Chicago gay bar map

I love maps. As a boy, one of my best-loved toys was a wooden map puzzle of the United States. Once I had learned the basic geography of the 48 states (Alaska and Hawaii hadn&#;t yet become 49 and 50), I would dump the pieces on to the bedroom floor, turn them upside down so I couldn&#;t see their names, and by shape and touch put them into place as fast as I could. I remember being very proud of myself the first time I succeeded in doing this in less than three minutes.

Since my family virtually never left our neighborhood in the Bronx when I was growing up, maps became my signal of entry into unfamiliar worlds. As soon as I was old enough to make it on my own to our local branch library, every couple of weeks I hauled a pile of books home. Geography books were among my favorites. I liked the ones that used different colors to identify elevations above sea level; they allowed my mind to picture mountains and valleys and broad plains. Much later, when I began to travel on my have, I pored over maps for weeks and weeks before a trip. By the time I arrange out in the vehicle or exited from a