonymous said “those are good directions, better directions than I have received from anyone living in the city, they only give street names as if I’m going to know them if I’ve never been there before. Nobody is going to miss the big light or the old stump, they are unmistakable.”

Despite her insistence that nobody could miss them, Pollack never found the house but didn’t consider it a big loss. “When we were outside the other night she pointed at the sky and told me that ‘that place right there is the entire Milky Way, and isn’t that cool.’ I know now that this isn’t much of a loss, I think I’ll get over it.” Not much has ever been done in the past to try to bridge the problem of directions between different living areas and that’s simply because the problems that are now rising haven’t been prevalent before.

In response to the growing number of miscommunications and bad directions being given out one man has just decided to do something about it. Brent Whipple, a 24 year old computer programmer and internet hotshot told reporters that due to a personal experience he is writing a conversion program that will accurately convert small town directions to city dweller language and vice versa. He is starting in Wisconsin and thus far has half the state mapped out. For instance the “big light” Pollack missed would appear as ‘take Highwood Rd. for 2 miles, take a left at Killroy and continue for two blocks.’ A sample conversion from the other side may take a direction such as ‘turn left at Freemont St.’ and change it into ‘turn left at that big brick place with the red fire hydrant in front.” Overall it tested out extremely accurately and is being used by people in the area. When asked about it Pollack said, “yea that would have helped out but I don’t think it’s a good idea because people so different shouldn’t want to be with each other. Just a thought, not having it probably saved me from a most pointless experience.”

Anyway one looks at it the problem is not going to go away, Whipple may have come up with the solution to link these communities together but the real question is, do we really want to?

"big" stump in question