I Stand By My Words

The most interesting thing to happen to me lately cache-wise is that I took a muggle friend with me to find a cache for the first time and, as has always happened in the past, I ended up DNFing it.  It never fails: bring a muggle along for the first time, DNF.  Sometimes I’ll take someone to a cache I know is there just so I don’t have to whiff in front of them and that doesn’t even always work out.  But that’s neither here nor there…

A couple of days ago, I received a message from a cacher I didn’t know in reference to something I said on Reddit (if you don’t know about the eighth most trafficked site on the Interwebs, you can figure it out yourself because they hardly need my help to advertise).  Last week in the geocaching subreddit, someone said that they would be going to College Station/Bryan for a weekend and asked about the caching prospects.  I responded that there were caches, but I don’t remember being especially impressed by them and that, if they were able, they should get down to Houston or Austin.  So imagine my surprise when someone reached out to me to boost the growing cache state and community out there.  I stood by my assessment for the most part but admitted that it had been a while since I had been caching out there and that I have a certain … antipathy towards the town (every time I go there, I feel like a pilgrim in an unholy land) that colors my thoughts regarding it. 

After all these years, it never ceases to amaze me when people I don’t know write me because of something that came out of my mouth (euphemistically of course, since it’s usually something I wrote).  Back when I was still working on Texas, I kept running into a CO who I found frustrating, both because I felt their hides were inordinately difficult and not well maintained.  Someone who was reading this drivel I write recognized the CO and reached out to them and they in turn reached out to me.  If I was to write it all again, I would recognize that my inexperience partially contributed to my inability to find things and their real life combined with the remoteness of the caches to affect their maintenance.  That said, first impressions are a thing. 

A few years ago, I gave my personal assessment of Paterson based on the trip I took with the TexaSix up to the northwest.  I received a somewhat blistering response to it from a resident cacher.  I will cede that I wasn’t exactly kind and, in my short visit, likely never saw the real Paterson.  However, I don’t see the “real” anywhere I visit: I’m literally a tourist anywhere I travel to for caching purposes.  I’m more than happy to catch some of the good restaurants in Paterson and reassess my views on it, but the odds of me going back there are slim as it is, especially since I don’t feel a need to complete New Jersey’s county challenge.  The odds of spending any significant length of time there are even lower.  Even beyond any of that, I’m used to the idea that anyone visiting Austin from inside or outside the state might probably talk some crap about it (especially if they’re from Bryan/College Station).  For every place that I really like there’s a place that I do not really like.  And I assume most people are like me (though this statement may or may not be a lie or rationalization).

I guess my point here (and I do have one) is that while I may or may not have the best things to say about a place, it doesn’t mean I think less of it or the people who live there.  I pass through towns and counties with alarming celerity.  I don’t truly know the place’s joys or sorrows.  I may get a glimpse at a pride and prejudice.  All I really know that I need a cache, I want to see its courthouse, and that the next county is that way, whichever direction that entails.  My impression of your town is probably based on ten things that have nothing to do with you or your town in reality.  But whatever I see wherever it is, I may or may not (the smart money is on “may”) talk some crap about it.  That is the GWB guarantee!^*

^*_{This guarantee not legally binding in Texas, California, New York, or any state, province, or territory containing a vowel.}