Wintertime and navigation...

So it's wintertime in the northern hemisphere (short days/long nights), and on
a recent thread it's (yet again) been implied out how crucial GPS is to
routine navigation (you're doomed without it), and part of
increasingly-geezeristic me gazes back fondly upon those forever-vanished days
when soaring was more about 'simply having fun' (i.e. XC soaring 'just
because') than obsessing about
electronics/batteries/the-latest-gee-whiz-bang-bit-of-kit/etc. So here's a bit
of historically-based rumination about the good ol' days to help us (me,
anyway, ha ha) through winter...

Way back in the early 1970s, I was a born-n-raised member of our eastern
coastal elite living near D.C. and recently launched upon the adult world, wet
behind my soaring ears, and still absorbing "Soaring" mag cover-to-cover...and
therefrom being exposed to all sorts of stuff, ranging from
immediately-soaring-centric to arguably-only-peripherally-so.

I remember a write-up of the 1-26 'nats' held from the old Black Forest, and
various competitors allegedly (and likely humorously) whining about how
difficult it was to find some place by name of Punkin Center (which was and
remains a great name for a rock band).

Some years later I'd transplanted myself to that part of flyover country,
flown my first 'real contest' from the old Black Forest...and used Punkin
Center as a turn point for my first 300K triangle (Black Forest Gliderport's
sadistic contest dogs declared it as a turnpoint - *again* !!!).

*MY* confusion was in convincing myself that the crossroads (and its 3
apparently-abandoned buildings) the correct distance/heading from the
gliderport *had* to be Punkin Center, because there was nothing else for
tens-of-miles around that could be it...that is if the hand of man had any
relationship to identifiers on VFR sectional maps. IOW, navigation over the
vast, lightly-populated/more-or-less-road-free, high plains, was pretty much
duck soup...if Joe Glider Pilot had any faith in his ability to 'contact fly'
while retaining faith in his 'critical mental faculties.'

Never since seen any reason to change that opinion.

And yet...apparently 'my take' is far from universal. Humor is where a person
finds it.

I'll be leaving now; my work here is done! :-)

Bob W.