Here lately I’ve been doing a lot of traveling and, as a result, have been on the receiving end of a host of travel directions. I’ve been given them by everyone from service station attendants to traffic cops to school children and I’ve come to one conclusion.

Somebody needs to teach a course in giving directions. Or at least deliver a sermon on the subject.

The sermon follows.

I know I’ve addressed this general topic before. One of the advantages of getting older is that you get to repeat yourself secure in the knowledge that it is poor form for anyone to remind you that is what you are doing.

But I am trying to cover another facet of the topic.

I have already waxed prolific on people who give directions to self-admitted newcomers by naming off landmarks that haven’t existed for 20 years.

"New here huh? Well...do ya remember where Flossie and Merle's was?"

But there is another caliber of direction giver I want to address today. It is for them that this lesson is offered. I speak of the over explainer.

The overriding rule about giving good directions is to keep them as simple as possible. Tell the party the name of the street on which to proceed, which direction to go for approximately how long, where to turn and, lastly, where to stop.

Do not...please...for the love of God and everything holy...tell me what wonders and curiosities I am going to pass along the way. If there is a landmark at which a turn must be executed, or if you want to give the occasional “you’ve gone too far if you pass Lenin's Tomb” that is fine. But a running diatribe on each twist, bump, building and dead cow one is likely to encounter is only destined to confuse the issue.

Try to remember (especially if the lost is writing the directions down) that they will assume EVERYTHING you say is important. Few things are more frustrating than to commit a landmark to memory and include it prominently in written notes I’m making just in time to be assured that I should do nothing but pass it when I see it. If that’s true why did we bring it up in the first place?

In lieu of a contrary advisory I would have passed it anyway. I took physics. I know that for a rolling mass to leave point A and arrive at point Z in a timely fashion, it cannot stop to examine the splendor of points B through Y.

Think about it. When you say “Then you will come to this little white church with bell in the steeple and a green door.” Then after three beats add “Pay no attention to it...keep going.”...note that you are instructing me to do nothing at a particular point in my journey. I don’t need to be told that. I do nothing at lots of points in my journeys without supervision. What with me not being married anymore.

I suppose there is something to be said for the fact that if you are giving me directions in the first place I should be grateful for them anyway they fall. I suppose there is something to be said for that but I cannot think of it at the moment.

Much as it galls me to admit this, men are the worst direction givers. They like to add color commentary for some reason. It seems important to men to include topographical features.

“Now you’ll come up this long grade...I make her about 8 or 10 degrees...once you get to the top of that...keep her going.”

The thing is that I’ve seldom let a grade discourage me from pressing on. I know them for what they are and have even been known to downshift for them without travel advisories.

Men like to make driving a macho thing.

If you watched two male KIA drivers who were lost in a parking garage while seeking directions from each other you would think they’d been driving Conestoga wagons or Mexicali beer trucks for 40 years. There is always lots of squinting at the sun, spitting and reaching sub-consciously for packs of Lucky’s in the rolled up sleeve of their tee shirts.

These days I try to find a lady of whom to ask directions. I find directions easier to follow if they aren’t quite so heavily imbued with testosterone.

Actually there is one more important reason to seek out a female for directions. It is the most important one. If she doesn’t know how to get there she will say so. Just try to find a man who will admit that.