My telephone number was SEabright 1-0844. My grandmothers was OVerland 1-5453. That was more than 60 years ago. We didn’t call it a “landline" back then. It was just a telephone. I still remember.
My name is Norm and I’ll bet I might just be the oldest living Google Local Guide in the world. I’ll be 71 by the time Connect 2019 rolls around. And I’m still a bit of a nerd and information sponge. When I was just a kid, I was pretty amazed what my grandmother had experienced in her life up to that point. Grannie was born in the late 1800s in Poland. My Grandmother saw and utilized so much new technology in her lifetime. Electric lights, radios, phonograph records, indoor plumbing, movies with sound, telephones that with the help of an operator she could call long distance across the country. I talked with her often as a child and young adult about how she managed to adjust to such great technological change. She told me she took it all in stride until we landed a man on the moon. That was where she drew the line. Going to the moon she told me was simply impossible. As I grew up, I began dealing with new technology myself. Area Codes, Direct Distance Dialing, Zip Codes, Punch cards, Pull Tabs and Twist Offs, Color Television, Swanson Frozen TV Dinners (I loved those!). Before long, we had Microwave Ovens and FM Stereo.
I remember using 9600 baud modems and text-based bulletin board systems through the turn of the century. Technology was like having new toys to play with all year not just on holidays and my birthday. But the pace of change just got faster and faster.
I think my love of technology must have come from what my grandmother had experienced because even though she passed away in her 90’s, I still wonder what she would have thought about our technology of today.
Why do I contribute to Google Maps? Well, as much as I love technology, I also love maps. Some people like to watch cartoons or solve crosswords. I like to read maps. We didn’t have maps on a computer screen when I was young. They were still colorfully printed on paper and folded. I could look at maps for hours imagining these faraway places.
As time passed, those far-away places on paper maps or in guide books slowly became real destinations. I visited Barcelona, Copenhagen, Madrid, Havana, Paris, Aruba, London, Oslo, Rio de Janeiro and more.
Eventually, I accepted a sales position that took me all over the United States too. My sales territory encompassed clients and meetings in cities like New York, Chicago, Phoenix, Portland, Santa Fe, and Colorado Springs.
I love to travel! I travel light. I don’t collect stuff. I collect experiences. The freedom to travel is probably the best reason to be wealthy, which I definitely am not!
I wish I could share photos of my earlier travels to Seattle for the World’s Fair in 1964, Morocco and Switzerland in 1973, New Orleans in 1984 for another Worlds’ Fair, Vancouver in 1986 for my third World’s Fair, Rome and Venice in 1991, and Washington D.C. and Boston 1993, but they are all in the form of paper prints or color slides.
Technologically speaking, those times are ancient history. My photos from those trips were all taken before digital photography was introduced. They are stored in some dusty box. Probably faded now. Sharing them with others was limited to face to face encounters.
I think the smartphone must be regarded as the most life-changing invention of the 21st century. Combining a telephone, a computer and a high-quality camera was genius, although it didn’t do much for companies like Polaroid, Sylvania & Eastman Kodak. Digital technology changed everything. I now have over 20,000 photos stored in the cloud.
Today, I use Google Maps, Reviews and Street View to see and read about where I will be staying or visiting before I even make my reservations. Sometimes I look at Google Maps and satellite views of places I used to live or places I have visited just for fun.
Being so old I take none of the wonders of technology for granted. It still amazes me to think that this pocket encyclopedia of the world resides on a powerful computer that fits in my pocket. And all the data is provided to me mostly for free.
I am single now and I don’t particularly like cooking for just one. So I eat out a lot. When I travel to some unfamiliar place, I rely on Google Maps and Trip Advisor to get around and count on the reviews of others to choose a restaurant for myself, a place to stay, a tour to enjoy, or my next flight, bus or train.
I am grateful that someone else took the time to share their experiences with the world when the only reward was knowing they were helping other travelers like me discover great places while also helping business owners of worthwhile places grow more successful.
My motivation and passions as a Local Guide are to think of the strangers reading my reviews, sometimes even in a different language from mine. I write for them. I want to help them make the best use of their time and money. What comes around, goes around. So they are helping me as much as I am helping them. It is so totally rewarding to know I am making a difference to my fellow travelers.
I try to write not just that a restaurant was good or bad or that the service was prompt, but to include many details and photographs. Food I may consider an everyday staple is exotic to them.
I will tell readers what dishes I ordered and why. What was the feeling I had upon entering the restaurant? Was I greeted warmly? Were the chairs comfortable? If I had to wait, was there an area to sit. Was I offered a drink while I was waiting? If I tried a dish I have never experienced before, I want to describe the preparation, the texture, as well as the taste. Was the food sweet or savory? Chewy or very smooth?
I am fortunate not to have any food allergies and like a wide variety of food. I can’t say I could do the food challenge on the TV series Survivor where they eat live worms and slugs, but I do love escargot, sashimi, sweetbreads, or liver.
My reviews can be long. But I want readers to actually have an emotional response to my reviews. If I gave the restaurant less than 5 stars, what kept the restaurant from earning 5 stars?
Because of my love of maps in general, I also spend a lot of my time editing Google maps. If, for example, I just ate in a Japanese restaurant, I check the Google Map details and will change the generic “Restaurant” category to “Japanese Restaurant". I hope I can convince the folks behind Google Maps to make even more categories available, so I can distinguish between a Japanese Sushi Restaurant and a Teppan-Yaki one.
I think ultimately, more than anything, I contribute to Google Maps as a Local Guide because it is a lot of fun. It keeps me young, connected to the world and hip to new technology.
Being a Google Local Guide feels like being an explorer, or a spelunker, or a deep sea diver. I like being the first to discover a place that isn’t yet on Google Maps. It’s like being a modern day treasure hunter and finding the buried chest full of gold and then generously sharing it with the world.
I will just keep you guessing at that.
