Familiar Shapes, but the Towns . . .

Here we have alternate universes for Idaho and Michigan's lower peninsula. From, of course, the kids who loves to draw maps, like his father before him.

He is His Father's Son

I used to draw maps like this as a kid. And I've never shown my boy any of the maps I drew, because all of them, to the last one, got thrown away (not blaming anyone, that's just what happened). So seeing him draw like me is just weirding me out.

Lisputania, or, He Is Definitely My Son

Our oldest, tired of meticulously copying maps of the states out of the atlas -- because he can; I don't ask for explanations any more -- decided to create his own country. Just like I did when I was a kid. The cartographer never falls far from the tree, obviously.

Stepney Green, or, Like Father, Like Son

When i was a kid, I drew a lot of maps. They started out like my older brother Jeff's maps, whose maps started out like J.R.R. Tolkien's maps. We drew a lot of them. Then I moved on to drawing close-ups of cities, just like this one. Well, not that close up, but pretty close.

Now our oldest is following in my footsteps with Stepney Green. I kinda like it.