So Why Maps and Where Did The Name River's Edge Come From?

My love of hand-drawn maps goes back more than 40 years.  I have very vivid memories of the summer of 1973 when I spent many sunny days reading ‘The Hobbit’ and ‘The Lord of the Rings’ trilogy from the perfect reading spot…in the woods 15 feet up in a beech tree that overhung the bend in the river. I could see clear all the way down both directions of the river and was surrounded by a forest containing giant 200 year old white pine, oak, maple birch, sassafras and of course, my beloved beech. To me there wasn’t a better place to read Tolkien.

The very same spot over 40 years later. Sadly the tree I used to read in is gone.

Once I returned home, I was inspired to sit down and create elaborate maps of the places my mind had wandered as I was reading. I would carefully identify each village, river and forest and color the maps with the mediums available to me at that time—probably crayons and one of those Bic 4-color ballpoint pens.  I would even use our gas stove to burn the edges and make them look old. Those maps were long ago archived in some landfill, but to this day, anytime I see hand-drawn maps, they transport me to the locations the creator has depicted.