Staying in Step : Changing World Plays Havoc With Family’s Beloved Maps

“You think that will hold the world together?” the refrigerator repairman chortled as he watched me reinforcing our family’s damaged globe with tape along the Equator.

“Well, I had intended to purchase a new globe, but now with Europe in such a turmoil, perhaps it would be preferable to wait and patch this one,” I replied.

While Eastern countries contemplate their newly won independence and deliberate their boundaries, I am left with antiquated maps and globes.

Years ago, we determined that a study of maps could accompany one’s daily functions. Thus, we hung a laminated world map on one wall next to the commode and a map of the United States on the other side. It has not been unusual for a family member, when questioned on a specific geographic question, to dash to the bathroom to check the maps.

Over the years, our home has welcomed guests from a variety of countries whose narratives of their culture and daily life in unique climates and regions have focused our attention on their country.

Once you encounter a person from another state or country, their section of the global map is imprinted in one’s memory.

Four students of Leonid Grin, a former Soviet conductor, stayed with us during the Batiquitos Festival in Carlsbad some years back. One of the students, a young man from Estonia, made a lasting impression on our children with his charm and resolute assertion that he was “not a Soviet” but an Estonian.

More recently, we passed a day transporting two young Soviet artists to various schools when the Soviet Arts Festival came to San Diego. “We are not Soviets,” the young oil-painter and weaver corrected our children, “we are Georgians.”

Like most families, we are a mixture of cultures. Our childrens’ uncle is from a family from Croatia. Early childhood playmates included a family from Yugoslavia who spoke only Croatian in their home, a family from what was then Rhodesia, and another from Uganda. My godmother spoke Ukrainian as a child, and many childhood classmates spoke Armenian in their homes.

As the world changes, the maps of those who have entered our lives will now mark their homelands of Estonia, Georgia, Croatia and the Ukraine.

A phone call to the education department at map-making Rand McNally was not promising. “We have just redone a year’s supply of our 1991-92 globes showing the unification of Germany,” an exasperated voice noted. “If the demand is there, to show these newly formed countries in the Soviet Union, we may have to dump these globes.” Meanwhile, he said, work has started on the new cartography.

Two map stores in North County--Maps and Travel, 112 El Camino Real, Encinitas, 942-9642, and World of Maps, 607 Mission Avenue, Oceanside, 967-7141--are actively observing the changing global climate.

If you have never visited a store that specializes in maps, you will appreciate both of these. They are invitations to browse through a host of maps, globes, charts and books on travel that are available to the public.

Bill Coates, owner of World of Maps, is a retired Air Force pilot who learned to read aeronautical maps as a young man in an airplane hanger in Kentucky. His enthusiasm for cartography has not diminished with time.

He believes the recent Desert Storm brought about a “resurgence of education about the world.”

On the wall of the store is a Geoclock, a “true global time indicator” that notes the correct time everywhere. This box-like map made by Geochron has a light that indicates where the sun is shining at every hour of the day. While the sun was shining in Oceanside, in Tokyo folks were sleeping.

My search to replace the bathroom world map with a more updated one noting the unification of Germany, allowed me numerous choices. Preferring a map with bold colors and clear boundary lines, Coates explained that I favor “educational maps”--boldly colored maps over the Rand McNally variety that are soft pastels.

Both map stores will laminate maps for you, although several are available already laminated. I was tempted also to purchase a relief map of the United States that clearly reveals the elevations of the Rockies and the Appalachians. Even adults are apt to touch the surfaces of relief maps with their inviting mountain ranges.

I purchased a puzzle map of the United States to replace our seasoned one (which had lost tiny Rhode Island and Vermont) as well as two place mats showing the world on one side and the United States on the other.

After his recent trip to Atlanta to the International Map Dealers Assn. and Trade Show, Coates said he and his wife are striving to have more geographically educational materials in their store.

When politics settle in the Soviet Union and Rand McNally and its competitors commence distribution of their updated maps, I will return to purchase one showing Estonia and its neighboring countries. However, another region of the world may very well be altering political boundaries by then.

“We do have sky charts,” laughed Sandy Sanders, an employee at Maps and Travel. With them, you don’t have to worry about political upheavals.”