Back when my bro-in-law Fred had just moved back to NH, and was living with us while he worked for the state Marine Patrol, (that’s him on his patrol boat), we got him a poster-sized laminated map/chart of Lake Winnipesaukee from Bizer.
After he moved out and moved on from the Marine Patrol, he left the chart with us. It looks great as an art piece, and since it’s laminated, we put it on the wall in our upstairs bathroom.
Now, leave it to Fred never to mention something like this, and wait for us to find out on our own. One day I was looking at the map, and saw a slice of NH State Route 28 that was darker than the rest of the roadway depicted. I thought that was odd, and leaned in close. And written over the road in tiny letters was this:
“Time flies like an arrow, fruit flies like a banana.”
The classic Groucho Marx line! But what the heck was it doing on this chart?!
I started studying the chart more closely, and other secret messages revealed themselves:
“Elvis, meet me in Las Vegas next Tuesday – Salman Rushdie”
“I used to work in a blanket factory, but it folded.”
“This space for rent”
Then I started to notice other things – like how the labeling of Rattlesnake Island was done in a curved format, or how Echo Island was labeled as such three times, each time in a smaller font.
I called Fred and asked him if he had noticed this. “Yeah, I used to stare at that chart for hours, looking for more of them,” he said.
Well, I’m ruining the surprise for you, then, by sharing the fact that Bizer is hiding secret messages in their charts. It’s reason enough to buy their charts, but they also claim to produce “the only boating map of Lake Winnipesaukee to meet U.S. government map accuracy standards.”
I’ve never heard of any other map or chart company doing something like this (have you?), and I love, love, LOVE it.
