The Map blogpost of yesterday reminded me of something that happened back in my Ryken High School Freshman History class.
I was seated in the row nearest the wall. Directly above me on that wall was a map of the world. One day, our instructor Mr. Smith launched into a discussion of Viet Nam and asked “Does anybody not know where it is?” Of course no one in the class raised his hand that he they did not know Nam’s location. Mr. Smith said “Good. Mr. Ridgell, since you are sitting there, would you point it out to everyone.”
My first thought was “Uh, oh. No way am I gonna be able to do this.” All I knew about Viet Nam location-wise, was that it was over there somewhere. So as I turned to look at the map above my head I scanned around “over there” and my eyes landed precisely on, yep Viet F’ing Nam. I quickly pointed it out like it was no big deal and that I knew exactly what I was doing. Truth be told however, prior to that, I had no clue as to Viet Nam’s location.
