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Lost

As we were finishing up our lunch in our favorite East End eatery, a guy with a family reunion T-shirt came in and asked for directions to Byrd Park.

"Uh, do you mean Dorey Park?" the waitress asked. Dorey Park is just up the road from the restaurant.

"No? Byrd Park?"

Oz and I know where Byrd Park is. It's way back in town. The poor guy is suddenly deluged with directions, from Oz who doesn't ever remember street names and from the waitress who can at least tell the guy how to get to Main Street. Still, the directions are along the lines of "then you turn at the stop sign, but it's a traffic light now and it used to be a stop sign."

In the meantime, the waitress brings me a pen and a sheet of notebook paper. I say, "It's not hard to get there, but it's more than seven steps so you'll never remember if we don't write it down." Out loud and in pen, I methodically start to list the directions, starting with the road outside, while Oz and the waitress continue with the local color fountain of extra helpful information.

Some other family reunion people wander in to see what's going on and ask about funnel cake, there being a sign near the eatery.

I'm still working on the directions. Oz is listing all the places they'll pass on the way to the park. "Shockoe Bottom and the farmer's market. Then downtown and … "

The guy says, "That sounds like what we passed on the way out here." He's been looking confused, what with the directions involving a lot of roads turning into one-way wrong way streets and roads veering off and changing their names. It doesn't help that both Oz and the waitress are getting street names confused, so he's hearing way more street names than are warranted by the actual number of streets he'll be driving on. At least he'll see some familiar stuff along the way.

"It's a lot easier than it sounds," I assure him. In fact, once he gets to Main Street, he will only have to make one other turn. It's getting out to Main Street from the East End backroads that makes no sense.

When we finish, the guy takes the directions outside and suddenly more reunion people (easily identified by their T-shirts) come in and start buying cookies and bottled drinks to sustain themselves till they get to the picnic. When we leave the restaurant, we find a whole family reunion convoy out in the parking lot and the guy is going from car to car to explain what's going on. Probably something along the lines of "um, just follow me."

I hope they made it. Now I'm wishing we'd driven over to the park later to see.